Book reviews

Betting on the Best Friend’s Brother

By Valerie Blankenship: What can you do when you’ve been in love with your best friend’s brother for ever? For Ava, her friend Ruby’s brother, Joey has had her heart since she was a young girl, and had a horrible prom date experience that left her heartbroken.

Ruby loves Ava, and thinks she is putting in too much time in her lab. She wants to see Ava happy and in love. When a crazy bet gets thrown in the mix, Ava finds herself going on date after date, but is horrified when Ruby has Joey be her dating coach. 

As Ava tries to find someone who will stop her from loving Joey, he starts to realize there is more to Ava than he thought. Plus Ruby has a twist of her own. This was such a fun book to read, and Melanie Jacobson wrote such amazing characters that just blew this rom com out of the water. I absolutely loved this book by Melanie Jacobson. 

Cheddar late than dead

By Valerie Blankenship: Carly Hale is one of my favorite characters, and
Linda Reilly always gives her mysteries to solve.

For Carly, getting to the bottom of things just comes natural. She has a way of unraveling the truth that puts cops to shame. Her grilled cheese eatery keeps her pretty busy, but Carly has help in her employees.

Grant, the guy who runs the grill, always comes up with yummy new recipes. She has a new employee, Valerie, for obvious reasons makes me love her name. Valerie comes to work for Carly with some personal issues, but she’s a hard worker. Carly has her boyfriend, Ari, who supports Carly in every way. Let’s not forget her lovable dog, Havarti, who Carly loves immensely. When an old high school friend needs Carly to cater her wedding shower, Carly has no idea that she will once again be in the middle of a murder investigation.

The bride-to-be’s fiancé is poisoned at the wedding shower. With numerous suspects, Carly can’t help but do some digging to find a murderer before they can strike again. Linda Reilly continues to draw me into this series with mysteries to solve and cheesy goodness from Carly’s diner. With recipes in the back of each book, readers can get a chance to create some of that goodness on their own.