A Premonition of Murder - Mary Kennedy Dollycas’s Thoughts
Mary Kennedy keeps topping herself with each subsequent installment to this series.

This time she takes us Beaux Reeves mansion, a wondrous place that not many of the residents of Savannah have been invited. Well they may have been invited to an event in the garden but never inside. Ali and Taylor are so excited to have been invited along with the other Dream Club members for lunch at the estate, but they are totally wrong about why they were asked. Abigail Marchand, a recluse and heiress, has asked them to come to interpret a dream. A dream that she believes indicates her death. The club members do their best to ease her fears. But then just a short time later, during a Dream Club, meeting they learn that the woman has died, and evidence says she was murdered. Can the Dream Club help shed light on killer?

I love these characters. Their group is so interesting. Unique in that their dreams can actually help solve a murder. I am not sure if there are really people out there that can do this but this author has grabbed my attention in all three of these books and made me think it may be possible. If not, it makes for a really good story.

In addition to the Dream Club meetings Ali and Taylor drawn in even farther just interpreting dream and a little investigating. There are several suspects, more than you would think for a woman that never left her home. TheY are put in a place where their observations can help them solve the case. I enjoyed that everyone really had to think and had different theories as it pertained to the murder. It sure wasn’t cut and dried. It was very entertaining to read.

I also enjoyed the little snippets of time at Oldies but Goodies. Thankfully Taylor and Ali have a great employee that can handle the store while are out chasing down suspects and trying to catch the killer.

This is a series that should be read in order. To enjoy it fully you need to meet the characters from the start and learn about their idiosyncrasies and the way the Dream Club works.

A Premonition of Murder - Mary Kennedy Dollycas’s Thoughts
Mary Kennedy keeps topping herself with each subsequent installment to this series.

This time she takes us Beaux Reeves mansion, a wondrous place that not many of the residents of Savannah have been invited. Well they may have been invited to an event in the garden but never inside. Ali and Taylor are so excited to have been invited along with the other Dream Club members for lunch at the estate, but they are totally wrong about why they were asked. Abigail Marchand, a recluse and heiress, has asked them to come to interpret a dream. A dream that she believes indicates her death. The club members do their best to ease her fears. But then just a short time later, during a Dream Club, meeting they learn that the woman has died, and evidence says she was murdered. Can the Dream Club help shed light on killer?

I love these characters. Their group is so interesting. Unique in that their dreams can actually help solve a murder. I am not sure if there are really people out there that can do this but this author has grabbed my attention in all three of these books and made me think it may be possible. If not, it makes for a really good story.

In addition to the Dream Club meetings Ali and Taylor drawn in even farther just interpreting dream and a little investigating. There are several suspects, more than you would think for a woman that never left her home. TheY are put in a place where their observations can help them solve the case. I enjoyed that everyone really had to think and had different theories as it pertained to the murder. It sure wasn’t cut and dried. It was very entertaining to read.

I also enjoyed the little snippets of time at Oldies but Goodies. Thankfully Taylor and Ali have a great employee that can handle the store while are out chasing down suspects and trying to catch the killer.

This is a series that should be read in order. To enjoy it fully you need to meet the characters from the start and learn about their idiosyncrasies and the way the Dream Club works.

Dollycas’s Thoughts

Talk radio is all my husband listens to but I don’t think he has ever tuned in to a program like “On the Couch with Maggie Walsh.” She gets some very unusual callers. First time and long time callers call in to talk about a variety of topics. She even has special guests like the controversial Guru Sanjay Gingii. He has his followers but he also has his enemies. Maggie has even received a threat at the station to scare her from having him on the show. Shortly after appearing on her show the guru is found dead in his hotel room. Maggie is surprised when the police show up at her door, but they are not there for her, they are there for her roommate, Lark. What that’s crazy! Lark wouldn’t kill anyone or would she???

Mary Kennedy introduces us to a variety of characters. Maggie, of course, who seems to be a very intelligent woman but not a lot of common sense at times, which was funny in a book, wouldn’t be so funny in real life. Her roommate Lark has a past and Maggie finds out she didn’t know her as well as she thought. Her producer, Vera Mae Atkins, is a hoot, the first chapter is just the start of radio romp. The guru’s followers, staff, and exes make for a large pool of suspects. Maggie’s mom, Lola was my favorite character. She wanted to help Maggie investigate and she was crazy funny. Maggie is also trying to impress a certain detective which adds to the fun.

The radio show theme was unique for me. It did remind of the Frasier television show, his relationship with Roz was very similar to Maggie and Vera, only with a dead body added. The behind the scenes complete with a foreign receptionist who is learning English to a pompous sports announcer all blended together to make this a very interesting read.

The mystery plot was full of twists including the final one that was a total surprise. I was sure I had it all figured out and you guessed it, wrong again.

This was a good debut for this series. I want to see how these characters evolve in the next 2 books, Reel Murder and Stay Tuned for Murder.

Dollycas’s Thoughts

Talk radio is all my husband listens to but I don’t think he has ever tuned in to a program like “On the Couch with Maggie Walsh.” She gets some very unusual callers. First time and long time callers call in to talk about a variety of topics. She even has special guests like the controversial Guru Sanjay Gingii. He has his followers but he also has his enemies. Maggie has even received a threat at the station to scare her from having him on the show. Shortly after appearing on her show the guru is found dead in his hotel room. Maggie is surprised when the police show up at her door, but they are not there for her, they are there for her roommate, Lark. What that’s crazy! Lark wouldn’t kill anyone or would she???

Mary Kennedy introduces us to a variety of characters. Maggie, of course, who seems to be a very intelligent woman but not a lot of common sense at times, which was funny in a book, wouldn’t be so funny in real life. Her roommate Lark has a past and Maggie finds out she didn’t know her as well as she thought. Her producer, Vera Mae Atkins, is a hoot, the first chapter is just the start of radio romp. The guru’s followers, staff, and exes make for a large pool of suspects. Maggie’s mom, Lola was my favorite character. She wanted to help Maggie investigate and she was crazy funny. Maggie is also trying to impress a certain detective which adds to the fun.

The radio show theme was unique for me. It did remind of the Frasier television show, his relationship with Roz was very similar to Maggie and Vera, only with a dead body added. The behind the scenes complete with a foreign receptionist who is learning English to a pompous sports announcer all blended together to make this a very interesting read.

The mystery plot was full of twists including the final one that was a total surprise. I was sure I had it all figured out and you guessed it, wrong again.

This was a good debut for this series. I want to see how these characters evolve in the next 2 books, Reel Murder and Stay Tuned for Murder.

 

Carolina Southern author, Ashley Warlick, infuses fact with fiction with the exquisitely evocative THE ARRANGEMENT,Mary Frances Fischer (M.F.K)— legendary food writer and storyteller. From the classic front cover, a timeless story of a complex talented woman, her love of food and literature, her desires, passions, a love triangle, and life in the 1930s-40s.

M.F.K. Fisher books deal primarily with food, considering it from many aspects: preparation, natural history, culture, and philosophy. Fisher believed that eating well was just one of the "arts of life" and explored the art of living as a secondary theme in her writing.

Set in Depression -era California and prewar Europe, this sweeping literary tale is all about hunger — both for food and love. A wife, a lover, and an independent talented woman with desires.

Cassandra Campbell was the "perfect voice" for the audio book, delivering a magical and spellbinding performance-- for Mary Frances, the extraordinary food critic/author, and the secondary voices. (Highly recommend audio version). The sensual adventures of food writer M.F. K. Fisher will keep readers turning the pages (or glued to your listening device).

From 1934, Hollywood, Mary Frances Kennedy is married to Al Fisher, a college professor and poet. She is restless and bored. The Great Depression - times are tough. Her husband resents Mary Frances, whose talent as a writer is moving forward, and she resents Al for his lack of passion in and out of the bedroom. His writing is not going well. She wanted to make her marriage work; however, it does not seem possible.

She becomes involved in an affair with Dillwyn “Tim” Parrish, a painter, and writer--a great supporter of her work. Tim was older, a mentor and encourages her passion for writing—he taught her pleasure. A perfect match for her passion of romance and food.

Mary Frances wants more she wants to be successful, wants to be loved. Of course, in these times, divorce was unacceptable and the affair seemed to be the only logical choice. Tim, also married to a much young aspiring actress, Gigi. After she leaves him for another man, Mary Frances and Tim reconnect. However, the timing is off—Al is depressed, unable to write, perform, and suffering from the death of his father.

Torn, a love complex triangle. Scandalous. An entanglement. Pain and pleasure. Mary Frances struggles to choose between her husband and his friend, and decides instead to write--leaving behind Mary Frances, she becomes MFK Fisher.

A talented woman struggling to find a voice; a place in her world; illustrating the force that drives us to feed ourselves when we are hungry, in many ways. Spanning time and space, from California, France and the Swiss Alps--Rich in history, art, charm, travel, culture, cuisine, and epicurean delights, THE ARRANGEMENT —will make you appreciate the simple sensual pleasures of food and cooking.

In addition to the passion of food and wine, literary, and a sensuous love affair, the novel also reiterates how difficult it was during this era for a woman, both personally and professional. Provocative, seductive, and sensuous –a perfect read for valentines, transporting readers to another place and time, assured to please culinary, foodies, literary, and historical romance fans. The characters come alive on the pages, and the author’s passion shines through—one to be savored.

Author Ashley Warlock, no stranger to food, knows her way around a kitchen. She calls herself “a passionate, obstinate home cook, as happy to read a cookbook as a novel.” The editor of the South Carolina quarterly food magazine Edible Upcountry.

A Charlotte, NC native, with hotel clients in the Charleston, SC area, so excited to discover this Southern author---my first book by Warlick, and look forward to reading more!

“Fisher is fascinating and enigmatic, in the way of many who seem to choose themselves as their principal subject,” Warlick says in press material. “And she was arguably the first woman to write about her own life through the lens of food, at a time when the only outlets women considered in this arena were cookbooks and housekeeping manuals. “Even by today’s standards, Fisher’s essays are intimate an d sexy, flirtatious, lush.”

Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher is not just the greatest American food writer who's ever played the game, she's one of our greatest writers, period. She was, variously, a travel writer, an essayist, a chronicler of American idylls, an observer of decline, of lack, of old fashioned custom and manners, a social critic, and a historian.

Other Reading Fans of MFK Fisher, will want to read, The Theoretical Foot Feb 9, 2016. When Robert Lescher died in 2012 an unpublished manuscript of M.F.K. Fisher’s was discovered neatly packed in the one of the literary agent’s signature red boxes. Inspired by Fisher’s affair with Dillwyn Parrish -- who was to become her second husband. (currently reading). This book accounts the latter days of the romance between Fisher and Parrish. The novel itself never saw publication while Fisher was alive. Recommend reading both--a fascinating woman!

“Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.” ― M.F.K. Fisher