A Good Man Gone by A. W. Hartoin -- Review and Giveaway

(Cozy Mystery)

This review is in conjunction with a Virtual Book Tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. A.W. will be awarding a backlist ebook on each stop, It Started with Whisper, to a randomly drawn commenter, and a $30.00 Gift Card to one randomly drawn commenter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stop on the tour.



It’s summer in St. Louis and Mercy Watts is on vacation from her parents. The great detective and his nosy wife are on a cruise and Mercy thinks she’s off the hook for doing any investigating for them. But when a family friend has a fatal heart attack, Dad has one of his famous feelings and orders Mercy to look into it. Mercy tries not to get sucked in. She really does, but she’s her father’s daughter. Soon Gavin’s death leads to a more grisly one, the death of a bride on her wedding day. Can the two be connected? Was Gavin murdered? Now Mercy can’t stop. You do for family. That’s all there is to it.




Thoroughly enjoyable, this cozy mystery will keep you guessing and chuckling all the way to the end. Ms. Hartoin has a way with words that plunges you into the story and makes you feel as if you know each and every character, no matter how small.

Mercy, our heroine, is a nurse and the daughter of a detective. She also has friends and family in the police department, but really doesn't love investigating much of anything despite her father continually tossing cases her way.

When a family friend dies unexpectedly, Mercy pulls some strings and finds out it wasn't a heart attack as originally suspected, but murder. And thus begins our story, which ended up being far more complex that I would have imagined.

While I loved the quirky characters and interesting plot, the fact the Mercy was constantly being hit on by every character with the slightest bit of testosterone got a little old. A few times would have gotten the point across that she was gorgeous and sexy, but after I while I nearly stopped reading -- it irritated me that much. And it's the only reason this wasn't a five flower review with bells on.

Hopefully the author tones that down a bit in the next book, because otherwise this was a winner. If you like a light-hearted cozy mystery with fun, well-rounded characters and murder you won't solve until Mercy does, I recommend A Good Man Gone. It's a winner.

4.5 Flowers - This was a very good book! I'd recommend it to my friends.

A.W. Hartoin is the author of the Mercy Watts mystery series and the Away From Whipplethorn fantasy series. She lives in Colorado with her husband, two children, and six bad chickens.

https://www.facebook.com/anne.hartoin
www.awhartoin.com
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D1CPG5I
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/322959

Fierce Creatures by A.W. Hartoin -- Book Tour and Giveaway

This post is part of a Virtual Book Tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. The author will award an ebook copy of either A Fairy's Guide to Disaster or It Started with a Whisper to a commenter at each tour stop, and a grand prize of $25 Amazon GC to one randomly drawn commenter. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

Another day. Another disaster.

After surviving a kidnapping and battling with spriggans, Matilda Whipplethorn finds her life in a suburban human house pretty boring. She’s been excluded from school because of her fire-making abilities and her former friends are afraid of her. Salvation comes in the form of a life-threatening illness. Her tutor, Miss Penrose, needs a medication and there’s only one place to get it, the spriggans. Matilda heads back to the antique mall to save Miss Penrose even though it just might cost her everything.

EXCERPT:

Fire was a friend of mine. I loved how it formed in my palms, pooled, and overflowed, oozing through my fingers to drop down in tiny orange spirals into the basin my father had fashioned out of a metal button. I lay on my stomach, propped up on my elbows, watching my fire, an endlessly fascinating endeavor and a good thing, too. My father was hammering on a needle, trying to make it into hooks for my mother’s pots and pans. It wasn’t going well and I expected to be there for a long time, providing Dad with fire for his forge.

Dad tapped me on the head, and I looked up. “What?”

“I need more,” he said, frowning at me from behind the safety mask he’d fashioned out of an acorn shell and some stuff the humans called Plexiglas.

I formed a fireball the size of my head and dropped it in the basin. Sparks flew out in curlicues and menaced Dad. He jumped back and slipped on his pile of metal shavings.

“Matilda, you did that on purpose,” he said, narrowing his brown eyes at me.

“It was an accident.”

“When it comes to fire, you don’t have accidents.”

A human face came down beside my dad and grinned at me. Judd was one of the few humans that could see us. It was very unusual for a human to see fairies, but Judd had turned out to be remarkable in many ways. As was his sister, Tess, who’d been the first to see me. The two of them surprised me on a daily basis.

About the Author:

A.W. Hartoin is the author of the Mercy Watts mystery series and the Away From Whipplethorn fantasy series. She lives in Colorado with her husband, two children, and six bad chickens.

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