Hanky Panky (A Liberty Heights Novel) by Elle Druskin

Kaboom! A gas leak destroys Dana Fremder’s apartment and business in Brooklyn. With nowhere to go, Dana runs straight to best friend Hayley in Liberty Heights where a gunman is running loose. Or so Dana thinks. Voice over actor Hank Axelrod is loaded with sound effects that pop, whine, and screech, irritating Dana’s overstretched nerves. Too bad for Hank and Dana, that Hank’s Grandma Baumgart takes a joyride on a skateboard. Grandma has a concussion and an unshakable conviction that Hank and Dana are married. Nobody wants to upset Grandma. What can Hank and Dana do?

If you follow this blog and have taken my suggestion and read the first two Liberty Heights novels, you’re probably already in love with this crazy town and you’ll gobble up Hanky Panky hooting at the antics of the denizens of Liberty Heights, New Jersey the way I did.  You’ll hold your breath while the men of the town search through a blizzard for the most reluctant groom ever; laugh at the Sadie Hawkins Day steeple chase (so the single ladies can catch husbands, of course); and shed a tear for Phoebe Wilson.  She's turning five, and she lost her daddy in Iraq.  And only Liberty Heights would hold a Groundhog Day celebration using a meerkat to predict six more weeks of winter.  Of course, there’s Grandma Baumgart and her insistence that Dana and Hank are married.  Aside from that and a persistent headache that doesn’t seem to stop her from doing anything else, she seems to have recovered quite nicely from her concussion.  She even wants to ride on the scooter Phoebe Wilson got for her birthday, not that Hank or Dana want to let her—goodness only knows what delusion she’d come up with if she bumped her head again.

It’s Christmas Day as I write this and I told myself I wasn’t going to work today.  But I’m still chuckling as I write review and I had to get it down.  Ms. Druskin has pulled off something few writers can manage.  As this series goes on, it gets funnier.  I wish it was a television series so I could spend every week in Liberty Heights.  It’s such a great place to get away to.  Much as I love Chicago, it almost makes me wish I was a Jersey Girl.  And I’ve never heard of anything good coming out of Jersey before.  Ms. Druskin, you’ve rescued the reputation of a whole state.

Length:  193 Pages

Price:  $5.50

Buy Link:  https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=626&category_id=8&manufacturer_id=138&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

You’ll notice I always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left.  So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive.  Plug the USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory.  I actually download my books using “Save As” to a “Books” file I created on my computer that’s sorted by my publisher, friends, and books “to review,” and then transfer them to my Kindle from there.  That way, if there’s a glitch with my Kindle, the books are on my computer.  Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting.  RIW