by Cynthia Chow
& Julie Mulhern

Up this week we have a review of the latest from Julie Mulhern, Fields’ Guide to Dirty Money. We also have an interesting guest post by Julie about armchair travel. Details at the end of the post on how to enter to win either a signed print copy of the book or a Kindle ebook copy, and a link to order it from Amazon.

Fields’ Guide to Dirty Money A Poppy Fields Adventures By Julie Mulhern
Review by Cynthia Chow

Former teen celebrity and current secret-spy Poppy Fields may have risked life and limb on missions through Paris, New Orleans, and Egypt, but it’s her current one that may finally push her over the edge. Poppy’s uber-famous, narcissistic mother Chariss Carlton is getting married (again), and she is demanding that her Maid-of-Honor daughter fulfill her assigned duties by finding the perfect site for her wedding shower. The challenge is not just that the destination wedding is on Grand Cayman, but that Poppy happens to witness a murder at one of the selected restaurants. That the victim happened to be an undercover agent on assignment for her own boss means that Poppy will have to dodge a near-unstoppable and unrecognizable assassin while also planning the perfect wedding shower, one that is preferably not covered in blood.

Being called in to action does at least mean that Poppy will be assisted by her own personal Thor, fellow agent and boyfriend Mark Stone. Avoiding murder attempts and unraveling a money laundering scheme will be a welcome relief from the escalating demands of her mother, especially when the beleaguered wedding planner goes missing. While understandable – Poppy herself must find a chef willing to create a Whole30, Paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free menu for guests who most likely won’t eat – Harmony’s disappearance does seem more likely a nefarious kidnapping. Torn between Chariss’s fury if her dream of a perfect wedding is in any way dimmed and an international spy renowned for his perfect kill-rate, Poppy isn’t sure which fate would be worse.

Adventure, romance, international intrigue, and Hollywood celebrities all collide in this sixth of an increasingly exotic romp of a series. Although somewhat distracted by her outrageously wealthy fiancé Yurgi Prokorhov, Chariss continues to plague her daughter with relentless — but for readers always hilarious — texts of increasingly panicked demands. Their relationship has slowly transformed as Poppy has learned to separate from her mother’s celebrity while accepting her mother’s need for it. The level of spy intrigue and action has increased as Poppy uses her skills as a teen actress celebutante to infiltrate suspects and put together the pieces of complex puzzles. Poppy, her loyal friends, and international espionage make this the ultimate vicarious escape into a world of celebrities, billionaires, and lethal spies.

Cynthia Chow is the branch manager of Kaneohe Public Library on the island of Oahu. She balances a librarian lifestyle of cardigans and hair buns with a passion for motorcycle riding and regrettable tattoos (sorry, Mom).

Armchair Travel
by Julie Mulhern

As I write this, the weather forecasters are promising a combination of snow, freezing rain, and sleet. The local news breathlessly promises power outages. I’d rather be almost anywhere else.

2020 was The Year Of No Travel. Not for business. Not for pleasure. It was also the year I walked Seven Mile Beach on Grand Cayman, explored a souk in Cairo, and sailed the Nile.

Julia Mulhern

Writing a series about a woman who travels the world means I visit places via YouTube. Truth is I’ve become a vlog fan. There’s the dapper Brit who walks London, points out sites, and adds fascinating bits of history. There are the travelers (far too many) who spend more time filming their trips than enjoying them. There’s the shopper who filmed her way through Galeries Lafayette in Paris.

I take bits of these videos and weave them into my fiction. When Poppy Fields, my intrepid heroine, shops for a lantern in the Khan el-Khalili bazar, it’s because the store appealed to me when I saw it in a video.

Poppy’s latest adventure took her to Grand Cayman. Tropical islands – even tropical islands with more businesses than residents – are easy. Turquoise water, balmy breezes, palm trees. That said, I had a wonderful time looking at real estate listings for multi-million dollar homes.

Poppy’s adventures – she’s been to Mexico, Paris, New Orleans, London, Egypt, Grand Cayman, and will soon visit Greece – marry travel, adventure, and humor. My hope is that armchair travelers will gasp and chuckle and feel as if they’d traveled with her.

To enter to win either a signed print copy or a Kindle ebook copy of Fields’ Guide to Dirty Money, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “fields,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen January 16, 2021. U.S. residents only and you must be 18 or older to enter. If you are entering via email please include you mailing address in case you win, it will be deleted after the contest. You can read our privacy statement here if you like. BE AWARE THAT IT WILL TAKE LONGER THAN USUAL FOR WINNERS TO GET THEIR BOOKS DUE TO THE CURRENT CRISIS AND BE SURE TO STATE IF YOU WANT PRINT OR EBOOK.

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Julie Mulhern is the USA Today bestselling author of The Country Club Murders and the Poppy Fields Adventures. She is a Kansas City native who grew up on a steady diet of Agatha Christie. She spends her spare time whipping up gourmet meals for her family, working out at the gym and finding new ways to keep her house spotlessly clean–and she’s got an active imagination. Truth is–she’s an expert at calling for take-out, she grumbles about walking the dog and the dust bunnies under the bed have grown into dust lions.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.