#Level Best Books

[veronicaleighauthor]

A Major Announcement

Okay, so…I have a major announcement to make.

I found a home for my Lady Sheriff Novel, “Eye For An Eye” at Level Best Books! Not only that, the contract I signed was for a three-book deal. It means my Lady Sheriff will have a trilogy of novels. Woohoo! Special thank you to Level Best Books for including me in their family!

I think I’m a little numb, and quite frankly, stunned. My head is also spinning. I’ve wanted to publish a book since I was eleven. I’ve spent most of my life pursuing that dream and now it’s happening, I don’t know what to make of it.

Anyway, that’s all I know so far. Got to get cracking on the sequel, which at this point I’m calling “Fire By Night.” After that, the third novel…which I’d like to call “Judgment Day.”

I’m going to ask for prayers because this is all new territory to me. I’ve only published short stories in the past, and hope to continue to. But publishing a novel is different, I’m sure. I’d like prayers that I don’t get swallowed up with pride, prayers that I can figure out what I need to do and how to do it, prayers that I can write quality work that the editors and the readers like.

Until Next Time!

[doodlesink]

Caught on Camera by Kara Lacey -- Book Review & Giveaway!

Happy Thursday!  Caught on Camera by Kara Lacey is the debut of A Camera Club Mysteries.  Stop by to learn more about this cute cozy mystery & enter the giveaway.  Good Luck & Happy Reading!

https://bibliophileandavidreader.blogspot.com/2024/10/caught-on-camera-by-kara-lacey.html#google_vignette

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

Lies and Deception by Laraine Stephens

Reggie da Costa Mystery #4

Killer story with conmen, shysters, and snake oil peddlers fleecing innocents of their life savings – no Robin Hood thief in this one but a cold reckoning for more than one.

What I liked:

* Reggie da Costa: crime scene journalist, dapper dresser, image conscious, mentor, truth seeker, loves a good mystery/story, intrepid fact finder, loving son rather taken with Ruby

* Ruby Rhodes: secretary typist, helped raise her brother, inherited from her twin sister, bright, curious, attractive, rather taken with Reggie

* Dusty Rhodes: journalist, Reggie’s assistant and reporter, loving brother, looking forward to watching him develop as the series progresses

* Detective Sergeant Clary Blaine: dedicated police officer, likes his whiskey, relied on by Reggie for latest cases, good at what his job

* The writing that felt “of the era” and described in a way that I felt I was watching a movie if not actually there

* The plot, pacing, setting, and writing

* How the mystery of the murders was solved

* Thinking about how different life must have been almost 100 years ago – and being glad I live now – although there is a bit of “romance” to this era of the past in the costumes, cars, and art deco feel

* The status of Reggie and Ruby’s relationship at the end of the book

* Looking forward to reading the next book in the series

What I didn’t like:

* Who and what I was meant not to like

* Thinking about people willing to divest gullible people from all they have and their ability to do so without a qualm

* Realizing that there are still crooks out there bent on harming others for their own gain

Did I like this book? Yes

Would I read more in this series? Definitely

Thank you to NetGalley and Level Best Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.

4-5 Stars

[readerviews]

"In$ured to the Hilt" by Charlotte Stuart

Mystery Sleuthing with a Sense of Humor #books #bookreview #reading #readerviews

In$ured to the Hilt Charlotte StuartLevel Best Books (2023)ISBN: 978-1685123406Reviewed by Tammy Ruggles for Reader Views (01/2024) “In$ured to the Hilt: A John Smith Mystery” by Charlotte Stuart is a detective mystery novel with a sense of humor. Enter: a money-hungry woman who is like so many others looking to cash in on insurance. She has a vivacious daughter, a driven assistant, and an…

[bookdivareads]

Cover Reveal: CLOCKED OUT by Anna St. John

Get a sneak peek at the cover of the upcoming release CLOCKED OUT, a Josie Posey Mystery by Anna St. John. #coverreveal #comingsoon #fiction #cozymystery #LevelBestBooks #GreatEscapesVirtualBookTours

The Great Escapes Team is happy to share with you the cover of Anna St. John’s new Josie Posey Mystery. It will be released on February 6, 2024 Clocked Out – A Josie Posey MysteryCozy Mystery2nd in SeriesLevel Best Books (February 6, 2024)ASIN: B0CRFY4R6P (Kindle edition)Setting: A small town in Sunflower County, Kansas, named English VillagePurchase Link #CommissionEarned:  Amazon Kindle Josie…

[coffeeinkblog]

#Review #DeathTakesABath by Sharon Lynn #PartnersInCrimeTours

Death Takes a Bath by Sharon Lynn August 14-25, 2023 Virtual Book Tour Synopsis: When Maddie McGuire lands an archeology internship at the Roman Baths in England, she assumes everything will go her way. But when this college sophomore discovers a severed human ear on her doorstep, she must solve its meaning before she becomes the next victim, or worse, gets deported. Her tentative friendship…

[annarellix]

The Greenleaf Murders by R.J. Koreto

Young architect Wren Fontaine lands her dream job: restoring Greenleaf House, New York’s finest Gilded-Age mansion, to its glory days. But old homes have old secrets: Stephen Greenleaf—heir to what’s left of his family’s legacy—refuses to reveal what his plans are once the renovation is completed. And still living in a corner of the home is Stephen’s 90-year-old Aunt Agnes who’s lost in the past, brooding over a long-forgotten scandal while watching Wren with mistrust.

Wren’s job becomes more complex when a shady developer who was trying to acquire Greenleaf House is found murdered. And after breaking into a sealed attic, Wren finds a skeleton stuffed in a trunk. She soon realizes the two deaths, a century apart, are strangely related. Meanwhile, a distraction of a different kind appears in the form of her client’s niece, the beautiful and seductive Hadley Vanderwerf. As Wren gingerly approaches a romance, she finds that Hadley has her own secrets. Then a third murder occurs, and the introverted architect is forced to think about people, and about how ill-fated love affairs and obsessions continue to haunt the Greenleafs. In the end, Wren risks her own life to uncover a pair of murderers, separated by a century but connected by motive. She reveals an odd twist in the family tree that forever changes the lives of the Greenleafs, the people who served them, the mansion they all called home—and even Wren herself.

Book Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | Level Best Books

My Review: The Greenleaf Murders is the first in a new cozy series and a quite entertaining story, even if a bit slow at the beginning. If you love historical houses and love stories with quite a number of twist this is the right story. I wasn't a fan of Wren at beginning but she grew on me and I appreciated her personality and how she is able to function as investigator. The cast of characters is well developed and I liked them. The mystery is solid, full of surprising twist and it kept me guessing. I can't wait to read the next story. Recommended. Many thanks to RJ Koreto and Partners in Crime for this digital copy, all opinions are mine

The Author: R.J. Koreto is the author of the Historic Home mystery series, set in modern New York City; the Lady Frances Ffolkes mystery series, set in Edwardian England; and the Alice Roosevelt mystery series, set in turn-of-the-century New York. His short stories have been published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, as well as various anthologies. In his day job, he works as a business and financial journalist. Over the years, he’s been a magazine writer and editor, website manager, PR consultant, book author, and seaman in the U.S. Merchant Marine. Like his heroine, Lady Frances Ffolkes, he’s a graduate of Vassar College. With his wife and daughters, he divides his time between Rockland County, N.Y., and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

Catch Up With R.J. Koreto:

RJKoreto.com Goodreads BookBub - @rkoreto1 Instagram - @rjkoreto Twitter - @RJKoreto Facebook - @RJKoreto

[fictionadventurer]

We laugh at sci-fi for how it over-explains technology, but we also need to make fun of how Victorians describe any time period that takes place more than ten years before the book's publishing date.

It's like if we wrote like this about the '80s or '90s.

According to the curious fashions of the day, she wore a shirt of tie-dye print. It may seem quaint to our modern sensibilities, but such colorful styles were a common sight in any public street of those times.

At the time this story occurred, it was not uncommon for young men to wear their hair cropped closely around the face, but allow the hair behind the head to grow until it brushed the level of the shoulders.

In those days, the information superhighway was little more than a crude unpaved path, full of hazards and beset by brigands, so it is not strange that our heroine, instead of entering her query into the search bar on her browser, went to the public library and scoured the books on the shelves for the information she sought.

She and her friends went to the theater to see E.T. How strange to think that film was once at the heights of popularity and acclaim, as well-known in its day as films like The Hunger Games or The Avengers have become in the intervening time.

I get that the lack of video and audio recording made it harder for future generations to experience the details of the past, and that technology was changing their world at a faster rate than ever before, but also, dude, it was only, like, forty years ago, so maybe chill out a bit.

[indelicateink]

as an american, sam reid’s total inability to hide his contempt for overly fake-chipper american journalists, especially ones who Have Not Done The Assigned Reading know and care about the show, will never not be hilarious and iconic to me

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to study English literature A-level in an all girls sixth form with a young teacher then just know that once (and this is a few years ago now) my teacher played the “If the men find out we can shapeshift they’re going to tell the Church!!” video and then asked us what about the video we could apply to studying The Handmaid’s Tale

[chiropteracupola]

I hope you remember / To treat the gelignite tender-ly, for me / I'm having dreams about things not going right / Let's leave in plenty of time tonight...

[biggles and von stalhein, requested by anonymous... total mystery who that anonymous requester could have been!]

[veronicaleighauthor]

Here we go again! Made an official start on the second Lady Sheriff novel, "Fire By Night!" This should keep me busy for three or four months. Lord help me!

[upsidedownsmore]

just finished reading the warframe art book and i'm acrually feeling emotional

how does a video game art book make me emotional

god this game and the people who've made it happen are so fucking cool oh my god

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

A Lonesome Blood-Red Sun by David Putnam

Bone Detective #2

Excellent, immersive, compelling story ~ Couldn’t put it down

What I liked:

* David Beckett: Detective, divorced, father, works cold cases in the desert, impulsive, sees, details others miss, sometimes works close to the legal limits, a bit of a loner, intriguing

* The plot, pacing, setting, and writing

* Knowing where many of the locations were having grown up in Southern California and going to nursing school in San Bernardino County

* The look into police departments and trying to figure out why some who should not rise in administration seem to do so

* The cases that were solved and the information about how they correlated with true crime

* That the story made me care and hope it would all work out

* That though David is not easy to like and sometimes in the gray-zone…I still liked him and wanted him to find his way to a brighter future while making a few friends

* Wondering where David’s father might be and also wondering if Jennifer might show up in the next book, too

* Finding a new-to-me author that I will read again

* That the story was able to stand alone without having read the first book in the series

* Knowing there will be another book in the series

What I didn’t like:

* Who and what I was meant not to like

* Thinking about evil, corruption, double standards, and why people make the choices they do

* Thinking about how what is seen and experienced has an emotional and physical impact

Did I enjoy this book? Yes

Would I read more in this series/by this author? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and Level Best Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

BLURB

Dave Beckett, a homicide detective who doesn't color within the lines, is regulated to the lowest job in the division and is known by his peers as "The Bone Dick." He handles all "bag of bone" cases found in San Bernardino County's twenty thousand square miles. At present count: 256 pending unsolved. It's a boring, mundane job--until it isn't. In A Lonesome Blood-Red Sun, Beckett is called to a house deep in the desert where a dog has brought a bone to the back door. Beckett investigates and discovers the victim, two years dead, is someone he knows. With his usual verve and colorful methods, he tracks the killer. The trail leads through a warren of dead ends until he discovers a most unlikely suspect hiding in plain sight. A Lonesome Blood-Red Sun is fiction melded with true-life incidents that makes for a non-stop thriller of the first order.

A Lonesome Blood-Red Sun is fiction melded with true-life incidents that makes for a non-stop thriller of the first order.

[readerviews]

"The Turnbull Murders" by R.J. Koreto

A Riveting Blend of History and Mystery #books #bookreview #reading #readerviews

The Turnbull Murders R. J. KoretoLevel Best Books (2023)ISBN: 978-1685124113 Reviewed by Kathy Stickles for Reader Views (09/2023) “The Turnbull Murders: A Historic Homes Mystery” is the second book in this series by R. J. Koreto, and I can tell you that it is an excellent story well worth your time. It will not matter whether you are a fan of historical fiction, mystery, or both, this book…

[hunxi-after-hours]

Hello! I love your ORV posting. I do have an embarrassing question; can I ask how heartbreaking the ending is? I've tried reading it a large number of times, but have had trouble getting past the chapters in the 300s; I'll reread it up til that point over and over again, but can't continue. Not because I don't enjoy it, but because I get so swept away by the emotions, and all the characters go through is agonizing. I know it's not real! But my heart aches all the same, in a way I've never experienced this with a novel before, and I feel like a child LOL (It's also extremely funny-frustrating because I realize how thematic this is to the story itself). I'm not worried about the characters Kim Dokja is fighting for, but given the patterns in the story and how it seems to be told, I'm too afraid to keep going. I know I could just look it up, but at the same time, I don't want to spoil all the mysteries; just if my heart can rest easy. TLDR, if it's not too spoilery, is there any light for kim dokja in the ending? or is it a tragedy through & through?

(If this is a dumb question, please feel free to ignore this)

oh boy anon, I've been sitting on this ask for a hot second because it's hard to answer! so I will attempt to talk around it in a way that will hopefully (?) avoid spoilers

as I see it, the nature of orv's ending (broadly writ) is additionally complicated by the fact that there are approximately four(ish) endings:

1) the ending at chapter 516

2 + 3) the ending(s) at chapter 551

4?) the side stories

the ending at chapter 516

this is probably what many people would characterize as BE, but I'd personally compare it to the ending of my love, my life, 《琅琊榜》 Nirvana in Fire, in that the ending may be "sad" (broad air quotes to vague-ify whatever "sad" entails) but it feels earned. it feels right. it feels like the logical conclusion of what the entire book was building up to. some may consider it a tragedy, but it's not a hollow, meaningless tragedy — it feels correct. this is the note that the novel officially ends on, but is then over(?)written by the existence of—

the ending(s) at chapter 551

Kim Dokja's Company looks at the ending of ch. 516 and says "aw hell no" and sets out to rewrite that ending. after 35 chapters of epilogue, we've unlocked an OE — an open ending, that concludes the moment before the HE/BE ambiguity will be resolved. schrodinger's ending, except you, the reader, get to choose what you believe — and I do think the epilogues are written beautifully to get you here (they implicate the reader in a wonderful and deeply empathetic way). and from what I've seen, the vast majority of the fandom chooses to take the offered HE option and run with it; everyone lives happily ever after together in a big house, a million domestic post-canon fics will attest. this is the closest, I'd say, that would come answering your question of whether Kim Dokja has light in his future with an emphatic, loving "yes"

(I also think it's worth mentioning that the epilogues add a lot to the story; they fill in narrative lacunae and tie up loose threads that aren't answered in the original 516 chapters, so I don't consider the epilogues as "separate" or "extra." the epilogues aren't a fix-it tacked onto the end of the narrative; they serve and enrich the narrative in a way that would actively reduce the luster of the story if lost)

the side story

a few years down the line, Sing-shong have returned to the text to tie up "a few more loose ends." the side story is currently being serialized, and more or less picks up from where chapter 551 left off. this necessarily chooses among your OE options as detailed above; whether the side story will end happily, or with "light for Kim Dokja," currently remains to be seen as it is still ongoing. I've fallen off the bandwagon and have been meaning to catch up, but from what I've read so far I think the side story is an interesting and worthwhile addition to the text. Sing-shong continue to innovate and develop upon the worldbuilding and narrative they have already created, and we have met a new cast of characters that have rapidly become as dear to us as the old (the old cast of characters are also here, don't worry). if I were a betting person, I would say that the side story is headed in a more-or-less HE direction; the side story is currently engaging with and complicating themes of (self-)identity and (self-)worth through the many lenses of Kim Dokja, and while it remains to be seen how it resolves, I am tentatively optimistic that it will, if nothing else, be satisfying

TL;DR the ending(s) of ORV can be variously construed as HE, BE, or OE, and the elements of tragedy woven into the narrative and characters are inherent to the text. however, no tragedy is meaningless in ORV, and all of the endings feel earned