Does the blurb on the back of a book help you decide if you want to read it or not? It does for me, and I bet it does for you as well.

While the blurbs are awesome, I also want to read more from the characters themselves. Rather it's randomly opening the book in the bookstore and reading a page or looking for excerpts online, or excerpts  (snippets) from the book, it has helped me choose some great new reads.

Like this . . .  

Back in Balsam Dell to heal after the death of her husband, Carly Hale is finally pursuing her lifelong dream of opening Carly's Grilled Cheese Eatery. After only five months, business is booming as Vermont vacationers and townspeople alike flock to lunch on her Farmhouse Cheddar Sleeps with the Fishes and other grilled cheese concoctions. All but Lyle Bagley, Carly's one-time high school boyfriend and now town bully, who just bought the building that houses her eatery and wants Carly out. After a muenster of a fight, Carly's forced to put her nose to the rind and find a solution to keep her business afloat.

That is...until Lyle is discovered dead behind the dumpster of Carly's shop, and one of her employees is pegged as the prime suspect. In order to save her eatery and prove her friend's innocence, Carly must sleuth out a desperate killer before she's the one who gets grilled.

Carly unlocked her backdoor and and went inside her restaurant. First things first: she flicked on the lights and turned on the central air, then went into the kitchen and stuck her belongings under her desk. When she returned to the dining room, a face peeking through the front glass door caught her eye. She jumped slightly, then relaxed when she recognized who it was. 

   Ari Mitchell, the thirty something electrician who who'd installed her lighting, was tapping on the glass. His eyes, the color of dark rye bread, beamed at her from beneath a cluster of short black curls. 

   Smiling at her unexpected visitor, Carly hurried over to unlock the front door. "Hey, come on in. What are you doing here so early"? 

   He stepped inside but hovered near the doorway, his hands shoved inside the pockets of his khaki cargo pants. "Sorry to bother you," he said, a slight hesitation in his voice. "I just wanted to say I heard what happened yesterday with your lease. Carly, I am so sorry. You're the last person in the world who deserves this. If there's anything I can do . . . "

   Carly swallowed back a lump. "Why don't you come in and have a seat at the counter? I was just going to make a pot of coffee."

"Actually, that would hit the spot." He smiled, and Carly noticed not for the first time, how perfect his teeth were. 

~~~~~~~~~

I know the snippet I picked had nothing of the mystery aspect of the story, but I liked the easy flow of conversation was between Carly and Ari. And, that didn't surprise me because every book I have read by  author Linda Reilly, have been the same. Her words always flow across the pages of her books. She never gets too wordy? Linda keeps her books moving at great pace.

The Grilled Cheese Mysteries are such good reads. If you haven't checked them out yet, do it soon!

As always, please leave a comment and let me know what you think!

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