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"Beth was beset by disturbing dreams; rapid firing images flashed before her eyes – a car screeching down a country road, a yellow duck, her father’s face. She awoke with a start. Why am I dreaming about my father after all of these years?”
Title: Firefly Beach
Author: Meira Pentermann
ISBN: 978-0982417089
Publisher: Lyrical Press/2009
Pages: 316
Beth moves into a small town in the coast of Maine. She rents out a house and sets up a deal with the local antique store to sell her paintings. She is preparing for a new start to her life. She needs to escape the demons in her life. And then she meets a "firefly’ who is seemingly is awaiting her arrival. The Firefly leads her to a diary of a girl Katherine, who was the daughter of her landlord and had disappeared 36 years ago. No one knows what happened to Katherine.
Beth sets about to find the mystery behind Katherine's disappearance. With a unique plot, a bit of supernatural element and good writing, one gets engrossed in the story.
Mary and Abigail, are another two characters which are typical ladies from a small community running the only inn in the town. Then there is this jeweller Kenny, who is an enigma. The novel is not as simple as it seems. It has a complicated plot, weird and interesting characters and a firefly which is the thick of things.
Title: Tempest in the Tea Leaves
Author: Kari Lee Townsend
ISBN: 978-0425242759
Publisher: Berkley/2011
Pages: 304
Sunny Meadows, 29 year old amateur sleuth leaves her parents place in NYC for a small town called Divinity, New York. She is a psychic and wants to make a niche for herself, away from her well known parents. Her first customer is the librarian Amanda Robbins. Sunny uses tea leaves to give a reading for Amanda, which turns out to be a bad omen for Amanda, where she sees Amanda being murdered by a man. Soon after, Sunny informs the police of her reading, hoping to prevent the crime from happening. but she is too late. Amanda is murdered within half hour of leaving Sunny's place. Detective Mitch Stone is assigned to investigate the murder. He does not believe her and accuses her as the prime suspect. (she is the only suspect). Sunny has to make use of her powers in order to find the murderer and clear her name. And discovers that Amanda had many suitors and any of them could have killed her.
Sunny is a quirky character. Half the time she does not know what she is doing. But she is determined to find out the murderer. Her way of doing detective stuff is very different. She does not hide anything from anyone and that kinda gets her in trouble. Detective Stone and Sunny rub each other the wrong way but we do see some kind of attraction between them. Then there is this almost human cat Morty, who comes into Sunny's house from nowhere...Here we see a bit of supernatural element.
Tempest in the Tea Leaves is an enjoyable cozy mystery, with well etched characters. It is first in the Fortune Teller mystery series and I look forward to more....
