Althea's Reading Corner

Title: Kids Cook Dinner Author: Deanna F. Cook Genre:  Cookbook Format: Kindle No. of Pages: 64 pages Date of Publication: August 30, 2022 Description:  It's kids' cooking night—and they’re in charge of making dinner! This selection of 25 easy, budget-friendly dinner recipes from the best-selling   Cooking Class   series teaches kids how to make tasty, healthy meals with easy-to-follow step-by-step photos. The recipes feature a range of kid favorites, including Popcorn Chicken, Easy Cheesy Quesadillas, Pasta with Tomatoes & Fresh Mozzarella, Black Beans & Rice, Pizza, Meatballs with Creamy Sauce, Super Sliders, and Supper Salad have been specially selected for their budget-friendliness (averaging $2 a serving) and use of easy-to-find pantry staples, as well as their nutritional value. With instructions on basic cooking skills, like chopping vegetables and stir-frying, grocery shopping, and kitchen safety,  Kids Cook Dinner  offers aspiring chefs age...

Title: Lady of Bones Author: Carolyn Haines Series: Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery Genre: Mystery & Thrillers Format: Kindle No. of Pages: 347 Date of Publication: June 14, 2022 Description:  Carolyn Haines's  Lady of Bones  is the next novel in the series that  Kirkus Reviews  characterizes as “Stephanie Plum meets  the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” featuring sassy Southern private investigator Sarah Booth Delaney. It’s Halloween season in Mississippi as Sarah Booth and the gang gather to decorate and gush over Tinkie’s new baby, Maylin. Sarah Booth is just about to refresh the cocktails when she hears a knock on the door and opens it to find a woman named Frankie, distraught at the disappearance of her daughter Christa, a young journalist. Christa had been investigating the disappearance of young women in New Orleans over a five-year period—one every year around Halloween. Now Christa herself is missing, and Frankie fears it may be connected to a cult based in the G...

Title: 214 Palmer Street Author: Karen McQuestion Narrator:  Stacey Glemboski Genre: Mystery & Thriller Format: Audiobook Listening length: 8 hours and 24 minutes   Date of Publication: April 6, 2022 Description:  A house with a secret. A woman with nothing to lose. When Maggie sees the beautiful Venetian blinds moving in the Caldwells’ front window, she freezes. Her favorite neighbours Cady and Josh are away, so who is in their house? The pretty young woman who answers the door tells a convincing story. She’s Sarah. The house-sitter. Just here for a month. An old friend of Cady’s who needed a place to stay. She’s pleasant and warm, and Maggie wanders back to her house thinking she might have made a new friend. Yet she can’t help but wonder why Cady never mentioned Sarah. What Maggie doesn’t know is that on the other side of the door, Sarah is starting to panic. No one was meant to see her at 214 Palmer Street… An unputdownable psychological thriller from number one b...

Title: Nothing to Hide Author: Allison Brennan Series: Lucy Kincaid Genre: Mystery, Suspense Format: Paperback No. of Pages: 410 Date of Publication: April 30, 2019 Description:  With a background in psychology, FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid is good at getting into the heads of killers and victims both. Still, her latest case is leaving her stumped. A third body has turned up in San Antonio—and it bears the same unique and troubling M.O. as the first two. The killer is clearly trying to send a message. But what is it—and to whom? All roads keep leading Lucy down a dead end. . . The victims are all married men who led honest lives alongside their adoring wives, but have nothing else in common. When Lucy catches each widow in a lie, she realizes that things are not at all as they seem. What begins as a seemingly straightforward investigation turns into something far darker and more sinister than Lucy could have ever imagined. Can she solve this case before more lives are lost. . . includ...

Title: Smokescreen Author: Iris Johansen Series: Eve Duncan Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller Format: Kindle ARC No. of Pages: 433 Date of Publication: July 30, 2019 Description:  In this pulse-pounding thriller from #1  New York Times  bestselling author Iris Johansen, forensic sculptor Eve Duncan journeys to Africa to help families torn apart by a violent attack deep in the jungle -- but she may be putting herself in more danger than she knows. A journalist shows up on Eve Duncan's doorstep with a plea for help. Jill Cassidy has just come from a small African village with a heart wrenching story: half the villagers -- many of them children -- have been killed in a horrific attack by guerilla soldiers, the bodies burned beyond recognition. Now, the families desperately need Eve's help to get closure and begin to heal. But when Eve arrives in the remote jungle, she begins to suspect that Jill's plea may have been a cover story for a deeper, more sinister plot. Isolat...

Title: The Look-Alike Author: Erica Spindler Genre: Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense Format: Hardcover No. of Pages: 311 Date of Publication: January 28, 2020 Description:  Sienna Scott grew up in the dark shadow of her mother’s paranoid delusions. Now, she's returned home to confront her past and the unsolved murder that altered the course of her life. In her mother’s shuttered house, an old fear that has haunted Sienna for years rears its ugly head —that it was she who had been the killer’s target that night. And now, with it, a new fear—that the killer not only intended to remedy his past mistake—he’s already begun. But are these fears any different from the ones that torment her mother? As the walls close in, the line between truth and lie, reality and delusion disintegrate. Has Sienna’s worst nightmare come true? Or will she unmask a killer and finally prove she may be her mother’s look-alike, but she’s not her clone? My Thoughts: I was drawn to this book for a number of ...

Title: Blood Echo Author: Christopher Rice Series: Burning Girl Genre: Suspense, Thriller Format: Hardcover No. of Pages: 355 Date of Publication: February 1, 2019 Description:  Kidnapped and raised by serial killers, Charlotte Rowe suffered an ordeal that made her infamous. Everyone in the world knew who she was. But no one in the world has any idea what she’s become… Charlotte is an experiment. And a weapon. Enabled by a superpower drug, she’s partnered with a shadowy pharmaceutical company to hunt down and eliminate society’s most depraved human predators. But her latest mission goes off the rails in a horrifying way. Unsettled by her own capacity for violence, Charlotte wants some time to retreat so she can work on her new relationship with Luke, a sheriff’s deputy in the isolated Central California town she now calls home. If only the threats hadn’t followed Charlotte there. Something sinister is evolving in Altamira, California—a massive network of domestic terrorists wit...

Title: The Gender Fall Author: Bella Forrest Series: The Gender Game Genre: Action and Adventure, Science Fiction Format: Kindle No. of Pages: 404 Date of Publication: March 31, 2017 Description:  Continue Violet and Viggo's heart-racing journey in the epic fifth book of  The Gender Game  series. My Thoughts:  The story continues to follow Violet and Viggo as they fight for equality within Matrus and Patrus. Violet has been injured by Princess Tabitha and now Viggo is in charge all by himself. He struggles to continue the fight and protect Violet. He must also decide if he can trust the Liberators and if they can help him, Violet, and the rest in the fight. Desmond has been pretty quiet for a while and she reappears in this book along with the boys. The books continues to provide love, tragedy, hope, and action. Bella continues to do a great job in describing the scenes that are unfolding in front of you, however, there are times where the story does seem to drag...

The Wrong Victim : A Novel  Allison Brennan On Sale Date: April 26, 2022 9780778312307 Hardcover $26.99 USD 464 pages I am super excited to be part of the Harlequin Book/MIRA Books blog tour for Alison Brennan's newest book The Wrong Victim, which released on April 26, 2022. Book Summary A bomb explodes on a sunset charter cruise out of Friday Harbor at the height of tourist season and kills everyone on board. Now this fishing and boating community is in shock and asking who would commit such a heinous crime—the largest act of mass murder in the history of the San Juan Islands. Was the explosion an act of domestic terrorism, or was one of the dead the primary target? That is the first question Special Agent Matt Costa, Detective Kara Quinn, and the rest of the FBI team need to answer, but they have few clues and no witnesses. Accused of putting profits before people after leaking fuel endangered an environmentally sensitive preserve, the West End Charter company may itself have bee...