Book Review Thursday - 5/19

Well, this is a couple of days late, but I finished 2 books last week.

The first book was the first book in a series about Eleanor who owns a pizzeria in small town Timber Ridge, NC by Chris Cavendar. The newest book in the series was a recent release that sounded interesting on the library's website so I went back to the first book - Pepperoni Pizza Can be Murder - to start at the beginning. ** Correction! A Slice of Murder is the first in the series.**

The book starts out with Eleanor making a call to 911 to report a dead body in the house where she is delivering a pizza. When the police chief shows up, he automatically assumes that Eleanor stabbed the guy because he made an unwanted pass at her several weeks prior to the murder. The chief is so small minded that he doesn't look at any other suspects and the job of finding the real killer is left up to Eleanor and her sister, Maddy.

While pursuing the real killer, Eleanor also struggles with being labeled the killer in the small town where almost everyone knows your name and with feelings of loneliness after her husband of too few years died suddenly two years prior. This is a lot to handle. Add to all of this the fact that the pizzeria is one of the last links that she has with her lost husband and something that she is fighting to keep afloat and you can understand why she needs to clear her name.

I finished this book in about 4 days and it was a pretty easy read. I enjoyed the writing style of Cavender. There are also recipes in the book for pizza crust and pizza sauce. I'm anxious to try them out! This would be a great read for the summer!

Mini Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella is the latest in the Shopaholic series. If you have never read the books in this series, I recommend that you start with Confessions of a Shopaholic that introduces all of the main characters in the future books. I believe that there are 5 in the series. Kinsella writes British Chick Lit and every one of her books makes me laugh out loud while reading. If you listen to the audio version, you of course get the British accents as well. :)

In the newest installment, we catch up with Becky and Luke Brandon shopping during the Christmas season with their daughter, Minnie, and Becky's parents and neighbors. It's apparent the first few chapters that Minnie is lacking a bit of discipline and that Becky gives in to her daughter's every whim. There is an incident with ketchup that makes me cringe and wonder why they can't control Minnie.

Since the Brandons had to move in with Becky's parents in the previous book, they have taken over quite a bit of space in the house and tensions are high. Becky is her usual self - buying any and all clothes like they are going out of style - and has used Minnie as an excuse for buying anything on sale in any and all sizes. Her shopping habits are comical. She evens comes up with a way of giving Minnie an allowance and backdating it to when she was born in order to buy her toys. Then, she gives Minnie advances so that she can buy the things that Minnie whines about without feeling like a bad mother and giving in all the time. lol

Early on in the book, the market crashes in England and everyone is worried about their money and begins cutting back. This also adds extra stress to Becky who has decided to throw Luke a birthday party and has already begun planning. The cutting back forces her to become creative and she starts working on homemade decorations and places ads on a bartering website to trade services for the party for some of her past designer clothes and bags purchases. Hilarity ensues when fashion students show up to take the offerings that Becky has without having anything to offer in exchange.

I enjoyed this book and highly recommend the series to everyone! I'm sure that everyone can see a bit of themselves in Becky Brandon!