Courting Disaster : An Angie Amalfi Mystery

Rating:
Summary: Slow start.
Review: Meet Angie Amalfi, chef and freelance food critic. With her "surprise" engagement party around the corner, Angie is in a whirlwind of motion trying to figure out the details. Then a mysterious woman appears at her neighbor's door.

Angie's neighbor is named Stan. He has just been drawn into the life of this woman and her baby. Now Angie must help the woman and Stan out of a murderous baby smuggling ring.

**** A slow start but by the end it was a worthwhile read! Angie and Stan's antics are enough to capture any reader's attention. ****

Reviewed by K. Blair.

Rating:
Summary: great romantic mystery
Review: Still between jobs, rich, beautiful and nervous Angie Amalfi is going crazy as she wonders where her engagement party is going to be held and what it will be like. She put the whole affair in her mother's hands so that she can be in charge of creating her wedding. Her next door neighbor Stan is depressed because Angie is getting married to homicide detective Paavo Smith while he failed to get past being a friend in her mind.

At a Greek restaurant, Stan sees waitress Hannah and is immediately smitten. They get to know one another, but he quickly concludes that Hannah fears a waiter who happens to be the father of her unborn child. When Hannah goes into labor, Stan takes her to the hospital and after the baby is born he brings them into his home. When the father is killed, evidence points towards Hannah as the prime suspect, but others had a motive to murder the waiter. Stan with Angie pushing her way at his side seeks the identity of the real culprit.

COURTING DISASTER is a great romantic mystery in which the baby scenes provide immense humor (tissues to wipe the tears of laughter unless you are a new parent - then its sympathy pains). The romance between Angie and Paavo is growing stronger as each begins to accept the eccentricities of their future partner. Stan's desperate inquiries to prove his beloved innocent takes a spin when Angie tries to come to the rescue in an electrifying climax that will long be remembered. Courting the bestseller list, Joanne Pence has written a winner deserving an award nomination at the minimum.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Courting Disaster
Review: With a full schedule to juggle, Angie has little time to plan an engagement party; so she leaves that to her mother, soon regretting the decision as she frets over what her mother will do to the party. That is the least of her concerns soon, as murder, a stalker, a missing new mother, a harried neighbor and the dreaded color purple keep Angie's life interesting. Her neighbor, Stan, seeks solace for his heart broken state over Angie and Paavo's approaching wedding and his loss of free food, by courting a lovely waitress, who happens to be very pregnant. When she suddenly gives birth, Stan becomes her savior, until she vanishes and the child's father is killed. Going to the authorities to investigate would put the baby into the hands of CPS- but there's always Angie, who kind of has police credentials because she has helped out her fiance' before on his police cases. Right? Right. Paavo has his own worries. Someone is scaring Angie to death, and it could become the real deal if he doesn't catch the stalker.

**** Angie Amafali's saga is always so much fun that you can't help but smile when a new entry comes along. It has all the warmth and zaniness of more famous books, but less angst to weigh it down. Her romance with Paavo has a reassuring quality in a very unreassuring world. As always, the adventure continues in the back with recipes to inspire you to imitate one of Angie's safer hobbies. This is a Christmas gift to give yourself. ****