Books Review: The Vampire Knitting Club series by Nancy Warren

The Vampire Knitting Club series
by Nancy Warren (Hoopla Audiobooks only)

Lucy Swift has inherited her beloved grandmother’s knitting shop in Oxford, England. As a child she would travel from the US to spend her summers there as her parents are world-famous archaeologists and spent their time at various digs around the world. Now trying to get the shop in order, she learns that Grandma is now a vampire! And she lives in the basement with a group of vampires who come out at night to knit in her shop.

This is a fun, cozy mystery series set in contemporary England. You meet the other town folk as well who move in and out of the stories. The library offers all 14 books in this series (the latest came out in 2022), as well as the prequel short story and one short story written for a holiday anthology. In the first three books you are mostly introduced to the vamps who are from various time periods in England and there is a mystery in every book. The vampires range from a snarky teen who only wears black to a 500-year-old landed, educated gentleman to a former silent screen star. I thought the series especially picked up at book four. A member of the library’s Just Desserts mystery book group had suggested this series to the group so I gave this a try and thoroughly enjoy the characters and stories. Sarah Zimmerman is the narrator and does an excellent job of voicing each character.

The library offers this series only on Hoopla audio. I recommend you search for “vampire knitting club boxed set.” You’ll get three books per set and will be able to listen to the first nine books in the series while using only three of your four monthly Hoopla downloads. After that, search by title. There is also an off-shoot series, Vampire Knitting Club: Cornwall.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the Aunt Dimity by Nancy Atherton.)

 

( official Nancy Warren web site )

 

Recommended by Charlotte M.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

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Book Review: For Batter or Worse by Jenn McKinlay

For Batter or Worse
by Jenn McKinlay (McKinlay)

We’re approaching the big day, Mel and Joe’s wedding. When Mel and Joe show up for their cupcake tasting at the resort, where Oz is the head pastry chef, they’re just in time to see an argument between Oz and the Head Chef Miles. Later when Oz finds Miles with his head bashed in, he’s the prime suspect. With the wedding coming soon, will Mel find out who killed the head chef before Oz is arrested? will the wedding actually take place?

 

The books in this series have been up and down and this is an “up” one. I enjoyed the mystery, often I don’t care if I can tell who the killer is. The point isn’t the end result but the journey to get there. In this series there’s always a bit of romance and best of all is the interplay between the characters. I heard one person describe cozy series’ as “visiting my friends” and I really think reading each new book fits the description. This is the 13 in the series, and you really don’t need to read them in order!

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Murder With Peacocks by Donna Andrews, Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates or One For the Books by Jenn McKinlay.)

 

( official Cupcake Bakery Mysteries page on the official Jenn McKinlay web site )

 

Recommended by Marcy G.
South and Gere Branch Libraries

 

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!

Wicked Autumn by G.M. Malliet

Wicked Autumn
by G.M. Malliet

The libraries’ Just Desserts mystery book group recently selected the entire body of G.M. Malliet’s work for one of our monthly mystery discussions. Malliet has two series — 3 volumes in the Detective Chief Inspector St. Just series, starting with Death of a Cozy Writer (previously reviewed for the Staff Recommendations), and 6 volumes in the Max Tudor series, starting with this volume, Wicked Autumn. Both series feature elements of the “cozy” and of the “amateur detective” mystery subgenres.

Max Tudor is a former MI-5 (British Intelligence) agent, who, after a tragedy while on assignment, finds himself disillusioned with the violence and deception of intelligence work. Surprisingly, even to himself, he follows a calling to become a pastor, the vicar of St. Edwolds in the quaint English village of Nether Monkslip. This first volume in the series picks up as Max as been the vicar there for only a few years, and is still considered something of a stranger to the village…though because he’s extremely handsome, the ladies (both single and married) tend to hover around him.

In Wicked Autumn, as the village is celebrating the annual Harvest Festival, the much-disliked coordinator of the festival is found dead in the Town Hall, killed in a highly unusual way. Max Tudor uses his skills from years in the intelligence field, to assist the local police inspector in investigating the crime, and in the process uncovers numerous secrets about his fellow townsfolks and parishioners. In the “cozy” tradition, very little violence occurs “on screen”, and the group of suspects is all part of a small, tightly-knit local community. But there are elements of the story, and Max’s background, that are a bit darker than the traditional “cozy”.

I enjoyed Wicked Autumn very much, and look forward to reading more of the Max Tudor series. As of 2017, there are 6 of them out there, with a 7th scheduled for 2018.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Malliet’s other series, starting with Death of a Cozy Writer.] [ official G.M. Malliet web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

The Body in the Transept by Jeanne M. Dams

The Body in the Transept
by Jeanne M. Dams

After seeing Jeanne M. Dams’ novels in the library collection for many years, I finally had the opportunity to read one when the library’s Just Desserts mystery book group discussed her at its July meeting. I read the ebook edition of The Body in the Transept, the first (of 18, so far) in her “Dorothy Martin” series, featuruing a retired American woman who has moved to a small English village for her retirement. In this first volume, recently-widowed Dorothy is still settling into Sheresbury, and adjusting to life as a single senior — she and her late husband had planned their retirement to England after spending time there several years earlier, and despite his passing, she decided to follow through with their plans. Dorothy’s first Christmas in her new village turns dark, when she stumbles upon the body of one of her church’s priests. Despite enjoying the attentions of an older police inspector, Dorothy still feels compelled to snoop into the investigation into the priest’s death, because of her connection to the case — an action that could turn deadly, as the guilty party isn’t above more violence to cover their actions.

While the plot of this traditional “cozy” was fairly simple and predictable, I enjoyed the characters, particularly Dorothy herself. And I look forward to reading further volumes in the series, as she later becomes even more involved with her constable friend Alan Nesbitt (eventually marrying), but keeps stumbling across more murders that require her attention.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the Murder She Wrote series of novels, featuring Jessica Fletcher (based on the popular television series) — released under the “Fletcher” pseudonym but actually written by Donald Bain.]

[ official Dorthy Martin Series page on the official Jeanne M. Dams web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

A Fatal Grace

A Fatal Grace
by Louise Penny

Louise Penny's second volume in the increasingly popular Inspector Gamache series is once again set in the small Canadian town of Three Pines, just north of the U.S. border. When a brittle, unpleasant domineering woman is killed by electrocution while attending a curling match on a bitterly cold day, shortly after Christmas, Gamache and his team of Surete investigators is called in from Quebec to investigate. Nobody liked her, nearly everybody had a reason to hate her or even wish her dead; but there's more to the killing than meets the eye. Equal parts cozy and police procedural, the Inspector Gamache mysteries feature colorful casts of well-rounded characters. Gamache, himself, is an immensely likeable man, as are many of the routine denizens of Three Pines (introduced in Still Life). The brutally cold winter described in this volume (it was originally entitled Dead Cold) is well-realized, and the mystery is crafty. Penny has a penchant for revealing all the clues as you're going along, but still often catching you by surprise in the final few pages. A sidebar mystery is dealt with, in part, in this volume, as we begin to peel away the layers of a work-releated crisis that Gamache lived through several years earlier. Excellent, flavorful mystery...I highly recommend it! [If you enjoy this, you may also like the traditional classic mysteries of Agatha Christie.] -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ official Louise Penny web site ]

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.

Merry, Merry Ghost (on CD)

Merry, Merry Ghost
by Carolyn G. Hart [Compact Disc Hart]

Carolyn Hart's second book to feature Bailey Ruth Raeburn is a charming variation on the "cozy" -- with quirky characters and most of the violence happening off-screen. Bailey Ruth is a departed spirit, who's on her second mission to her own hometown of Adelaide, OK as a Heavenly agent from the Department of Good Intentions. Always a lover of Christmas, Bailey Ruth is overjoyed to find herself in the physical world, assigned to protect Keith -- a small boy being reunited with his wealthy but ailing grandmother, Susan. Susan announces her intention to rewrite her will, in order to leave her estate to her only blood relative, Keith. Bailey Ruth has her hands full trying to find out who then spiked Susan's nightly hot chocolate with an overdose of her heart medication, since all of the in-laws who stand to inherit Susan's millions all have motive to want to see her pass before her will is changed. Hart manages to inject a lot of humor into Bailey Ruth's antics, as she struggles to follow the "precepts" that forbid her to make her presence known to the mortals around her. I enjoyed this one far more than the introductory volume, and particularly liked the narration of the Book-on-CD version by Ann Marie Lee. A pleasant, light holiday mystery read! [If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Ghost at Work (the first volume) and Ghost in Trouble (3rd) -- the other two (so far) volumes in this series.] -- recommended by Scott C. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[Also available in print format.]

[ Bailey Ruth Raeburn section on the official Carolyn G. Hart web site ]

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month.