Book Review: Altered to Death
Katie 
Altered to Death is another one of the Scrap This murder mysteries. When I started this book back in December I realized that I had missed out on 2 of the books in the series and considered going back to read the other two before this one. When I realized I was never going to find the time to catch up, I decided to skip them. I don’t think that I missed out on any major details by skipping those 2 books in the series and maybe eventually I will be able to go back to them. I think this is the first one that I read where the murder mystery didn’t revolve around the scrapbook store.
Faith was hired by the town to put together a historical scrapbook of its history and it uncovered a body and a mystery that of course gets Faith into all sorts of crazy predicaments and situations. There is a diary and no one really knows what is going on with the heir and of course, small town, everyone is all up in everyone else’s business. Faith tries to solve the mystery and get the information she needs from other people in town without revealing too much of what she has found, or thinks she has found.
This was another fun read like the others in this series that I have read and I love that there is such a niche genre of scrapbook murder mysteries out there for me to enjoy.
About the Book
Even knee-deep in planning her wedding, Faith Hunter finds herself distracted by the town scrapbook she was commissioned to create. Eden’s oldest mystery, the founding family’s exodus nearly a hundred years ago, remains unsolved. When a search through the family’s abandoned mansion leads to the uncovering of bones on the property and ex-boyfriend Steve Davis announces a surprise heir has staked a claim, Faith is determined to dig up the truth left behind.
Meanwhile, family friend Wyatt Buford asks Faith to look into his deadbeat father’s disappearing act and his connection to the murder. Her quest for answers unearths secrets past and present that some would prefer stay buried at any cost. Faith’s resolve to present the facts and nothing but about Eden’s history could lead to her own future being cut short.
“Faith Hunter is a delightful amateur sleuth and the quirky characters that inhabit the town of Eden are the perfect complement to her overly inquisitive ways.” – Jenn McKinlay, New York Times Bestselling Author of Copy Cap Murder
Part of the Henery Press Mystery Series Collection, if you like one, you’ll probably like them all.
Author Bio: The Faith Hunter Scrap This Mystery series brings together Christina Freeburn’s love of mysteries, scrapbooking, and West Virginia. When not writing or reading, she can be found in her scrapbook room or at a crop. Alas, none of the real-life crops have had a sexy male prosecutor or a handsome police officer attending. Christina served in the JAG Corps of the US Army and has also worked as a paralegal, librarian, and church secretary. She lives in West Virginia with her husband, children, a dog, and a rarely seen cat except by those who are afraid or allergic to felines.
*NSYNC Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Alan Alexander Milne is probably best known for the creation of Winnie the Pooh and friends. But AA Milne was also a playwright, screen writer and novelist. Even 60 years after his death, he is a mystery to many. He died resentful because he was only known as a ‘whimsical’ children’s author. His son, Christopher Robin, felt exploited, even though the stories were a combination of things that happened to Christopher, things that happened during AA Milne’s childhood and other things that were made up. But Christopher was always picked on about being the “real” Christopher Robin. He ended up marrying his first cousin which led to them having a handicapped child – their daughter, Clare, had Cerebral Palsy. Alan married Daphne and they slept in separate rooms. Many believe Daphne to be ‘anti sex’. Most of Christopher’s time was spent with a nanny growing up. It is also said that the home they lived in was cursed – it was sold to Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, who ended up found dead in the pool.
Stop coding is all about how to become an automated test engineer with no coding knowledge needed. I found this to be interesting since what he is looking to replace is what I had been doing at work, so it was interesting to me and also scary – how easily we could all be replaced! It is easier to retest quickly when things are automated so it saves time and money. In addition to talking about 
Alou is about baseball great Felipe Alou in his own words. The intro to the book is by none other than Pedro Martinez. Felipe and 2 of his brothers (Matty and Jesus) were the only 3 brothers in the major leagues to share an outfield. Felipe is often credited as the first Dominican to reach the major leagues, but he says that it was Ozzie Virgil Sr who did it before him. The book is interesting and has a lot of great stories and facts about Felipe and his family. His last name is actually not Alou, but Rojas. He never faced a lefty pitcher until he was a professional baseball player because in the Dominican Republic being left handed was considered a curse so they were all right handed. (Or if they weren’t, tried to be.) He has a 4th brother, Juan, who stayed home to protect his home in the Dominican Republic and ended up becoming a pretty great civil engineer. There is a lot of information about Felipe’s family as well – he has 11 children and has been married 4 times. Tragically one of his sons died while he was diving into a pool by breaking his neck and Felipe talks about what it was like to find out about that while he was playing ball and having to fly straight home to the funeral from a game. This was a really interesting read and I enjoyed it.
This is an adorable book with paper dolls to cut out of the Royal couple – Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. There is a body for Harry and a body for Meghan and then throughout the book there are outfits that the couple has been seen wearing before as well as where they had worn them. At the end of the book there is some royal trivia and information about the couple. This is a really cute idea, but I hope that a new version comes out after the wedding with their wedding outfits! That would just be grand, wouldn’t it?
The version of Make It Easy, Cupcake, I got to review was just a snippet of some of the pages of the full book, so I haven’t gotten to see ALL the designs that are featured in this book but the ones that I did see were totally awesome. The book is full of fun cupcake ideas – the one that I liked the most was a BBQ which featured baked beans, hot dogs and burgers – all as cupcakes! Totally adorable and the book has easy step by step instructions as well as photos of the steps so you can easily follow along and make your own awesome cupcakes, easy! I also liked the crab cupcake.. I am not much of a baker or a decorator but I am just saying if you want to make me happy for my birthday some hot dog cupcakes and crab cupcakes are probably the way to go…
I braced myself before opening up this book filled with 101 new “dad jokes”. The book is illustrated so that it actually looks like Dads are telling the jokes. I think that most of these will make you chuckle – but I’m not saying if they will because you think they are funny or because they are just that bad…
My Favorite Sport: Baseball, is a short book about the game of Baseball. First it talks a bit about what baseball is and how the game works. At the end of each section is a “Do You Remember” with a question about something that you learned from what you just read. There is also a glossary with some of the terms that you should know if you want to play and learn about baseball. This is a nice easy read for a kid who is just learning to read and loves sports.