review: murder from scratch by leslie karst

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Sally Solari just can’t seem to stay away from murder mysteries. In the fourth book of the series, Sally becomes involved when her father asks her to take in a distant cousin whose mother has died. Although there’s a suicide note, Evelyn believes her mother was murdered. Things just don’t add up and Sally agrees to investigate. As Sally and Evelyn uncover clues (like misplaced items in the home Evelyn shared with her mother), the murderer closes in on them as well. Murder from Scratch has plenty of red herrings to keep the mystery going, but the subplot with Brian that's continued from the previous books is an unnecessary distraction.
4/5
Review copy provided by the publicist, MM Book Publicity.

review: between you & me by susan wiggs

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When a young Amish boy sustains a life-threatening farming accident, his guardian goes against the community's wishes and allows a helicopter to take the boy to a hospital. That's how Caleb along with his nephew Jonah and niece Hannah come into the life of Reese, a surgical resident at the hospital. Soon Reese and Caleb are connecting and trying to navigate the tremendous differences between them.

Between You & Me opens with someone, clearly Amish, abandoning a baby at a hospital. It was initially unclear how this would come into the plot, but eventually Susan Wiggs clunkily works it in. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel until that point. Once the baby is found (very appropriately in the safe haven box), the previously open-minded Reese becomes extremely judgmental. Wiggs also completely misrepresents Pennsylvania law which does allow a baby to be left at a safe location such as a hospital without there being any consequence to the parents. It's unfortunate that Wiggs twisted what had been a well-written love story into an agenda against safe haven laws.
3/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, Avon.