Book Review: Cooking the Books by Bonnie Calhoun

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?

Ms. Calhoun’s debut novel kept me turning the pages.

Sloane is having a hard time – new career as a book store owner, a few man troubles – though she’s pretty sure she found Mr. Right, the death of her mother, a very valuable book she doesn’t know nearly enough about, and a group of elderly book club members who never read books.

And someone’s out to get her.

Computer viruses. Threatening packages. Lifesavers in unexpected places.

Ms. Calhoun creates characters you love, or love to hate, keeps the twists coming [I changed my mind about who the bad guy was at least 3xs – I was right once, for about two minutes before I changed my mind again ;)], and left enough threads dangling for readers to be impatient for the sequel.

Overall rating: 8 out of 10 stars

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a digital copy in exchange for my unbiased review.

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