Lee Winter is an expert when it comes to ice queens, but in Vengeance Planning for Amateurs she shows she can also step out of her usual weighty tales and right into romantic comedy with the best of them. The story pairs Olivia Roberts, a sweet pushover of a woman who runs her own muffin baking company, with Margaret Blackwood, an isolated ice queen and former academic who owns the bookstore where Olivia runs a weekly book club. 

 

Olivia is smart but naive, and her exes have taken advantage of her kindness. When an incident happens and her latest ex steals the taxidermied penguin that belonged to her nana, she decides she’s had enough and posts a notice for a henchperson to assist her in exacting revenge on said exes. She gets a few applicants, including Margaret, the bookstore’s owner. They embark on a series of hilarious hijinks along with some quirky side folks, with a lot of character development for the two leading ladies along the way as Olivia learns to stand up for herself and Margaret begins to open up. It’s a really funny story but there are some serious elements here, and it’s all handled beautifully with Winter’s deft hand. I listened to the Audiobook and highly recommend it, Cat Gould was an excellent narrator.