A Whole Latte Murder by Caroline Fardig

Juliet and the Java Jive crew are back. After the events of the last book, Juliet's best friend, boss, and probably the man she'll end up with, Pete, is surly. Super surly. It's a good thing there's a serial killer on campus who is helping to shake things up. Well, maybe it's not that good since Juliet's boyfriend has just been promoted to the homicide division which means that he's going to be chasing someone really dangerous. Oh. And Juliet, along with her friend Trevor, discovers the first body. And the body is of a girl who Trevor adored and he was the last person seen with her. More and more stress is heaped on Juliet as one of her employees is the next woman to disappear and one of her old friends gets dragged into the case.
I said this in the last book but I have to repeat it. Caroline Fardig is somehow magic. She took a character that I really, really, really don't like (Juliet) and made a book that was worth reading. I mean, Juliet really is TSTL. I barely made it through the first third of the book as Juliet yelled at her POLICE DETECTIVE boyfriend for... doing his job, she helped with a B and E, vacillated between doormat-ship and being a "red-headed she-devil", and basically proved that she is in love with Pete but dating someone else. I am just so irritated by this will they/won't they that has invaded so many contemporary cozies. Frankly, I hope that she takes the job offered at the end of the book and gets out of the Java Jive so she can finally get over Pete and go to just being friends. I am glad that I finished this book but hope that Juliet starts to get a bit smarter in all areas of her life.

Three stars
This book comes out November 8
Follows Mug Shot
Followed by Brew or Die

Haunted Is Always in Fashion by Rose Pressey

Cookie Chanel, proprietress of It's Vintage Y'all and a psychic who sees ghosts, is back with another mystery. The book opens with the death of a young woman that Cookie was supposed to be meeting, Julianna. She is a ghost who immediately gets picked up by Cookie and her rather permanent ghost, Charlotte.
The story of this book is figuring out why Julianna got killed as much as who killed her. We also get to learn a bit more about Wind Song, the cat that Cookie has picked up.
I really hate that this series is starting to fall into the "if this is a cozy, there must be a love triangle" trap. It really felt like Ken was being shoehorned into the story, it really didn't make sense that he was there most of the time. In fact, there was a lot of making characters fit into the story which made for a lot of "coincidences" that got a bit annoying.
Overall a good book. I just hope they dump one of the love interests soon so we can get back to the mysteries with just a sprinkle of romance.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out November 29
Follows Haunt Couture and Ghosts Galore

Hold Me, Cowboy by Maisey Yates

Madison West made a mistake when she was seventeen; she had an affair with a married man. He, of course, turned it around on her and made her a pariah among the horse community. It's been  a long time since she's had sex with anyone else and she's ready. She's made plans for a no-strings-attached weekend with a sales rep in a cabin far out of town. Too bad it's snowing so hard. And now her cabin has lost power. And the person in the other cabin is none other than Sam McCormack.
Sam doesn't like Madison. He's dated women like her before and it didn't end well. Too bad he's so attracted to her.
They make an agreement for one night. An agreement that leads to twelve nights. They'll break up at Christmas. But what if they both want more?
There was a Big Misunderstanding that was disappointing and I'm not a huge fan of the fast and furious romance but I mostly liked both Madison and Sam and their growth in this book.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out November 8

One Snowy Night by Jill Shalvis

Rory Andrews doesn't remember Max Stranton from high school but he sure remembers her. In a gender reversal from The Trouble with Mistletoe, this time, the girl done the guy wrong. It seems that Rory's high school home life wasn't great and she was being picked on at school. Her attempt at retaliation accidentally included taking out the life Max Stranton had planned for himself. And then she ran, leaving Max to face the fallout, and she never even knew. Now, she needs his help to get back to Lake Tahoe in time for her first Christmas with her family in six years. She's disappointed them before so she doesn't want to be late. Too bad there's a blizzard that is leaving them trapped with Max's dog, Carl along for the ride.

This was okay but, as a novella, not enough time to really get to know or fall in love with the characters. Both Rory and Max felt a little stock to me with not enough time to explore how they got from their teenage selves to their nowadays selves.

Three Stars
This novella comes out November 8
Follows The Trouble with Mistletoe
Followed by Accidentally on Purpose

Fatal Passion by Adrian Vincent

A collection of true-crime stories ripped from the headlines across time and place. The author has re-written the stories so they have more of a fictional flavor but with true story realness. I wish we had been given a list of footnotes or even just a bibliography so that we could know what kind of research went into these stories. There was a LOT of details to these stories but no clue about how much the author knew and how much was artistic license. The writing was okay but was rather repetitive after awhile. Stories that should have been SO interesting got lost under too much detail.

Three stars

This book came out October 14

The Miracle of Meditation by Ryuho Okawa

I should have read the description a bit more and clued in that this was going to be a meditation book with a religious bent. Nothing against it, just not my meditation style. I didn't count that against the book though. To be warned though, this goes beyond a low-level religious bent and talks about guardian spirits and stray animal spirits, things that not everyone will be on board for.
It's not anything really radical in the world of meditation, just a nice book that outlines not only what meditation is but also provides some really nice examples to use while practicing. The Q&A is definitely a little more "out-there" but some readers may feel comfortable with that. Very much reminds me of the teachings of Elizabeth Clare Prophet.

Three stars
This book comes out November 1

The Danger of Desire by Sabrina Jeffries

In The Study of Seduction, Warren Corry, Marquess of Knightford, was trying to protect his cousin Clarissa by asking his best friend Edwin to keep an eye on her. Now Clarissa is asking Warren to help her by keeping an eye on her friend, Miss Delia Trever. It seems Clarissa's brother died and left the family in debt. Now Delia's aunt has given her a dowry in the hopes of finding her a husband but Delia is acting strangely; slipping out of rooms, falling asleep at balls, avoiding house parties. Clarissa wants to see her friend so she wants to know what's going on.
Delia Trevor doesn't want to get married. It might mean saving herself but its not going to save her family. And she wants to make sure that her sister-in-law and nephew are taken care of as well. Then Warren starts getting in her way.
Not my favorite Jeffries book. I thought both Warren and Delia's problems were well-built up and then far to hastily solved. I get the tie-in with Delia's family problems and the banishment of Niall but the way to get them to overlap felt horribly overwrought. An okay addition to the series but I'm much more interested to see what went and will go on with Brilliana (what a name for practically-named-Delia's sister-in-law) and Niall.

Three stars
This book comes out November 22
Followed by The Pleasures of Passion