Cooking the Books - A Personal Note

I am pleased to be one of the first to tell you about a debut novel coming out in April by a woman that is usually behind the scenes of many of my reviews, Bonnie S. Calhoun! Bonnie runs the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance (CFBA), through which I obtain a number of the books I review, and she also is the force behind Christian Fiction Online Magazine. After knowing her only through emails, I finally had a chance to meet her in person in Atlanta. In fact, she is the one who enabled me to attend the Christy Awards and Kim Ford and I sat at her table and were known as her "peeps"! She is a hoot and such fun to be around, and this lady is the queen of all things fiction and blogging! I was delighted to hear that she had received a contract for her own novel and jumped at the chance to review an advance copy.

Cooking the Books
A Sloane Templeton Mystery
Bonnie S. Calhoun
(Abingdon Press)
ISBN: 978-1426733888
April 2012/304 pages/$14.99
After her mother dies from a heart attack, Sloane Templeton goes from Cyber Crimes Unit to bookstore owner before she can blink. She also "inherits" a half-batty store manager; a strange bunch of little old people from the neighborhood who meet at the store once a week but never read books, called the Granny Oakleys Book Club; and Aunt Verline, who fancies herself an Iron Chef when in reality you need a cast iron stomach to partake of her culinary disasters. And with a group like this you should never ask, “What else can go wrong?”

A lot! Sloane begins to receive cyber threats. While Sloane uses her computer forensic skills to uncover the source of the threats, it is discovered someone is out to kill her. Can her life get more crazy?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Bonnie S. Calhoun is director of the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance, publisher of Christian Fiction Online magazine, the Northeast Zone Director for the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), and the President of the Christian Authors Network (CAN). She is a Google-certified Top Contributor on the Blogger Help Forum and frequently conducts workshops on blogging and website construction as a faculty member at the Greater Philadelphia Christian Writers Conference and the Colorado Christian Writers Conference. She and her husband, Bob, along with a dog and cat that consider her wait-staff, live in a log home on fifteen acres in the upstate area of Binghamton, New York.

MY THOUGHTS:
Bonnie S. Calhoun has cooked up quite a story in this debut novel with an eclectic group of individuals who are surprisingly endearing, with a few exceptions, of course! It's a fine line between eccentricity and evil, and Sloane and the reader must determine who falls into which category. Sloane herself is quite a character, and she has a knack for finding herself in awkward situations. (Of course, a threat on her life could be considered a bit beyond awkward!) I found myself completely caught up in the story, and Sloane's circumstances alternately made me hold my breath and laugh out loud. This is a great debut novel, and I look forward to more books in this series. Cooking the Books adds up to a great read!

Available for preorder from Amazon.


Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Abingdon Press as part of their Blogger Review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”