Death And Deja Brew

Two months into her position as Assistant Principal Paul’s secretary, Naomi Front enjoys the feeling of finally having a solid job and a new life away from her ex. Ella, her teen, has a best friend and is finding her place. Their neighbors, Barbara and Ingrid, have adopted them as family. Life should be good, but work is not. Dealing with faculty bickering and irate parents nit-picking, Naomi wonders if she wants to keep this job. Add in the fact the school is preparing for yet another levy, and financial headaches are thrown into the mix. When Naomi is sent to the archives in the basement, she finds the body of Tom Werner. All-around jerk and quick to temper, the baseball coach doesn’t seem like a person anyone in Fayette will miss. The school is closed until Chief Mooney can solve the case. Unlike the last time Naomi found a corpse, she’s asked to help with this mystery. As someone who works the front office, she’s an insider this time. Being included doesn’t mean it’s easier. With a runaway witness and foiled evidence, it seems impossible to figure out who killed Tom. Ella, Barbara, and Ingrid join forces to sleuth their way through this whodunit, racing against time so classes can be resumed. Despite their team effort, they wonder if they’ll find the killer or lose more time down dead-ends of old drama that should remain in the past.

When Naomi Front moves her teenage daughter, Ella, to the small town of Fayette, all she hopes for is a new start after an ugly divorce. But the mother-and-daughter duo have a rocky start on day one—finding the corpse of the local busybody in their storage shed. Welcomed into their neighbors’ house when the police arrive, Naomi and Ella quickly learn that the victim on their property is not likely to be missed. Gossiping over Earl Grey and biscuits, Barbara and Ingrid spill the tea about Fayette’s notoriously nosy citizen—Yasmin LeFluer. She never knew how to mind her own business and was even quicker to make enemies. Among her ex-husband, her sibling, and her friends, it seems the list of suspects will run long. Adjusting to a new home is hard enough. Faced with a murder victim having been shoved into her shed, though, Naomi struggles to get her footing. To make matters worse, Ella seems too intrigued, teaming up with Barbara and Ingrid, both to learn more about Fayette and how Yasmin wound up dead in their shed. As the case drags on, more danger lurks in the shadows. It’s plenty to worry Naomi, and it’s fodder for her ex-husband to stir up more trouble about Ella’s custody. With the help of their tea-loving neighbors, can Naomi and Ella find Yasmin’s killer? If they don’t, there’s no telling if their new take on life will be over before it truly begins.

A bundle of books #3 (THE WITCHING PLACE: A PERILOUS PAGE) and #4 (THE WITCHING PLACE: A VANISHED VOLUME) in Sophie Love’s Curious Bookstore cozy mystery series. This bundle offers books three and four in one convenient file, with over 150,000 words of reading. In THE WITCHING PLACE: A PERILOUS PAGE (Book #3), a cryptic visitor comes into town, looking for a rare book, and willing to pay anything. But when he ends up dead, Alexis wonders: was the price too high? And did Alexis’s mysterious store owner have anything to do with it? In THE WITCHING PLACE: A VANISHED VOLUME (Book #4), when a mysterious stranger brings one of the rarest occult books in history into the shop, Montgomery is excited to acquire it—while Alexis wonders if it is too good to be true. And when someone soon thereafter turns up dead, leaving Alexis framed for the crime, she quickly realizes that either this book is cursed—or someone is up to foul play. Is this book what it seems to be? And why would someone kill for it? A page-turning cozy, rife with the supernatural, mystery, secrets and love—and centered around a small town as odd and endearing as its shop—A CURIOUS BOOKSTORE will make you fall in love and keep you laughing out loud as you turn pages late into the night. Book #5 is also available!

A bundle of books #2 (THE WITCHING PLACE: MURDER BY MANUSCRIPT) and #3 (THE WITCHING PLACE: A PERILOUS PAGE) in Sophie Loves’s Curious Bookstore cozy mystery series. This bundle offers books two and three in one convenient file, with over 150,000 words of reading. In THE WITCHING PLACE: MURDER BY MANUSCRIPT (Book #2), when Alexis is dispatched to scout out some books in an estate sale in a gothic mansion, she finds something she does not expect: one book is incredibly rare, the only one of its kind in existence, worth millions of dollars. She also soon finds something else she does not expect: a dead body. Thrust in the middle of the crime, will Alexis be able to clear her name? And will she discover the mystery at the heart of her very own store? In THE WITCHING PLACE: A PERILOUS PAGE, a cryptic visitor comes into town, looking for a rare book, and willing to pay anything. But when he ends up dead, Alexis wonders: was the price too high? And did Alexis’s mysterious store owner have anything to do with it? A page-turning cozy, rife with the supernatural, mystery, secrets and love—and centered around a small town as odd and endearing as its shop—A CURIOUS BOOKSTORE will make you fall in love and keep you laughing out loud as you turn pages late into the night. Books #4-#5 are also available!

A bundle of books #1 (THE WITCHING PLACE: A FATAL FOLIO), #2 (THE WITCHING PLACE: MURDER BY MANUSCRIPT), and #3 (THE WITCHING PLACE: A PERILOUS PAGE) in Sophie Loves’s Curious Bookstore cozy mystery series. This bundle offers books one, two, and three in one convenient file, with over 150,000 words of reading. In THE WITCHING PLACE: A FATAL FOLIO (Book #1), when Alexis Blair, 29, is fired from her book publishing job and breaks up with her boyfriend on the same day, she wonders if life is urging her to make a fresh start. She decides it’s time to pursue her lifelong dream of opening a bookstore of her own—even if that means leaving Boston and accepting a job in a curious bookstore in a small seaside town an hour away. But the odd shop, Alexis soon learns, is from more than just a rare, occult bookstore. Something strange is going on in the shop’s secret back room, with its eccentric owner, and in the small town itself. And when a dead body appears, Alexis, with her beloved newfound cat, may find herself right in the middle of it all. In THE WITCHING PLACE: MURDER BY MANUSCRIPT (Book #2), when Alexis is dispatched to scout out some books in an estate sale in a gothic mansion, she finds something she does not expect: one book is incredibly rare, the only one of its kind in existence, worth millions of dollars. She also soon finds something else she does not expect: a dead body. Thrust in the middle of the crime, will Alexis be able to clear her name? And will she discover the mystery at the heart of her very own store? In THE WITCHING PLACE: A PERILOUS PAGE (Book #3), a cryptic visitor comes into town, looking for a rare book, and willing to pay anything. But when he ends up dead, Alexis wonders: was the price too high? And did Alexis’s mysterious store owner have anything to do with it? A page-turning cozy, rife with the supernatural, mystery, secrets and love—and centered around a small town as odd and endearing as its shop—A CURIOUS BOOKSTORE will make you fall in love and keep you laughing out loud as you turn pages late into the night. Books #4-#5 are also available!

“The perfect romance or beach read, with a difference: its enthusiasm and beautiful descriptions offer an unexpected attention to the complexity of not just evolving love, but evolving psyches. It's a delightful recommendation for romance readers looking for a touch more complexity from their romance reads.” --Midwest Book Review (For Now and Forever) THE WITCHING PLACE: A PERILOUS PAGE is book #3 in a charming new cozy mystery series by bestselling author Sophie Love, author of The Inn at Sunset Harbor series, a #1 Bestseller with over 200 five-star reviews. When Alexis Blair, 29, is fired from her book publishing job and breaks up with her boyfriend on the same day, she wonders if life is urging her to make a fresh start. She decides it’s time to pursue her lifelong dream of opening a bookstore of her own—even if that means leaving Boston and accepting a job in a curious bookstore in a small seaside town an hour away. A cryptic visitor comes into town, looking for a rare book, and willing to pay anything. But when he ends up dead, Alexis wonders: was the price too high? And did Alexis’s mysterious store owner have anything to do with it? A page-turning cozy, rife with the supernatural, mystery, secrets and love—and centered around a small town as odd and endearing as its shop—A PERILOUS PAGE will make you fall in love and keep you laughing out loud as you turn pages late into the night. Books #4-#5 are also available! “The romance is there, but not overdosed. Kudos to the author for this amazing start of a series that promises to be very entertaining.” --Books and Movies Reviews (For Now and Forever)

Maddie Baker hasn’t seen Detective Noah Langley since he ghosted her a month ago, but now she needs his help to find a missing woman. When Maddie Baker offers a self-defense course, a terrified young woman asks her for private lessons to escape a chokehold. Maddie readily agrees to meet Amy the next morning, but when she doesn’t show up, Maddie becomes concerned. She enlists the help of Detective Noah Langley and his partner Lance Forrester. Since it’s not an official investigation, and the only thing they know about her is her first name, it’s not long before their hands are tied. Besides, Noah has a dilemma of his own. A rash of home burglaries has taken a disturbing turn. Noah and his partner Lance feel pressed to catch the burglars before someone is physically assaulted…or worse. To top things off, Maddie’s ex-boyfriend Steve is in town suddenly wanting her back. Her aunt’s dementia is worsening, and her best friend Mallory has shown up on her doorstep with news of her own. Maddie’s got her hands full, so she should let her concern for the missing woman go, right? Only she’s trusting her gut, and it’s telling her something’s rotten in Cockamamie.

As most everyone who reads the newspapers these days will be aware, DNA technology and cloning genes (isolating and obtaining the DNA for a specific gene) is on the cutting edge of science. Almost every week a new gene is cloned, its DNA sequence determined, and its function discovered. Discoveries of genes that cause specific diseases, even some cancers (such as breast cancer), are being made on a regular basis. The gene that is discovered in the present story is, at present, fictional. It is a gene that promotes the aging process, and therefore, it promotes death. The flip side of the gene is that if its action is turned off by a new drug, as it is in the story, it stops aging and allows an unlimited life-span. Neither the discovery of such a gene, or its manipulation by a drug, are at all far-fetched. In fact, it can be anticipated that such a gene probably will be discovered sooner or later. This is a story about what happens when such a gene, and a way to turn it off, are discovered. Story Line It all started with something seemingly trivial, the interruption of the usual behavior of the pet mice in Dr. Al Grogans laboratory. A world-class physician-scientist in his mid-fifties, Grogan has been spending long evenings in his lab and office trying to solve a riddle. Why had one of his discoveries, a promising new long-acting contraceptive called DNA-C129, quit working? The unusual squeaks and sounds of protest from the mice interrupted Grogans concentration. The reason the mice are disturbed is obvious. Maria, Grogans new lab assistant, an attractive lady in her late thirties, has disturbed the mice by peering closely at them. Initially disgruntled at the interruption, Grogan nevertheless demonstrates to Maria a trick he had taught the mice. Maria asks about the age of the mice and Grogan says theyre maybe four years old, since they were part of the original DNA-C129 experiments. Maria, who has had considerable experience studying mouse aging, contradicts her boss, saying that mice of this strain simply dont live that long. In human terms, they would be the equivalent of two-hundred years old! Grogan, who now realizes he isnt very well-informed about mouse life-span, tells Maria he was probably mistaken about the age of the mice. But he knows they are really about four years old, and his mind starts churning excitedly about some of the possible effects of DNA-C129, and about the reason it may have stopped working. With this new clue, things begin to snap into place in Grogans mind. DNA-C129 had quit working when he had lost his junior partner, a younger man named Bowdler, who had been carrying out the actual experiments under Grogans general supervision. Bowdler had been killed in an auto accident. Grogan now realizes that DNA-C129 has antiaging properties, and probably owes its long-lasting effects to Bowdler doing an outlaw experiment, namely using an illegal vector (the viral-like particle that delivers the therapy DNA), one that had not been authorized by Grogan. The keys to DNA-C129 effects, including its antiaging effects, no doubt lay not only in its own innate properties, but in the vector Bowdler had used. With Bowdlers death, and with Grogan now using the standard vector, DNA-C129 had lost its properties in Grogans experiments. During the next four months the Grogan lab becomes a beehive of activity as Grogan sets out to test these ideas. As the work goes on, a romance develops between Grogan and Maria. However, Grogan is very secretive about the purpose of the experiments, even with Maria. He works for a modest-sized biotech company, in Madison, Wisconsin, called DNA Unlimited, and he doesnt trust management. He codes all the results, and mixes up the experiments in such a manner that no single technician has a complete picture of the studies and the results. During this time Grogan places regular calls to a former student, and current best friend, Kirk Starge