Room of Fire by Jenn Rekka BOOK REVIEW

Room of Fire 
by Jenn Rekka

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Room of Fire starts off gentle enough at an East Coast University with a Professor, Carlos Sheldon and his Assistant Laura Gates going through the mail, and even though there is interesting mail, some plates and a cryptic message that ends up sending them to Europe, it all seems so pleasurable and relaxing. A gentlemen of the county, Duke to some, Gustav to others wants to sell off his antiques before his scoundrel of a nephew inherites the manor, what better place to acquire items for the University. There are just some items that the Duke will only let a few in on that exist. Luckily our Professor Sheldon and Laura are among those, and what he has hidden is family crypt could blow the art world away.

After acquiring the pieces they were after for the University, Laura and Prof Sheldon get permission from the University to stay and investigate the secret the Duke has told them about. This is where it get's a bit dicey, they are not the only ones looking into, but probably the only ones that are doing it legally.

Laura and Carlos will travel all over Europe following leads, sometimes in front of the bad guys and sometimes behind them. When it comes to bad guys, you have the bad,bad guys and the good, bad guys and yet which are which and are they working together or who are they all working for in the first place.

Mystery, intrigue, sabotage and kidnapping along with out and out theft all come into play as they volley for the same limited pieces for different reasons. Toss in an attractive good guy and a handsome bad boy and you have even more to struggle with. It is a dynamic read, and took me the morning of a snow day to read it, it was just interesting and I didn't want to put it down. There is also some history and antiques information slightly sprinkled in there that is neat too.

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Feint of Art (An Art Lover's Mystery, #1) by Haily Lind BOOK REVIEW

Feint of Art by Hailey Lind
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Feint of Art is the first book in the Annie Kincaid Mystery series which is written by Hailey Lind, which just happens to be a name created when Juliet Blackwell and her sister write together. Now, I happen to love Juliet's books, and I am not sure what name her sister writes under normally, or if she does, but I would be happy to say that she is just as good as her sister, if this book is any indication. I loved it!!

The story revolves around our main character, Annie Kincaid, she is the grand-daughter of a master art forger, spent time learning from him and passing some pretty good forgeries herself, but she went straight, now owning a studio that deals in faux finishes and murals and even some restoration of a old piece, which I am thinking who better to clean up and fix a master than a forger, really. She is scrapping by, but their are still people in the art world that want nothing to do with her, but more of them want her knowledge, because when it comes right down to it, when you spend a great deal of money on a painting that is suppose to be an old master you want it verified, and if I was verifying an old master, who better than a master forger to tell me if it is real, or one of their works. Of course, they all want it kept on the down-low that they are using her services and she is fine with that for now.

The story begins with Anne being called by an old flame to verify a new painting at the gallery he works for, only for Anne to have to tell him it is a fake. The old flame makes plans to met back up with her in a couple hours and she waits at the coffee shop only to be stood up, what else is new. So on her walk back to her truck, she sees police lights and finds out that the security guard that let her out just an hour ago is dead and there is no sign of her old flame anywhere. When she can't reach him still days later, she begins to look into what is going on out of concern for the guy, which leads her into a whole mess of things she never imagined!

This was just so well-written and so easy a story to follow, I just loved it and I look forward to more in this series, because I was blown away by all the art information that was tucked into the book, it never seemed like a "teaching moment" but more like real conversation and it was so neat and interesting. I really liked it and I hope you will take a chance on the book and give it a read!


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