book review, cozy crime, D.B. Borton, Mystery, Novels

Eleven Hours to Murder by D.B. Borton

November 10, 2025 Melanie Leave a comment

Today on Celtic Connexions, I’m reviewing Eleven Hours to Murder by D.B. Borton.

A cold case from the Swinging Sixties. A sassy senior sleuth. If Cat Caliban’s not your favorite crime-solving grandma, you just haven’t met her yet.

Meet Cat Caliban: former housewife, widow, cat lady — and private eye in training. Who said fifty-something was too old to start again?

But if Cat’s not old, the case that lands on her desk sure is. Back in the summer of ’69, rebellious teen Leila Perle secretly boarded a bus to Woodstock, and never came home.

What really happened at the legendary music festival — if the missing girl even made it there at all?

Some say that if you can remember the Sixties, you weren’t there. But Cat’s certain someone from the hazy, drug-addled era of peace, love and rock ‘n’ roll remembers exactly what happened to the missing music-lover.

And they’ll do anything to keep their terrible secret buried.

ELEVEN HOURS TO MURDER — a whip-smart, witty mystery featuring Cincinnati’s sharpest tongued sleuth, three cats, one retired Black cop friend with a very unruly beagle, and a case where justice is long overdue.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243115029-eleven-hours-to-murder-a-brand-new-gripping-and-witty-cozy-murder-myster

Purchase Link: https://mybook.to/elevenhours-zbtbuy link(s)

My Review

This is the first book by D.B. Borton that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. It was well-written, and I loved the characters of Cat and Moses, as well as their friends. This is the eleventh book in the series, but I didn’t need to read any of the previous ones in order for this one to make sense to me.

The premise of the book is that a teenage girl goes off to Woodstock in August 1969 and never returns home. Cat and Moses (private detectives) are hired by the girl’s family to investigate the cold case.

I can’t tell you anymore because that would create a. spoiler and we don’t want that. If you want to know more, you’ll have to purchase the book.

About the Author

D. B. Borton is the author of two mystery series—the Cat Caliban series and the Gilda Liberty series —as well as the standalone mystery novels Smoke and Bayou City Burning and the humorous science fiction novel Second Coming.

In graduate school, Borton converted a lifetime of passionate reading and late-night movie-watching into a doctorate in English. She is Professor Emeritus of English at Ohio Wesleyan University.

Borton currently lives with Zoe the cat in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she gardens, practices aikido, a martial art, and, of course, reads.

Facebook	https://www.facebook.com/dbborton
Website	https://dbborton.com/

Book Promo, Book Spotlight, contemporary romance, contemporary women's fiction, Novels, Sharon Black

Love like the (Real) Reel thing by Sharon Black

November 7, 2025 Melanie 3 Comments

I can’t believe how much time has gone by since Sharon Black visited Celtic Connexions. I would have been ten years ago on St. Patrick’s Day. You can read that post here.

Reel Thing

BLURB FOR LOVE LIKE THE REAL REEL THING

When Hollywood comes to Mayo’s Linford Castle in the west of Ireland to make a romantic comedy, hotel group marketing manager Jess Bradley is asked to troubleshoot.

Keen to escape a failed relationship with colleague Adam Rourke, Jess jumps at the chance to decamp to the country for six weeks. And when charming local resident Robert asks her out, it seems she’s finally moving forward with her life.

When a series of mishaps start to unfold at Linford – threatening the outcome of the movie and the reputation of the hotel – Jess must manage the situation as best she can.

Just as she’s starting to get a handle on it all, however, Adam shows up – and to Jess’s shock it appears that he’s moved on too.

But when one of the stars of the movie goes missing, it seems Jess must decide exactly who she can trust to help her get everything back on track – and maybe find her own happy ending in the process.

Love like the Real Reel Thing is published on November 5, 2025 by Poolbeg Books.

It is available as a Kindle/print copy from Amazon and at sharonblackwriter.ie.

About Sharon Black

Reel Thing

A recovered journalist, Sharon Black is a member of Writing.ie, Writers Ink and the Romantic Novelists Association. She is also a Curtis Brown Creative alumna and was long-listed for the 2023 Retreat West ‘Opening Lines’ Competition. She has published short stories in women’s magazines.

When she’s not writing, she catches up with family and friends and drinks a lot of coffee. She is a grateful member of a long-running book club in her village, where books and wine are consumed in roughly equal amounts. She loves theatre, old Hollywood films, romantic comedies and live stand-up comedy.

In recent years, she has developed a close relationship with Google Maps, thanks to her appalling sense of direction. She is highly allergic to shopping. Except for bag shopping. She lives in Dublin with her husband and the youngest of her grown-up family.

Love like the (Real) Reel Thing is her third novel and can happily be read as a standalone or as a sequel to The Last Saturday in July.
To find out more about Sharon, visit her website at sharonblackwriter.ie.

General

Re-Connections by Miriam Drori #RECONNECTIONS

November 3, 2025 Melanie 3 Comments

Today on Celtic Connexions, I’m sharing two excerpts from Miriam Drori’s collection of short stories, Re-Connections.

Blurb

Why are we attracted to certain individuals and repelled by others? Why do we fall out of contact with former friends, or fall out with them altogether? Why do we crave friendship?

The answers to these questions are many and varied, and some of them reveal themselves in the stories of this collection. Not all these connections desire to lead to friendship; some are business-related. Yet, even those connections work better with friendly comments and gestures. What happens to people who struggle with such social norms? Are they destined to remain friendless?

Without realising it, Miriam Drori has been interested in this topic for many years. That’s evident in the fact that these tales were written throughout her writing career. Some of them are completely or partly autobiographical, while others are purely fictional. Which ones are which is a question she declines to answer.

Buy Link

AMAZON –https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FN7MJHRN

Excerpts

This excerpt, from the story called “One Thing Leads to Another”, shows how the narrator’s troubles began.

It was great to be able to escape the nest for a while and go off to uni. I had a whale of a time from morning to night – well, mostly night and hardly any mornings. I missed most of my lectures and flunked my exams. They made me take the first year again. I fully intended to tell Mum and Dad about that. It was just that I wanted to do it in my own time and not when they came to take me home for the vacs, and in front of my mates – even though my mates knew.

“How did your exams go?” Mum asked as I heaved my case into the car boot.

“I passed with flying colours,” I said, laughing.

The mates who’d gathered round laughed, too. Heartily. I thought even Mum would understand the joke.

When we arrived home, I took the case upstairs and unpacked. And I decided I’d better let her know the worst. As I came downstairs, I realised I was too late. Mum was on the phone. I heard her say, “Oh yes. He passed with flying colours. He told me so today.”

This excerpt is from the story called “Who I Am”. A strange woman is standing on the narrator’s doorstep.

“Are you Sarah Levy?” she asked in English, pronouncing Sarah the British way to rhyme with airer.

“Yes…”

The woman smiled. “I’m Dina, your sister.” She spread out her arms as if she expected me to release the chain and hug her. A long-forgotten letter came to mind. At the time, I’d torn it up, never expecting the writer to turn up in person.

“I’m sorry, but you’ve made a mistake. I don’t have a sister.” I expected her to look despondent, especially after having dragged that body up four floors. There are advantages and disadvantages to having a common name. It’s easy to hide behind it. Mistaken identity is one of the disadvantages.

The woman didn’t look despondent. Her frown and partly open mouth reflected shock. “You mean they didn’t tell you?”

About Miriam

Miriam

Miriam Drori, author, editor and social anxiety warrior, worked as a computer programmer and a technical writer before turning her attention to full-time writing. Her novels and short stories cover several genres, including crime, romance and uplit. She has also written a non-fiction book about social anxiety. Her short stories have appeared in various anthologies and several now form a new collection, called Re-Connections.

Born and raised in London, Miriam now lives in Tel Aviv having moved from Jerusalem, where the cosy crime mysteries are set. She has travelled widely, putting her discoveries to good use as settings in her writing. Her characters are not based on real people, but rather are formed from an amalgam of the many and varied individuals who have embellished her life.

When not writing, Miriam enjoys reading, hiking, biking, dancing and touring.