Hello, Fellow Book Worms and Book Dragons!
As many of you know I am a huge fan of Janet Evanovich. I love reading her books, and she has managed to get me out of plenty of reading slumps. At the beginning of the year I read Wicked Appetite, the first book in a new series starring Lizzie Tucker and her enigmatic partner, Diesel. Both are Unmentionables, people with magical abilities. It was wild adventure set in Salem, Massachusetts, and featured wonderfully eclectic cast of characters. Lizzie and Diesel were looking for the seven Saligia Stones, each the embodiment of a one of the Seven Deadly Sins. After three books (there are reported to be seven) I was wanted more.
Thankfully before the Wicked Series was Between the Plums. In this series of short novels Stephanie Plum and Diesel have adventures together set during four holidays: Christmas, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, and Halloween. I decided to start with Valentine's Day by picking up Plum Lovin'.
Plum Lovin' is published by St. Martin's Press, and is set after the events of Twelve Sharp. The bail bonds agency Stephanie Plum works for is in a slump due to the cold weather. The only name on Cousin Vinnie's roster is Annie Hart: assault with a deadly weapon and armed robbery. Vinnie is getting ready for a cruise with his wife for Valentine's Day, and he is after Stephanie to bring Annie in, since she has mysteriously disappeared. The thing is Annie is with Diesel. And Diesel has a proposal. If Stephanie can take Annie's case load (Annie is a relationship expert) and find true love for Hart's clients, Diesel will hand Annie over to Stephanie for re-bonding. Oh, and he needs to track down an Unmentionable, named Bernie. Bernie's magically ability is power to give people hives. Bernie is after Annie Hart, because he believes she ruined his marriage.
Stephanie agrees to take Hart's case load of lovelorn people who need a happy ending. This includes her own sister's beau Albert Kloughn, who weezes, farts, and passes out at the thought of marriage. All in a day's work, right? To Stephanie it is better than being shot at by bond fugitives. By Valentine's day Stephanie must bring together true loves for a Veternarian, a Department of Motor Vehicles worker, a virgin terrified of men, a shy Butcher, in addition to Albert. And if she can get Bernie back with his wife, even better.
All my favorite characters from the Stephanie Plum books are here, including Lula (who gets arrested at one point), Grandma Mazar (who decides to get lip injections, resulting in a hilarious speech impediment), and of course Joe Morelli (who is on an undercover operation, but is still there for his Cupcake). The character dynamic of Stephanie and Diesel is a lot of fun. Stephanie definitely has a better control over him than Lizzie Tucker. And since she is trying to still decide between Ranger and Joe Morelli at this stage of the series, she does not need a third man in her life to make things more complicated.
This was a short adventure that I read in one sitting. It was hysterical, adventurous, and was a delight. I read it with the audio narration read by Lorelei King. King is one of my favorite audio book narrators, and she had me laughing out loud with some of her voices that she came up with for Plum Lovin'. Lorelei never ceases to amaze me at her amazing acting range. Her Grandma Mazar after lip plumping has become my new favorite reading of King's.
It is nice to know that I have three more Diesel adventures to read while I wait for another Wicked book. I gave this book four out of five stars.
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Because there is always time to read,
Xepherus3
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All written content, and top logo (c) Copyright 2016 by Thomas Bahr II
Book cover (c) Copyright by the publisher
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