Thursday, January 16, 2025

The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine ~ Audiobook Review


THE WOMAN WHO WALKED IN SUNSHINE
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Book 16
By Andrew McCall Smith
Narrated by Lisette Lecat

Cozy Mystery / Women Detectives / Botswana
Publisher: Recorded Books
Audiobook length: 9 hours, 20 minutes
Release Date: October 27, 2015

ABOUT THE BOOK: Fans around the world adore the bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and its proprietor, Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s premier lady detective. In this charming series, Mma  Ramotswe—with help from her loyal associate, Grace Makutsi—navigates her cases and her personal life with wisdom, good humor, and the occasional cup of tea.

Precious Ramotswe, the esteemed proprietor of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, now faces her greatest challenge yet: a vacation! 

Business is slow at the agency—so slow in fact that, for the first time in her distinguished career, Mma Ramotswe has reluctantly agreed to take a holiday. The week of uninterrupted peace is cut short, however, when she meets Samuel, a wayward young boy with a troubled past. Moreover, Mma Ramotswe can’t help but wonder how the agency is faring in her absence. Her worries grow when she discovers that Mma Makutsi is handling a rather delicate case.

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HALL WAYS AUDIOBOOK REVIEW. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series is my go-to happy place for when I want to escape an often overwhelming world and have a reliably pleasant, calm, violence-free, & stress-free reading experience. There's always a mystery afoot, though this time, Mma Ramotswe is supposed to be taking her first ever holiday and leaving Mma Makutsi in charge of investigations. Easier said than done!

I found The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine so relatable -- not only because Mma Ramotswe is a "traditionally built woman" like myself, but because I am having my own discomfort with being on a different kind of holiday: I sold my business and am retired (for the time being). Just like Mma Ramotswe, I am not quite sure what to do with my time and am unreasonably concerned that business can be handled without my being in the middle of it! Ha!

As usual, readers can look forward to Violet Sepotho (boooo, hissssss) rearing her ugly head, beautiful descriptions of Botswana, thought-provoking insights from many characters, and of course, some dialogue courtesy of Mma Makutsi's shoes. Oh -- and plenty of bush tea and cake.

There are now some twenty-four full novels in this series, and I've read (or read-with-my-ears) nineteen or so of them and loved them all. I think it's important to read the first ten or so in order so one is up-to-speed with the backgrounds and relationships of the regularly occurring characters. But I've been hopping around within the second dozen and had no issues figuring out what's what.

ABOUT THE NARRATION: Lisette Lesat, who has been the narrator on all of the audiobooks, again performs to perfection. She navigates the different characters, whether male or female, young or old, without a glitch and her pacing is excellent. My comfort spot is listening at 1.2x speed, and I listened straight through while wearing my domestic goddess cape at home for a day. 

Action packed? Nope. Brain straining? Nope. Pure enjoyment? Every. Single. Time. 


Thursday, January 9, 2025

A Hush at Midnight ~ Lone Star Lit Book Campaign First Line & Giveaway!

A HUSH AT MIDNIGHT
by
MARLENE M. BELL

Cozy Mystery / Small-Town Mystery
Publisher: Ewephoric Publishing
Date of Publication: September 5, 2024
Number of Pages: 368

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A manipulator.

A fatal plan for revenge.


Award-winning author of the Annalisse series, Marlene M. Bell, brings distant friends together in the rural South only to have one of them become the victim of a brutal crime of passion.

Once celebrated for her show-stopping pastries and irresistible desserts, former celebrity chef Laura Harris is now making headlines for a far darker reason.

Laura has been accused of murder.

How could this petite chef have brutally smothered the beloved small-town matriarch and World War II ferry pilot veteran, Hattie Stenburg? Hattie wasn't just a pillar of the community; she was Laura's confidante and mentor. The shocking twist? Hattie’s will contained recent changes, bypassing next-of kin and leaving her entire fortune and historic estate to Laura.

As Laura scrambles to clear her name, she uncovers sinister secrets lurking beneath the town’s idyllic surface. The real murderer is always one step ahead, leaving taunting clues and threatening Laura to leave Texas—or face deadly consequences. With time not a luxury, Laura must untangle the web of deceit before the killer makes her the next victim.

In A Hush at Midnight, Marlene M. Bell twists an amateur sleuth's crime mystery into a race against the clock to solve her mentor's murder.

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Marlene M. Bell is an award-winning author of the Annalisse romantic suspense series. She’s also an acclaimed artist and photographer using her pictures for descriptive prose that eventually lands in her mysteries. Marlene lives with her husband of forty-two years on their East Texas ranch with numerous sheep. When she’s not writing, drawing, or painting, she is shepherdess to their Katahdin hair sheep and ranch kitties.

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Signed paperback copy of A Hush at Midnight, a copy of Wildflowers Across America, a thematic snow globe, an original oil painting from a Ukrainian artist,

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