Book Review: Claire, Darling by Callie Kazumi

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Claire, Darling by Callie Kazumi  was published on March 11, 2025 by Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine / Bantam. It opens with Claire finding out that her fiancé, Noah, isn't working where he said he was and is now ghosting her. Claire must find out why. Book Review: Claire, Darling by Callie Kazumi Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine / Bantam for providing me with an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of Claire Darling by Callie Kazumi for free in exchange for my honest review. I was absolutely thrilled when my request for a copy was approved because the synopsis was so good. From the beginning, I absolutely loved the main character of Claire and her work friend named Sukhi. Throughout the novel, we learn about Claire's past and how terrible her mother was towards her. I kept hoping that somehow we would learn who Claire's father was and would eventually connect with him. It's really no wonder Claire had no self confidence as an ad...
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Book Review: Christmas Cookie Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery, #6) by Leslie Meier

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book review christmas cookie murder leslie meier

It's the Christmas season in Tinker's Cove, Maine, and Lucy Stone is looking forward to hosting the annual cookie exchange that Sue normally hosts. When  Tucker, one of the guests, is found murdered the next day, the entire town is in shock, and the local dentist is arrested for it. Lucy decides to investigate on her own in Christmas Cookie Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery, #6) by Leslie Meier.

This is the perfect book to put me in the mood for Christmas, and it's in one of my favorite genres . . . a mystery. Who would ever think a murder mystery would put a person in a holiday mood? But, with the cookie exchange, the holiday shopping, and Santa Claus visiting the elementary school during the Christmas play, it's easy to get excited about the holidays.

As far as the suspects go, the obvious one is the dentist because he's the boyfriend of Tucker, but I dismissed him right away. I did consider Lee, the wife of the dentist for most of the book because I thought she had more motive to kill Tucker since Lee and her husband were separated. About halfway through Christmas Cookie Murder, I did start to suspect the fire chief from a neighboring town after he reported a theft committed by four of Tinker Cove's volunteer fire department. You'll have to read the book for yourself to see if either of the people I suspected was the murderer.

There were a quite a few things I enjoyed about this installment of the series. I could totally relate to Lucy and all the things that went wrong during the exchange because I could see the same things happening to me. Various scenarios in Christmas Cookie Murder were extremely believable like when Lucy's son and his friend were procrastinating on filling out college applications and parents bragging about which colleges, or universities, their children were accepted into.

Five out of five stars is the rating I gave Christmas Cookie Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery, #6) by Leslie Meier. If you enjoyed this book, I recommend reading Christmas in High Heels (High Heels, #3.5) by Gemma Halliday.


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