Audiobook – Sandy's Book a Day Blog

Watching what I’m reading . . .

Happy Sunday afternoon! We’ve had a very busy day with having Luke to stay. We came home from Hamilton yesterday after hockey. Luke got player of the day which he was very excited about. We stuck around afterwards for a while and helped with the fundraising efforts which pays for their uniforms and fees to the hockey grounds. It was nice to meet and chat with some of Luke’s friends’ parents too. Luke and I stayed up a little later than usual and watched Dr Doolittle. I think I enjoyed it more than he did.🤣🤣This morning he and I walked down to the local high school (not far) and played tennis on the courts and then Luke practiced his ball handling skills with his hockey stick while I hit the tennis ball against the wall. This afternoon we have been picking mandarins for Luke to sell for Lego money.

He has also written his first book review (see my earlier post – Kelpie Chaos) which has been added onto mine.

I haven’t had much time to read since we left for hockey yesterday morning. I was so tired last night, my eyes closed the moment my head hit the pillow and Luke was up and about super-early this morning so there was no lying in bed with my books!

So, what am I currently reading? . . . A New Dawn at Owl’s Lodge by Jessica Redland is my current ARC read. I have read a few books by this author now and they never fail to enchant me.

Could one chance meeting change your life forever?

Zara is at a crossroads in life. While she adores her job as a producer’s assistant working on hit TV shows, travelling around the country means she doesn’t truly feel that she has a home. With a fractured relationship with her family and unrequited love weighing heavily on her heart, she is torn about what her next step in life should be…

Snowy is hiding from the world. He’s devoted his life to home schooling his young son and caring for sick owls at his home, Owl’s Lodge, deep in the Yorkshire Wolds countryside. While he’s passionate about both, it’s a lonely existence and he’s starting to question his decisions. But how do you step back into a world you’ve pushed away for years…?

When Zara brings an injured owl to Owl’s Lodge, its frosty, reclusive owner is far from welcoming. Despite hostilities, there’s a connection that neither could ever have prepared themselves for. As they discover a shared passion, a new friendship blossoms, but both Zara and Snowy are used to shutting people out.

Can they both find the courage to open up and the strength to move on from their pasts? And what could this mean for their future happiness?

My current backlist book is from my 2019 ARC backlog – All That’s Bright and Gone by Eliza Nellums. It is told from the POV of a six year old girl.

I know my brother is dead. But sometimes Mama gets confused.

Six-year-old Aoife knows better than to talk to people no one else can see, like her best friend Teddy who her mother says is invisible. He’s not, but Mama says it’s rude anyways. So when Mama starts talking to Aoife’s older brother Theo, Aoife is surprised. And when she stops the car in the middle of an intersection, crying and screaming, Aoife gets a bad feeling–because even if they don’t talk about it, everyone knows Theo died a long time ago. He was murdered.

Eventually, Aoife is taken home by her Uncle Donny who says he’ll stay with her until Mama comes home from the hospital, but Aoife doesn’t buy it. The only way to bring Mama home is to find out what really happened to Theo. Even with Teddy by her side, there’s a lot about the grown-up world that Aoife doesn’t understand, but if Aoife doesn’t help her family, who will?

And my read for pleasure is The Shelley Bay Ladies Swimming Society by Sophie Green. I read my first book by this author a few weeks back and loved it so picked this up when I was in the library during the week.

It’s 1982 in Australia. THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER is a box office hit and Paul Hogan is on the TV. In a seaside suburb, housewife Theresa takes up swimming. She wants to get fit; she also wants a few precious minutes to herself. So at sunrise each day she strikes out past the waves. From the same beach, the widowed Marie swims. With her husband gone, bathing is the one constant in her new life. After finding herself in a desperate situation, 25-year-old Leanne only has herself to rely on. She became a nurse to help others, even as she resists help herself. Elaine has recently moved from England. Far from home and without her adult sons, her closest friend is a gin bottle. In the waters of Shelly Bay, these four women find each other. They will survive bluebottle stings and heartbreak; they will laugh so hard they swallow water, and they will plunge their tears into the ocean’s salt. They will find solace and companionship and learn that love takes many forms. Most of all, they will cherish their friendship, each and every day.

I have six books to read for review this week – The Art of Murder by Fiona Walker is the first.

Welcome to the beautiful English village of Inkbury. Tucked deep in the North Wessex Downs, its only claim to fame is the picturesque riverside that once appeared in a Richard Curtis movie. That is, until the murder…

Former stand-up comic Juno Mulligan has been suffering a serious sense-of-humour failure. Not only has she lost the love of her life, but she’s having to relocate to the (admittedly idyllic) village of Inkbury to watch out for her elderly mother, who she’s genuinely worried might be marrying a wife-killer.

She hopes that her old friend, disgraced-journalist-turned-novelist Phoebe Fredericks can help her crack the case of whether her mother’s perma-tanned, iceberg-smiled, three-times-a-widower fiancé is hiding a murderous past.

But before they have a chance, the local art dealer washes up distinctly dead in the village’s famous river. His lover is in the frame, but Juno and Phoebe suspect that there is a deeper secret… One that relates to Phoebe’s own past and Juno’s present.

Will the unofficial Village Detective Agency solve the mystery before the killer strikes again? In sleepy Inkbury, as they soon discover, living one’s best midlife can be murder.

The Sisters of Blue Mountain Beach by Kalan Chapman Lloyd, a new-to-me author.

The Sisters of Blue Mountain Beach is a gripping tale revolving around the lives of three remarkable women who suddenly go missing in the devastating aftermath of a ferocious hurricane on Florida’s renowned 30A.

Arden, the youngest, finds herself at a crossroads in her life, grappling with difficult decisions and a sense of longing for something more. Cilla, newly retired and ready to start anew, has recently received a devastating diagnosis of cancer, causing her to confront her mortality and the urgency to live each day to its fullest. Mary Fran, the oldest, is mourning the loss of her beloved husband and the secrets he left behind, wondering if there is more life for her in a world that feels tilted on its axis.

As they navigate their individual struggles, they find solace in each other’s company, sharing memories, heated arguments, and countless meals together amidst the serene backdrop of Blue Mountain Beach. The emerald waters of the Gulf of Mexico serve as a poignant reminder of the beauty and fragility of life.

As the search for the missing women intensifies, the bonds between Arden, Cilla, and Mary Fran become stronger than ever. With each passing day, they find hope, in and with each other. But as secrets are uncovered and hidden truths emerge, the sisters’ lives are forever altered.

In the Midnight Rain by Barbara O’Neill

Biographer Ellie Connor is in Gideon, Texas, to research blues singer Mabel Beauvais who, on the verge of fame, mysteriously disappeared more than forty years ago. Gideon holds another mystery for Ellie. It’s the truth about her parents—a restless mother who died young and a father she never knew. They are an unsettled piece of Ellie’s own past. Somewhere in this town is the answer to both of her quests.

No one is more accommodating than charismatic Laurence “Blue” Reynard, a local with deep roots in Gideon. Sexy and charming, he’s also getting under Ellie’s skin like a smooth jazz rhythm. Yet beneath his seductive facade is a soul damaged by loss. Tragic, wanting, and beautiful. So wrong for a woman just passing through town. If only his passion and vulnerability weren’t so irresistible.

As Ellie pieces together Mabel’s puzzling life and that of her father, Blue takes the surprising journey with her. What then for Ellie? Follow her instincts and say goodbye, or follow her heart?

Still Waters by Matt Goldman, an author I read for the first time last year.

If you’re reading this email, I am dead. I know this will sound strange, but someone has been trying to kill me.

Liv and Gabe Ahlstrom are estranged siblings who haven’t seen each other in years, but that’s about to change when they receive a rare call from their older brother’s wife. “Mack is dead,” she says. “He died of a seizure.” Five minutes after they hang up, Liv and Gabe each receive a scheduled email from their dead brother, claiming that he was murdered.

The siblings return to their family run resort in the Northwoods of Minnesota to investigate Mack’s claims, but Leech Lake has more in store for them than either could imagine. Drawn into a tangled web of lies and betrayal that spans decades, they put their lives on the line to unravel the truth about their brother, their parents, themselves, and the small town in which they grew up. After all, no one can keep a secret in a small town, but someone in Leech Lake is willing to kill for the truth to stay buried.

The Charmed Friends of Trove Isle by new-to-me author Annie Rains.

Ten years after she left her hometown of Trove Isle, NC, Melody Palmer is back to receive an unexpected inheritance—her great aunt’s thrift store, Hidden Treasures. There, in a glass case beneath the register, Melody spies the long-lost charm bracelet she shared with her high school friends, Liz and Bri, and her younger sister, Alyssa. After a devastating prom night accident, it disappeared, and the girls’ friendship evaporated with it. Slipping the bracelet on her arm for safekeeping, Melody soon finds herself crossing paths with her former friends once more.

While Melody fled, Liz has stayed in Trove Isle, helping with her parents’ business instead of pursuing her photography goals. Guilt still weighs on her after that fateful night when they lost Alyssa. For Bri, the consequences were even more stark. After spiraling into self-destruction, Bri served four years in a women’s state prison and is about to be released—but can Trove Isle ever feel like home again?

Yet despite everything that’s changed, the promise that the bracelet once held—of adventures, achievements, love, and lifelong friendship—hasn’t quite faded. And together, they might yet find a way to reconcile their pasts and futures, one charm at a time . . .

and, finally, The Blood Promise by another new-to-me author, Liz Mistry. (more birds on the cover! – I feel haunted.)

A deadly gift

Imogen Clark wakes up on her 16th birthday to find her parents dead at the breakfast table, along with a message from their killer.

A twist of fate

Detectives Jazzy Solanki and Annie McQueen join the investigation, but the more they discover, the more Jazzy suspects that the killing is a twisted message for her. Jazzy shares the same birthday as Imogen, and believes that this is more than a coincidence.

A race to catch a killer

When Jazzy discovers the connection between the killer and the stalker who has been following her for years, she is forced to confront the dark past she was desperate to keep hidden. She must stop at nothing to solve the case, before she becomes the next victim…

Once again, I doubt very much that I will get all these read but, as usual, I will do my very best.

I have received this email twice from Amazon in the past week: <i>An initial warning has been sent to you. Because of your repeated violation of our Community Guidelines we’ve removed your ability to participate in Community features. </i>

They have provided an email address to contact them re their decision, so twice I have emailed them asking for clarification on:

Precisely what guideline/s I have violated; and
When I might be permitted to commence posting my reviews again.

No reply to date and they have actually REMOVED all my reviews. Has this happened to anyone else? Any tips on how to deal with it?

We have quite a social week coming up with two friends having BIG milestone birthdays and throwing parties to celebrate. So next weekend might be a bit lean on reading too!

Happy reading!💕📚

Watching what I’m reading . . .

HELP! I am completely lost with the changes to this site . . . Where has everyone gone? I can’t find the posts of everyone I follow. I miss you! This is not fun! Put it back to how it was, WordPress, please . . .

Meanwhile if you have managed to navigate the new system, please pass on some tips, ’cause I am just spinning around in circles going nowhere!

Currently I am reading The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne Du Maurier. The Hitchcock movie sure is different than Du Maurier’s story and sorry, Mr Hitchcock, but I greatly prefer the original story to your screenplay. It’s definitely creepier.

‘How long he fought with them in the darkness he could not tell, but at last the beating of the wings about him lessened and then withdrew . . . ‘

A classic of alienation and horror, ‘The Birds’ was immortalised by Hitchcock in his celebrated film. The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man’s sense of dominance over the natural world. The mountain paradise of ‘Monte Verità’ promises immortality, but at a terrible price; a neglected wife haunts her husband in the form of an apple tree; a professional photographer steps out from behind the camera and into his subject’s life; a date with a cinema usherette leads to a walk in the cemetery; and a jealous father finds a remedy when three’s a crowd . . .

I am listening to a title from my 2019 backlist, We Hope for Better Things written by Erin Bartels and narrated by Steina Neilson. This is a powerful debut novel telling the story of three generations of Balsam women, told against the backdrop of racism and violence in America.

When Detroit Free Press reporter Elizabeth Balsam meets James Rich, his strange request–that she look up a relative she didn’t know she had in order to deliver an old camera and a box of photos–seems like it isn’t worth her time. But when she loses her job after a botched investigation, she suddenly finds herself with nothing but time.

At her great-aunt’s 150-year-old farmhouse north of Detroit, Elizabeth uncovers a series of mysterious items, locked doors, and hidden graves. As she searches for answers to the riddles around her, the remarkable stories of two women who lived in this very house emerge as testaments to love, resilience, and courage in the face of war, racism, and misunderstanding. And as Elizabeth soon discovers, the past is never as past as we might like to think.

And my pleasure read this week is Hannah Richell’s The Search Party. I have read and loved everything this author has written.

A spellbinding locked-room mystery about a glamping trip gone horribly wrong when a powerful storm leaves the participants stranded and forced to confront long-held secrets and a shocking disappearance.

Max and Annie Kingsley have left the London rat race with their twelve-year-old son to set up a glamping site in the wilds of Cornwall. Eager for a dry run ahead of their opening, they invite three old university friends and their families for a long-needed reunion. But the festivities soon go awry as tensions arise between the children (and subsequently their parents), explosive secrets come to light, and a sudden storm moves in, cutting them off from help as one in the group disappears.

Moving between the police investigation, a hospital room, and the catastrophic weekend, The Search Party is a propulsive and twisty destination thriller about the tenuous bonds of friendship and the lengths parents will go to protect their children.

I must admit to being a little creeped out by the birds appearing on the cover of two out of three books that I am currently reading. Don’t laugh, but even chickens terrify me. The only good place for them is in the oven.

This week I have a total of five ARCs to read for review. I am very much looking forward to getting into Behind a Closed Door by J.D. Barker.

Would you kill a total stranger to save someone you love?

Sugar & Spice is the latest app craze taking the world by storm, but for Abby and Brendan Hollander, downloading it leads to a dangerous game of life and death. When the app assigns them a series of increasingly taboo tasks, they soon find themselves caught up in a twisted web of seduction and violence.

Old Girls Behaving Badly by Kate Galley will, I believe, be the perfect antidote to J.D. Barker’s dark read.

Something old, something new, something stolen…?

Gina Knight is looking forward to the prospect of retirement with her husband of forty-three years. Until, to her surprise, said husband decides he needs to ‘find himself’ – alone – and disappears to Santa Fe, leaving a Dear John letter in his wake.

Now Gina needs a new role in life, not to mention somewhere to live, so she applies for the position of Companion to elderly Dorothy Reed. At eighty-nine, ‘Dot’ needs someone to help her around the house – or at least, her family seems to think so. Her companion’s first role would be to accompany Dot for a week-long extravagant wedding party.

But when Georgina arrives at the large Norfolk estate where the wedding will take place, she quickly discovers Dot has an ulterior motive for hiring her. While the other guests are busy sipping champagne and playing croquet, Dot needs Georgina to help her solve a mystery – about a missing painting, which she believes is hidden somewhere in the house.

Because, after all, who would suspect two old ladies of getting up to mischief?

We Were the Universe by Kimberley King Parsons will be my next read. I really enjoyed Black Light by this author.

The trip was supposed to be fun. When Kit’s best friend gets dumped by his boyfriend, he begs her to ditch her family responsibilities for an idyllic weekend in the Montana mountains. They’ll soak in hot springs, then sneak a vape into a dive bar and drink too much, like old times. Instead, their getaway only reminds Kit of everything she’s lost lately: her wildness, her independence, and—most heartbreaking of all—her sister, Julie, who died a few years ago.

When she returns home to the Dallas suburbs, Kit tries to settle in to her routine—long afternoons spent caring for her irrepressible daughter, going on therapist-advised dates with her concerned husband, and reluctantly taking her mother’s phone calls. But in the secret recesses of Kit’s mind, she’s reminiscing about the band she used to be in—and how they’d go out to the desert after shows and drop acid. She’s imagining an impossible threesome with her kid’s pretty gymnastics teacher and the cool playground mom. Keyed into everything that might distract from her surfacing pain, Kit spirals. As her already thin boundaries between reality and fantasy blur, she begins to wonder: Is Julie really gone?

I have loved every book by Jessica Redland that I have read – thank you Carla @CarlaLovestoRead for introducing me to her books. Her latest is A New Dawn at Owl’s Lodge.

Could one chance meeting change your life forever?

Zara is at a crossroads in life. While she adores her job as a producer’s assistant working on hit TV shows, travelling around the country means she doesn’t truly feel that she has a home. With a fractured relationship with her family and unrequited love weighing heavily on her heart, she is torn about what her next step in life should be…

Snowy is hiding from the world. He’s devoted his life to home schooling his young son and caring for sick owls at his home, Owl’s Lodge, deep in the Yorkshire Wolds countryside. While he’s passionate about both, it’s a lonely existence and he’s starting to question his decisions. But how do you step back into a world you’ve pushed away for years…?

Can they both find the courage to open up and the strength to move on from their pasts? And what could this mean for their future happiness?

And finally for the week is a collection of short stories by Amor Towles, Table for Two.

Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.

The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages.

In Towles’s novel Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September 1938 with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood” describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows, and dive bars of Los Angeles.

Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting fiction.

Does anything there interest you? Or perhaps there’s something that’s already on your shelf . . . let me know.

Happy reading! 💕📚

When Cicadas Cry by Caroline Cleveland

EXCERPT: 2017 – I never meant to kill the first one. She was an accident – her own fault, for the most part. And that second one? She was a casualty of necessity. Wrong place, wrong time. But this one . . . this one was different.

ABOUT ‘WHEN CICADAS CRY’: Zach Stander, a lawyer with a past, and Addie Stone, his indomitable detective and lover, find themselves entangled in secrets, lies, and murder in a small Southern town.

A high-profile murder case— A white woman has been bludgeoned to death with an altar cross in a rural church on Cicada Road in Walterboro, South Carolina. Sam Jenkins, a Black man, is found covered in blood, kneeling over the body. In a state already roiling with racial tenson, this is not only a murder case, but a powder keg.

A haunting cold case— Two young women are murdered on quiet Edisto Beach, an hour southeast of Walterboro, and the killer disappears without a trace. Thirty-four years later the mystery remains unsolved. Could there be a connection to Stander’s case?

A killer who’s watching— Stander takes on Jenkins’s defense, but he’s up against a formidable solicitor with powerful allies. Worse, his client is hiding a bombshell secret. When Addie Stone reopens the cold case, she discovers more long-buried secrets in this small town. Would someone kill again to keep them?

MY THOUGHTS: When Cicadas Cry is an absolutely stunning debut novel. Atmosphere oozes from every page. The tension in the final chapters left me with half-moons dug into my palms. I feared for Addie’s life.

Caroline Cleveland is one of those rare authors who can hit the ball right out of the park in all three elements of the successful novel – characters, setting and atmosphere. It is impossible to read this without coming to care greatly for the characters: Zach, who really needs to figure out just what he wants; Eli, the accused Sam’s grandfather; Colleton Burns, Eli’s great friend and a respected retired lawyer; Sam who is overly economical with the truth to his own detriment; and Addie with the big heart, quick mind and an ambition Zach isn’t currently sharing. Honestly, there were times I wanted to give Zach a quick slap upside his head – he can be extremely obtuse!

Cleveland captures the racial tensions around the BLM movement and uses it to great advantage in when Cicadas Cry. We have the two opposing factions, each wanting their very own brand of justice, never mind whatever the truth happens to be.

Pressures arising from the case cause tension between Zach and Addie, causing Addie to volunteer to investigate a cold case from some thirty odd years earlier, never dreaming to do so might put her life in danger. Now, I thought I had this all figured out, but was I ever wrong! Yes, I’m eating Humble Pie (with lashings of ice cream 😉)

The story is told from multiple points of view, including that of the killer, as in the excerpt above. This added another layer of mystery and even more tension to the storyline.

When Cicadas Cry is a beautifully written novel that held me entranced from beginning to end. The author’s notes at the end are particularly interesting so don’t be tempted to skip them.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

#WhenCicadasCry #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Caroline Cleveland is the founding partner of the law firm Cleveland & Conley, LLC, where she represents private and public employers, including law enforcement. A native South Carolinian, she inevitably writes from a Southern perspective. She gravitates — both as a writer and a reader — toward mystery and suspense, and she cannot resist a character with a dark secret.

She lives in Charleston, South Carolina with her husband, David.

DISCLOSURE: I was privileged to receive both a digital and audio ARC for review. My thanks go to both Union Square & Co., a subsidiary of Sterling Publishing and Dreamscape Media respectively. The audiobook is ablely narrated by Adam Barr.

All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

What’s new on my bedside table? . . .

Do you have problems with deciding where contemporary fiction ends and historical begins? I certainly do. Is a book set in the 1960s or 70s historical fiction? It doesn’t feel like it to me, because I have lived through those times. But to someone in their 20s, it must seem so. Does anyone have any guidelines which may help iron out my confusion and indecision? I’d be grateful if you share them.

So here we are on hump day again. I have finally decided to stop fighting the greys in my hair and give in to them. My hair grows really fast, so two weeks after I have been to the hairdresser, I have a noticeable skunk stripe. It’s extremely frustrating, because I end up pulling my hair back into a ponytail all the time in an effort to make it less noticeable. Can you see Pete smirking? Because he says it doesn’t work. He’s probably right. I went to the hairdresser yesterday and Tracy put an ash blond through my hair to match my ‘skunk’ stripe as my husband so eloquently terms it, and I love it! I really don’t know why I was so anti going grey for so long!

So, what’s new on my bedside table this week?

I have had more book mail from Fremantle Press – just the one this time. Thank you, Clare and Adam. Right Way Down and Other Poems is an anthology of poems for children chosen by Rebecca M/ Newman and Sally Murphy, and illustrated by Briony Stewart. I have been dipping in and out at odd moments and am mostly loving what is offered. Expect my review soon.

Stand on your head with Sally Murphy.

Explode some dynamite with Cristy Burne.

Shoot some hoops with Cheryl Kickett-Tucker.

Grow a poettree with Meg McKinlay.

Curl up next to your cat with Amber Moffat.

Watch a bit of Stink-o-Vision with James Foley.

These and loads more poems by Australian poets are there to discover in Right Way Down. With striking illustrations by Briony Stewart, these poems will have you laughing, thinking, and playing with words – whichever way you read them.

And, oh dear! I have seven new ARC titles from NetGalley. How did that happen?

I’ll blame aliens . . . or computer hackers. Or alien computer hackers! (sorry, Luke and I have been working on a story together and I am very much still in stories-Luke-would-like mode.)

Death is No Excuse by David Baker jumped out at me because Pete and I are STILL procrastinating over our wills. I know, I know. But hopefully this book will have all the answers and get me motivated to finish everything.

What do Abraham Lincoln, Pablo Picasso, Aretha Franklin and Howard Hughes all have in common? They died without wills, left messy estates and tormented their surviving families who had to lawyer up and fight through the resulting nightmares for years.
Whether the reasons for this are death denial, penny-pinching or just too busy to be bothered, the majority of Americans will die in exactly the same predicament—no wills, no planning and nobody lined up to help their surviving families get what’s coming to them.
“Death Is No Excuse” is an insightful roadmap through the legal potholes of unplanned death and disability, offered by a veteran attorney who’s handled the worst of these cases for over forty years. It’s a plain-spoken, surprisingly entertaining guide to everything you need to know about planning for death or disability, as well as other calamities that can occur along the way, be they divorce, avoidable tax burdens or getting ripped off as you toddle into old age.
Told in twenty-three brisk chapters, each punctuated with a case history of life gone off the rails when people ignore the insights this book offers, “Death Is No Excuse” tells you how to avoid the pitfalls of un-planned death and disability.

Most of you will know by now that Stuart MacBride is one of my very favorite authors. His latest book is In a Place of Darkness and due for publication June 2024 (that’s so as all you other Stuart MacBride fans can preorder it.)

THE CLOCK IS TICKING…

Detective Constable Angus MacVicar has just landed his dream job – transferred out of uniform and assigned to Oldcastle’s biggest ongoing murder investigation: Operation Telegram, hunting the ‘Fortnight Killer’.

Every two weeks another couple is targeted. One victim is left at the scene, their corpse used as a twisted message board. The second body is never seen again.

This should be the perfect chance for Angus to prove himself, but instead of working on the investigation’s front line, he’s lumbered with the forensic psychologist from hell. A sarcastic know-it-all American, on loan from the FBI, who seems determined to alienate everyone while dragging Angus into a shadowy world of conspiracies, lies, and violence.

It’s been twelve days since the Fortnight Killer last struck, and the investigation’s running out of time. Angus’s shiny new job might just be the death of him…

I was excited to be approved for Amor Towles collection of short stories, Table For Two. That cover makes me think of Sean Connery as James Bond and his martini, ‘shaken not stirred’. Yes, I know it’s a wine glass and Sean Connery would probably have assassinated the bartender for such a transgression, but it’s the vibes the cover gives off.

Amor Towles

shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood.

Both this title and the next were a case of cover love! As winter is rapidly closing in (we had a frost last night and another expected tonight) I am drawn to anything summery. The End of Summer is by new-to-me author Charlotte Philby.

Your mother is not who you think she is…

When the phone rings in Judy McVee’s Languedoc farmhouse, she knows her past has finally caught up with her. It’s her daughter, frantically asking why there are journalists on her London doorstep making terrible accusations.

Decades earlier, Judy was a girl with big plans – to ensnare a rich husband, to make something of herself, to rise above her upbringing and leave behind past tragedies. Wealthy young widower Rory Harrington seemed the perfect target – but Judy hadn’t reckoned on actually falling in love with him.

Now her daughter Francesca, who has secrets of her own, must come to terms with the realisation that the mother she thought she knew wasn’t real. Where has Judy gone – and was anything she told her family true?

The Next Mrs Parrish by Liv Constantine is a sequel to The Last Mrs Parrish, which I am going to have to get from the library or pick up from a secondhand shop.

Amber Patterson Parrish has come a long way. Hard work and immaculate planning turned her from invisible wallflower to prominent socialite, but there have been bumps along the way. Less than a year after her husband Jackson’s tax-evasion scandal, Amber reigns supreme over the Bishops Harbor community. But with Jackson being released from prison, Amber’s free time – and money – is vanishing.

Meanwhile, Daphne Parrish left Bishops Harbor after her divorce from Jackson, swearing she would never go back. But when one of her daughters runs away from home, desperate to see her father, Daphne agrees to return for the summer. Jackson swears he’s a changed man, but Daphne knows all too well that he can’t be trusted.

When a ghost from Amber’s past emerges looking for revenge, these three find unlikely allies in one another. But who is playing who? When all is said and done, they’ll have to fight tooth and nail for everything they have left in this zero-sum game.

I have read several of Kate Quinns books with varying degrees of success, but after reading a few rave reviews of The Briar Club I knew I just had to have it and, what do you know, it was ‘read now’ for me! It was meant to be. 😉

Washington, D.C., 1950

Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, an all-female boarding house in the heart of the US capital, where secrets hide behind respectable facades.

But when the mysterious Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbours – a poised English beauty, a policeman’s daughter, a frustrated female baseball star, and a rabidly pro-McCarthy typist – into an unlikely friendship.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their troubled lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. And when a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?

And last but not least is the audiobook of The Other Year by Rea Frey, and narrated by Brittany Pressley.

Can the entire course of a life be traced back to a single moment?

On a coveted two-week beach vacation, working mom Kate Baker’s nine-year-old daughter, Olivia, vanishes suddenly among the waves—a heart-dropping incident that threatens to uproot her entire reality. But in the next moment, Olivia resurfaces, joyously splashing.

What would I do if she didn’t come up? Kate wonders. How would I live without her?

In another set of circumstances that hold a different fate, Kate doesn’t have to wonder. Because in that “other” world, in the pulse-pounding seconds after Olivia goes under, she doesn’t come back up.

Told in parallel timelines, Kate begins to live two lives—one in which Olivia resurfaces and one in which she doesn’t. In the reality that follows her daughter’s death, she maneuvers through every mother’s worst nightmare, facing grief, rage, and the question of purpose in the aftermath of such profound loss. She endures, day by day, in a world without her daughter.

In her alternate timeline, while she explores a tremulous romance with her best friend, Jason, she finds herself grappling with the ex-husband who abandoned Kate and Olivia years prior. Even as Kate scrambles to hold her daughter close, Olivia pulls further away. The line between joy and loss seems to get thinner with each passing day.

Woven into a single story, both Kates discover a breathtaking fragility and resilience in their respective journeys. Bringing to light the drastic polarities dire circumstances often create, The Other Year explores truths about love, loss, and the sharp turns any life can take in the blink of an eye.

Well I hope you see something there that gets your requesting finger twitching!

I had a lovely afternoon with Luke yesterday, picking him up from school (i had trouble finding his new classroom and was late!😬) then taking him to swimming class. He is swimming like a little fish now. We played in the playground at the pool complex for a while then headed home to inspect the new cattle, as yet unnamed, and the chicken coop. After hockey Saturday morning Luke is going to pick up the eight chickens he has bought. The breeder has said that they should start laying in the next 2 – 3 weeks, then he will have eggs for sale at the gate. He is a very enterprising seven-year-old!

Pete should be home soon with his new (well new to us) Toyota Hilux ute! Me thinks he has watched too many Barry Crump ads over the years 😂🤣If you have never seen them, do a search for Barry Crump Toyota advert. It is classic kiwiana!

Well, the temperature is dropping so I need to get the clothes off the line, shut all the windows and doors which have been wide open through the middle of the day, and light the fire. I also need to think about what to have for dinner tonight because, right now, I have no ideas!

Have a wonderful week.

Red River Road written by Anna Downes and narrated by Maddy Withington

EXCERPT: ‘Hi everyone! I’m Phoebe and I’m a travel addict and van-lifer. I’m about to take me, myself and I off on the adventure of a lifetime – the big lap of Australia. Only two more sleeps to go. And before you ask, no I’m not scared. The first thing people say when I tell them I’m travelling alone is “Be careful”. Don’t even get me started on my parents’ response. But the world is full of magic, and solo travel offers way more rewards than risks. It’s just that the bad stories get told way more often than the good. . . .’

ABOUT ‘RED RIVER ROAD’: Katy Sweeney is determined to find her sister. A year earlier, just three weeks into a solo vanlife trip, free-spirited Phoebe vanished without a trace on Western Australia’s remote and achingly beautiful Coral Coast. With no witnesses, no leads, and no DNA evidence, the case has gone cold. But Katy refuses to give up.

Using Phoebe’s social media accounts as a map, Katy starts to retrace her steps, searching for the clues that the police have missed. Was Phoebe being followed? Who had she met along the way, and what danger did they pose? Was she as happy as her sun-bleached, lens-flared photos seem to suggest?

Then Katy’s path collides with that of Beth, a young woman on the run from her own dark past—and very recent present. And as Katy realizes that Beth might be her best and only chance of finding the truth, the two women form an uneasy alliance to venture forth into increasingly wild territory to find out what really happened to Phoebe in this breathtaking but maybe deadly place, and how her fate connects them all.

MY THOUGHTS: Red River Road, brilliantly written by Anna Downes and superbly narrated by Maddy Withington, blew me away. Tense, twisty, atmospheric and addictive are just a few of the superlatives I could use to describe this. I held my breath so often during the narrative, it’s a wonder I didn’t black out!

When I started, my first thoughts were ‘FFS! Not another alcoholic, unreliable narrator!’ But I’m pleased to report that’s not how it panned out.

The narrative is related from three POV: Katy, Beth and a 15-year-old boy, Wyatt, whose mother is also missing. All three of these main characters come across as slightly flaky and unreliable at times. Not constantly, just at times. The tension starts pretty much straight away and never completely disappears. If Anna Downes aim is to stop women travelling on their own, she has definitely succeeded with me.

There are a lot of threads to this plot which are slowly woven together to present the full picture, which turned out to be something I had never envisaged. Not even remotely imagined. There is some pretty heavy subject matter, but very little of it graphically described, including sexual assault, mental health issues, and stalking – both physically and on social media. There are some excellent and diverting red herrings, and lots of lies and secrets.

There is a general air of creepiness – who to trust? Anyone? No one? That man with the soulful eyes, reading a book? Those two women? The person I’m travelling with? Damn, I felt unsafe just reading this and I am no shrinking violet. Much is made of local legends, myths and reports of missing women. Just how can someone and their van just disappear off the face of the earth? Well, it turns out it’s quite easy . . .

What sealed the five-star rating for me was that final line in the book. Superbly chilling!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#RedRiverRoad #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: ANNA DOWNES was born and raised in Sheffield, UK, but now lives just north of Sydney, Australia with her husband and two children. She worked as an actress before turning her attention to writing.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to W.F. Howes via NetGalley for providing an audio ARC of Red River Road written by Anna Downes and narrated by Maddy Withington for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Watching what I’m reading . . .

Happy Sunday afternoon from New Zealand. We are having an absolutely beautiful day with clear blue skies and the sun has some real heat to it. I have been out in the garden, the clothes are drying in the breeze that has sprung up, and we are off to catch up with friends later in the afternoon. It’s homemade hamburgers and wedges for dinner tonight.

Currently I am reading and listening to When Cicadas Cry by Caroline Cleveland and narrated by Adam Barr. I have two theories as to who is behind both this current murder and the historical double murder Addie is investigating. But will I be right? This is a superbly intriguing and atmospheric read and Adam Barr is an excellent narrator. Even the cover is superbly atmospheric!

A high-profile murder case

A white woman has been bludgeoned to death with an altar cross in a rural church on Cicada Road in Walterboro, South Carolina. Sam Jenkins, a Black man, is found covered in blood, kneeling over the body. In a state already roiling with racial tension, this is not just a murder case: it’s a powder keg.

A haunting cold case

Two young women are murdered on quiet Edisto Beach, an hour southeast of Walterboro, and the killer disappears without a trace. Thirty-four years later, the mystery remains unsolved. Could there be a connection to Stander’s case?

A killer who’s watching

Stander takes on Jenkins’s defense, but he’s up against a formidable solicitor with powerful allies. Worse, his client is hiding a bombshell secret. When Addie Stone reopens the cold case, she discovers more long-buried secrets in this small town. Would someone kill again to keep them?

With Winter Comes Darkness is the second book I have read by Australian author Robbi Neal and she is certainly keeping me in the dark . . . I have no idea what the outcome of this is going to be.

A terrible accident burns down a family’s life on the same day a murder is committed. From the ashes of these acts comes revelation, darkness, and the truth. Psychological suspense and profound family drama meet in this heartrending and original Australian novel.

1975, Ballarat Alice is happy in her world and in return for her happiness the world is good to her. She has everything she needs – a lovely house and children, and a devoted husband. Even though her journalism job doesn’t pay much, she doesn’t have to worry about the bills. All is well with her world until a terrible accident rips a child from her, a profound betrayal is uncovered, and things fall apart.

On the same day Alice’s world collapses, a man is found brutally murdered on respected teacher Ellery’s farm. Ellery can’t remember what happened but there is blood on his clothes, and he is arrested.

Neither Alice nor Ellery realise that their paths in life are about to intertwine and a desperate bargain is about to be made. A bargain that could save or destroy them in their quest to draw some light and fathom the darkness that surrounds them.

The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club by Sophie Green has totally captured my heart. Sophie Green is a new author to me, and I am going to be reading everything she has ever written!

Books bring them together – but friendship will transform all of their lives. Five very different women come together in the Northern Territory of the 1970s by an exceptional new Australian author.

In 1978 the Northern Territory has begun to self-govern. Cyclone Tracy is a recent memory and telephones not yet a fixture on the cattle stations dominating the rugged outback. Life is hard and people are isolated. But they find ways to connect.

Sybil is the matriarch of Fairvale Station, run by her husband, Joe. Their eldest son, Lachlan, was Joe’s designated successor but he has left the Territory – for good. It is up to their second son, Ben, to take his brother’s place. But that doesn’t stop Sybil grieving the absence of her child. With her oldest friend, Rita, now living in Alice Springs and working for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and Ben’s English wife, Kate, finding it difficult to adjust to life at Fairvale, Sybil comes up with a way to give them all companionship and purpose: they all love to read, and she forms a book club.

Mother-of-three Sallyanne is invited to join them. Sallyanne dreams of a life far removed from the dusty town of Katherine where she lives with her difficult husband, Mick. Completing the group is Della, who left Texas for Australia looking for adventure and work on the land.

These five women are united by one need: to overcome the vast differences of Australia’s Top End with friendship, tears, laughter, books and love. Books bring them together – but friendship will transform all of their lives.

I have seven books to read for review in the coming week – excuse me for rolling around the floor, 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣. It just ain’t gonna happen. However I will, as always, do my best. I have already started When Cicadas Cry, so you never know . . . I might just get there, or somewhere close.

The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne Du Maurier is a great way to start the week. I can remember being scared silly by Alfred Hitchcock’s movie adaptation of Du Maurier’s short story as a teenager.

I couldn’t help but be attracted by the title Death Cleaning and Other Units of Measurement by Nancy Burke. So this is two volumes of short stories to start my week with.

We’ve heard of Swedish Death Cleaning. With a bit of fatalistic humor, we purchase books on how to do this, and discover why it is so freeing. In the title story of this new collection, “Death Cleaning,” a recently retired man is cleaning out, but not his closets. Instead he faces memories, mistakes, regrets, and selfish ways in a spiritual cleaning after he finds himself locked out of his house in his bathrobe one snowy January morning.

In the “Other Units of Measure” a man is in love with the voice of his GPS, a teenage couple hides their flaws as they discover love, and a young wife is inspired by a dead seagull to do what she needs to do. All contend with the virtual yardsticks inside that drive their judgment of others and themselves, creating hierarchies of value that can be randomly and unjustly applied in life’s circumstances. These stories suggest we reconsider some of our own.

I have never read Barbara O’Neal before, but the title and cover of The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue called to me, and I couldn’t say no.

A loving wife and a mother of three accomplished children, forty-six-year-old Trudy Marino has an uncomplicated life—until she’s blindsided by her husband’s affair. But in Trudy’s close-knit neighborhood, she’s not alone in navigating the sudden surprises in a woman’s life.

Her neighbor Roberta has just lost her husband of sixty-two years and struggles with bittersweet memories and grief. Roberta’s granddaughter Jade is a divorcée who has taken up a cathartic new hobby to get over her cheating ex. And there’s Shannelle, whose creative aspirations are fracturing her marriage.

Then Trudy meets Angel, a sensual young man with the vulnerable heart of a poet who awakens her to invigorating new sensations. With a bracing confidence and three dear friends coming together in confusion, anger, and hope, Trudy is encouraged to take control of her life, to reflect on the choices she didn’t make, and to fulfill the youthful dreams she abandoned. As a new world opens up, Trudy can only marvel at where to go from here.

Again it was the title and cover of the Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson that attracted me here. It sounds like such fun!

It is the summer of 1919 and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. Despite having only weeks to find a permanent home, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet’s daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas.

Poppy wears trousers, operates a taxi and delivery service to employ local women, and runs a ladies’ motorcycle club (to which she plans to add flying lessons). She and her friends enthusiastically welcome Constance into their circle. And then there is Harris, Poppy’s recalcitrant but handsome brother—a fighter pilot recently wounded in battle—who warms in Constance’s presence. But things are more complicated than they seem in this sunny pocket of English high society. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked.

I can never resist anything that is set in the Hamptons, and so Summer After Summer by Lauren Bailey has also found its way onto my shelf.

Olivia Taylor’s marriage is in a death spiral when she agrees to come home to the Hamptons to help her father and sisters pack up the family estate. If it looks like she’s running away from her soon-to-be-ex Wes and New York City, well, she is. But someone has to take care of things and that’s always been Olivia’s role in the family. After years of financial trouble, someone’s finally bailing them out with a huge offer to buy their beachfront property, which is a good thing, although it means losing the home she grew up in, where her mother died, and where she first met Fred, the love of her life.

It’s been five years since the last time things blew up between Olivia and Fred, but much longer since the first time. At this point, Olivia fears it was never meant to be, so there’s no reason to feel butterflies in her stomach at the idea of seeing him again. They’ve already tried, and tried again…and again…but she’s newly single, and she isn’t the same person she was the last time–and Fred has changed, too.

This time, things will be different. Maybe, just maybe, the fifth time’s the charm.

My final book for the week will be The Revenge Club by Kathy Lette, an author I haven’t read for a number of years.

WHEN THE ODDS ARE AGAINST YOU, IT’S TIME TO GET EVEN.

Matilda, Jo, Penny and Cressy are all women at the top of their game; so imagine their surprise when they start to be personally overlooked and professionally pushed aside by less-qualified men.

Only they’re not going down without a fight.

Society might think the women have passed their amuse-by dates but the Revenge Club have other plans.

After all, why go to bed angry when you could stay up and plot diabolical retribution? Let the games begin…

Have you read any of these?

Are any of these on your reading radar?

What are you reading this week?

I’m going to head back outside and make the most of this marvellous weather – it’s apparently going to be wet tomorrow.

Happy reading my friends. 💕📚

Die Last (Max Wolfe #4) by Tony Parsons

Another back title from my 2018 NetGalley shelf . . .

EXCERPT: Prologue
The Girl from Belgrade

The first thing they took was her passport.
The man jumped down from the cab of the lorry and snapped his fingers at her.
Click-click.
She already had her passport in her hands, ready for her first encounter with authority, and as she held it out to the man she saw, in the weak glow of the Belgrade streetlights, that he had a small stack of passports. They were not all burgundy red like her Serbian passport. These passports were green and blue and bright red – passports from everywhere. The man slipped her passport under the rubber band that held the passports together and he slipped them into the pocket of his thick winter coat. She had expected to keep her passport.
She looked at him and caught a breath. Old scars ran down one side of his face making the torn flesh look as though it had once melted. Then the man clicked his fingers a second time.
Click-click.
She stared at her kid brother with confusion. The boy indicated her suitcase. The man wanted the suitcase. Then the man with the melted face spoke in English, although it was not the first language of either of them.
‘No room,’ he said, gesturing towards the lorry.
But she gripped her suitcase stubbornly and she saw the sudden flare of pure anger in the man’s eyes.
Click-click, went his fingers. She let go.
The suitcase was the second thing he took. It was bewildering. In less than a minute she had surrendered her passport and abandoned her possessions. She could smell sweat and cigarettes on the man and she wondered, for the first time, if she was making a terrible mistake.
She looked at her brother.
The boy was shivering. Belgrade is bitterly cold in January with an average temperature of just above freezing.
She hugged him. The boy, a gangly sixteen-year-old in glasses that were held together with tape on one side, bit his lower lip, struggling to control his emotions. He hugged her back and he would not let her go and when she gently pulled away he still held her, a shy smile on his face as he held his phone up at head height. They smiled at the tiny red light shining in the dark as he took their picture.
Then the man with the melted face took her arm just above the elbow and pulled her towards the lorry. He was not gentle.
‘No time,’ he said.
In the back of the lorry there were two lines of women facing each other. They all turned their heads to look at her. Black faces. Asian faces. Three young women, who might have been sisters, in hijab headscarves. They all looked at her but she was staring at her brother standing on the empty Belgrade street, her suitcase in his hand. She raised her hand in farewell and the boy opened his mouth to say something but the back doors suddenly slammed shut and her brother was gone. She struggled to stay on her feet as the lorry lurched away, heading north for the border.
By the solitary light in the roof of the lorry, she saw there were boxes in the back of the vehicle. Many boxes, all the same.
Birnen – Arnen – Nashi – Peren, it said on the boxes. Grushi – Pere – Peras – Poires.
‘Kruske,’ she thought, and then in English, as if in preparation for her new life. ‘Pears.’
The women were still staring at her. One of them, nearest to the doors, shuffled along to find her space. She was some kind of African girl, not yet out of her teens, her skin so dark it seemed to shine.
The African gave her a wide, white smile of encouragement, and graciously held her hand by her side, inviting the girl from Belgrade to sit down.
She nodded her thanks, taking her seat, and thinking of the African as the kind girl.
The kind girl would be the first to die.

ABOUT ‘DIE LAST’: 12 DEAD GIRLS

As dawn breaks on a snowy February morning, a refrigerated lorry is found parked in the heart of London’s Chinatown. Inside, twelve women, apparently illegal immigrants, are dead from hypothermia.

13 PASSPORTS

But in the cab of the abandoned death truck, DC Max Wolfe of West End Central finds thirteen passports.

WHERE IS SHE?

The hunt for the missing woman will take Max Wolfe into the dark heart of the world of human smuggling, mass migration and 21st-century slave markets, as he is forced to ask the question that haunts our time.

What would you do for a home?

MY THOUGHTS: I have enjoyed this series but somehow missed reading Die Last (Max Wolfe #4) when it was published. I was excited when I found it on my shelf. Unfortunately, Die Last never really gripped me like Tony Parsons’ books usually do. It may have been the content – human trafficking. I had this ‘been there, done that’ feeling.

Initially the whole human trafficking subject was treated with a great deal of empathy and compassion. I can only imagine how desperate you would have to be to agree to being smuggled into a foreign country; how frightened. But somewhere along the way the tone changed. It may have had something to do with Max’s boss who didn’t seem to have a very high regard for human life at all; not for that of her staff and certainly not for the refugees.

There’s a bit of everything in Die Last – human traffickers, old style gangster families, Chinese tongs and corrupt businessmen.

The resolution to this left me stunned – in more ways than one. I didn’t see it coming re who was behind the human trafficking. I liked that he did, in the end, get his just desserts, BUT I was with my favorite character, Edie Wrenn when she cried, ‘Max, no! No, Max, no!’ I couldn’t see the justification of what he was doing – the wrong people were being punished and I just couldn’t see the point to it.

While this isn’t my favorite book of the series, it certainly is a thought-provoking one.

Die Last by Tony Parsons was published 22 February 2018. I listened to the audiobook of Die Last, superbly narrated by Colin Mace.

⭐⭐⭐.3

#DieLast #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: Tony Parsons is a British award-winning journalist, broadcaster and bestselling author of contemporary books.

Born in Romford, Essex, Parsons dropped out of school aged sixteen in order to work on the night shift of Gordon’s Gin Distillery in Islington, London, before being offered a journalism job on New Musical Express.

He for the next couple of years travelled with and wrote about legendary musicians such as The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, The Clash, The Sex Pistols and others, before eventually leaving his job to pursue writing.

Tony, whose books have been translated into over 40 languages, currently lives in London with his wife, daughter and their dog.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Random House, UK, Cornerstone, Arrow via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of Die Last by Tony Parsons for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Watching what I’m reading . . .

Happy Sunday afternoon! It has been a beautiful day here in y corner of New Zealand, but now the wind is getting up and the temperature is dropping.

As you may have noticed, I’ve been running a bit behind with my posts the past couple of days. My brother-in-law who had a severe stroke in November and who has been in care at the local rest home since, has passed away. We have family staying on and off until after the funeral on Wednesday. So my erratic posts will continue for a few days yet.

I am currently listening to Red River Road, written by Anna Downes and narrated by Maddy Withington, who is a new-to-me and excellent narrator.

Katy Sweeney is determined to find her sister. A year earlier, just three weeks into a solo vanlife trip, free-spirited Phoebe vanished without a trace on Western Australia’s remote and achingly beautiful Coral Coast. With no witnesses, no leads, and no DNA evidence, the case has gone cold. But Katy refuses to give up.

I am reading The Flower Sisters by Michelle Collins Anderson and this is certainly keeping my attention.

At birth, Violet and Rose Flowers were identical, save for a tiny bluish-purple mark gracing Violet’s slender neck. By nineteen, their temperaments distinguish them, as different as the flowers their mother named them for—Violet, wild and outgoing, and Rose, solitary and reserved. Still, they are each other’s world. Then, on a sweltering, terrible August night in 1928, an explosion rocks Lamb’s Dance Hall in Possum Flats, Missouri, engulfing it in flames, leaving one twin among the dozens dead, and her sister’s life forever changed.

Fifty years later, Daisy Flowers is dumped on her grandmother Rose’s doorstep for the summer. A bright, inquisitive fifteen-year-old, Daisy bargains her way into an internship at the local newspaper—where she learns of the mysterious long-ago tragedy and its connection to her family. Rose, now the local funeral home director, grows increasingly alarmed as her impulsive granddaughter delves into Possum Flats’ history, determined to uncover the horrors and heroes of the fiery blast.

For a small town, Possum Flats holds a multitude of big secrets, some guarded by the living, some kept by the dead. And through Rose, Daisy, Dash—a preacher who found his calling that fateful night—and others, those ghosts gradually come into the light, forcing a reckoning at last.

I am also reading What Happened to Charlotte Salter by Nicci French

On the day of Alec Salter’s fiftieth birthday party, just before Christmas 1990, his wife Charlotte vanishes. Most of the small English village of Glensted is at the party for hours before anyone realizes Charlotte is missing. While Alec brushes off her disappearance, their four children—especially fifteen-year-old Etty—grow increasingly anxious as the cold winter hours become days and she doesn’t return. When Charlotte’s coat is found by the river, they fear the worst. Then the body of the Salters’ neighbor, Duncan Ackerley, is found floating in the river by his son Morgan and Etty. The police investigate and conclude that Duncan and Charlotte were having an affair before he killed her and committed suicide. Thirty years later, Morgan Ackerley, a successful documentarian, has returned to Glensted with his older brother Greg to make podcast based on their shared tragedy with the Salters. Alec, stricken with dementia, is entering an elder care facility while Etty helps put his affairs in order. But as the Ackerleys ask to interview the Salters, the entire town gets caught up in the unresolved cases. Allegations are made, secrets are revealed, and a suspicious fire leads to a murder. With the podcast making national news, London sends Detective Inspector Maud O’Connor to Glensted to take over the investigation. Resented by her mostly male colleagues, she has no tolerance for either their sexism or their incompetence. And she will stop at nothing to uncover the truth as a new and terrifying picture of what really happened to Charlotte Salter and Duncan Ackerley emerges.

This week I hope to read, but probably won’t – Never be the Same by Luke Williams, an author ARC.

As Tom Rosemore heads to work, a jolting update shatters his world with the news that his boss has been found dead at the office. This grim revelation arrives amid Tom’s own struggles, compounding a tragedy that has fractured his family, leaving his teenage daughter to spiral into a depression, and his wife to waste away through a crippling exercise addiction. Amid the turmoil, Tom’s world darkens further as he becomes the prime suspect in his boss’s murder. Confronted by mounting evidence he cannot explain, including incriminating CCTV footage, he faces a tough battle convincing detectives of his innocence. Yet, beneath the surface lies the unsettling realisation that someone has tried to frame him. As accusations loom large, a greater horror unfolds with the sudden disappearance of his daughter on the very day he is questioned by police. Determined to find her in a race against time and the law, Tom is forced to take matters into his own hands. With police closing in, secrets begin to unravel, woven into the mystery of his boss’s murder.

With Winter Comes Darkness by Robbi Neal

1975, Ballarat Alice is happy in her world and in return for her happiness the world is good to her. She has everything she needs – a lovely house and children, and a devoted husband. Even though her journalism job doesn’t pay much, she doesn’t have to worry about the bills. All is well with her world until a terrible accident rips a child from her, a profound betrayal is uncovered, and things fall apart.

Secrets of Riverside by Mandy Magro

Can love conquer all? A moving story of overcoming the past and second chances from bestselling Australian romance author Mandy Magro. Can their love heal the shadows of the past?

After losing her family in a tragic fire when she was a child, Amelia Price has battled to put the shattered pieces of her life back together. Even so, she’s never felt like she belongs anywhere, and she longs for stability and love. When a mysterious letter turns up at her apartment with hints that she’ll uncover the truth behind what happened all those years ago if she goes to the sleepy, picturesque town of Riverside, she sets off on a journey to tropical Far North Queensland.

Jarrah King owns and runs the Riverside Roadhouse. He loves the simpleness of country living, and the fact it gives him complete anonymity. Over the years he’s made a life for himself under a new name, however his past has never stopped haunting him.

When a sassy blonde takes up the new cook position, he can’t help but be drawn to her vivacious personality. But he can tell there’s also pain hiding underneath her bubbly facade and he longs to erase those shadows. However, lowering his defences to let her in may risk his new identity, as well as everything he holds dear.

Can Amelia show him that love is worth the risk? Or will the secrets of their entwined past tear them apart forever?

And, One Long Weekend by Shari Low

When all seems lost, hope remains… Val Murray has mislaid her most precious mementoes of the people she’s loved and lost. Can her family, the wonders of technology and a little divine intervention somehow mend her shattered heart?

Sophie Smith had to take a rain check on a marriage proposal. Will her bid to turn back the clock lead her to her greatest love or yet another heartbreak?

Alice McLenn stood by her husband, Larry when a scandal cost them everything. When he hits the headlines again, Alice has an opportunity to leave – but can she find the strength to finally walk away?

Rory Brookes was forced to turn his back on his parents to save his career and marriage. Now, he’s lost his job and wife on the same day. Is it too late to make amends with the one person who never let him down?

Three days. Four broken hearts. Just one weekend to make them whole again.

Sorry, this post isn’t going to be a chatty one, and I am going to apologise in advance for probably not being able to visit everyone’s posts over the next few days, but I need to spend time with family. I am meeting a lot of extended family for the first time ever! Isn’t it sad that we only seem to catch up when someone dies. I am going to try and do better.

Happy reading all, and stay safe. 💕📚

The Baby by A.J. McDine

EXCERPT: I flick the kettle on and gaze out of the window while I wait for it to boil. Even though I can see Percy stretched out in the sun by the greenhouse, I could swear I’m not alone. I get that feeling every so often. It’s almost as if Grandad’s spirit is sandwiched between the plasterboard and the brickwork, like insulation. Sometimes I feel his presence so keenly it’s as if her is standing beside me, just out of sight.
But today it’s more than that. I can hear something. A rustling noise, coming from the living room. Not rustling. More like snuffling. I stiffen, my hand gripping the worktop, my head cocked to one side. Hoping to God Percy hasn’t brought in a rabbit – I can’t deal with that, not today – I make my way along the hallway to the front of the house.
At the door to the living room I stop in my tracks. The bottom drawer of Grandad’s old oak bureau, the one with the barley twit legs, has been tipped onto the floor. Diaries and birthday cards, envelopes and notebooks, old seed packets and pens, sticky tape and gardening twine have all been upended on the carpet in a jumble.
But this is incidental. Because it’s what’s lying in the upturned drawer that’s holding my attention.
Tiny fists waving in the air. Chubby legs encased in a white sleepsuit. A fuzz of dark hair.
A baby.
And this makes no sense at all. Because I, Lucy Quinn, might have a husband called Miles and a cat called Percy and a cottage that once belonged to my grandad.
But the one thing I don’t have, the one thing I have never had, is a baby.

ABOUT ‘THE BABY’: There’s a baby in your house. It isn’t yours…

The day I was told I’d never be able to have a child, my world came crashing down. My husband says he still loves me but I lie awake at night, wishing we could have a family.

One morning, my husband’s side of the bed is cold and empty. I hear a noise and head downstairs.

In the middle of the rug in my living room is a wooden drawer. Swaddled inside, with perfect rosy cheeks and beautiful round blue eyes, a baby gazes up at me.

I shiver. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, but this baby is not mine…

MY THOUGHTS: I liked The Baby, but didn’t love it. Lucy is a character who is hard to like or to empathise with. She is emotionally immature and mercurial. She is an alcoholic, although she would vehemently deny this. Her husband Miles is a manipulative abuser, also thoroughly unlikeable. He more than enables, he actually encourages her drinking then punishes her for it.

There’s a lot of repetition as Lucy endlessly agonises over things and questions herself. Some of it is just downright dumb. Like “maybe this baby is mine and I’ve just forgotten I have it”. The baby is sleeping in a drawer. Other than a bag of baby clothes and some formula in the same bag, there are none of the usual accoutrements that seem to come with babies. There are no nappies, no formula, no bottles, no clothes, no crib, no buggy, no toys . . . . Authors – please credit your readers with some brains.

On the plus side – the story of where the baby actually comes from is quite inventive and plausible. I have to admit to enjoying the second half of the story much more than the first, especially the ending, although I do have problems with some of the forensic details.

Narrator Tamsin Kennard was a pleasure to listen to.

⭐⭐.5

#TheBaby #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: A. J. McDine lives in Kent in the UK with her husband and fellow thriller writer A. J. Wills, their two sons and two VERY demanding cats.

She worked as a journalist and police press officer before becoming a full-time author in 2019.

Endlessly fascinated by people and their fears and foibles, she loves to discover what makes them tick.

She writes dark, domestic thrillers about ordinary people in extraordinary situations.

When she’s not writing, playing tennis or attempting to run a 5k, she can usually be found people-watching in her favourite café.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Bookouture Audio via NetGalley for providing an audio ARC of The Baby written by A.J. McDine and narrated by Tamsin Kennard. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

The Intruders by Louise Jensen

EXCERPT: I’ve identified sounds, taste, touch and smells but now there’s something else.
A feeling.
A slow crawl of trepidation from the tips of my toes to the top of my scalp.
I stop abruptly. ‘James,’ my tone is urgent now, ‘I don’t like this anymore . . .’
‘Relax Cass. We’re here.’
He fumbles to untie the blindfold and then I’m blinking in the unaccustomed brightness. Curved around me is a horseshoe shaped manor house. With its wings stretching either side of me I feel like the house is holding me.
Gripping me.
Despite the low temperature a flush of heat rushes through me. I push up the sleeves of my jumper. Stepping back, my eyes scan the black and white Tudor timberwork above the entrance. The iron ‘Newington House’ sign blistered with rust.
Ivy clings to the stone building. There’s a sense of someone watching me through the small leaded windows.
This is not a tourist attraction. That much is clear from the unkempt courtyard. The tangle of weeds and nettles.
A crow lands in the tree to my left; he screeches, and it sounds like a warning.

ABOUT ‘THE INTRUDERS’: They were told to leave. They should have listened.

It should be the perfect opportunity: a manor house available rent free in exchange for a bit of housesitting. But when Cass and James dig deeper, they find the place has been abandoned since a robbery left almost all the inhabitants dead almost thirty years ago. But they’ve got to save for a deposit somehow, so they move in, and things quickly take a strange turn. Objects disappear and turn up in odd places, the clock always stops at the same time, and the house is oppressive yet strangely familiar. Could it just be bad memories, or are the house’s secrets a little closer to home?

MY THOUGHTS: There’s no such thing as a free lunch – or, in this case, a free house.

The Intruders by Louise Jensen will put your spidey senses on high alert. There’s an insidious creepiness to the storyline. Nothing major, or over the top, just little unexplained things. Things that eat into Cass’s mind, but that James seems able to explain away. Logically. Calmly. The sounds of children playing. Singing. The smell of freshly cut lemons. The hairbrush that won’t stay in the drawer. A window that opens itself. The clock that stops every day at 8.30 p.m. . . . .

I don’t blame Cass for feeling spooked. Especially when James has to go away on business. And Cass has had problems in the past – a little mental disturbance, or two.

The story is told over two timelines – now and thirty years ago when the Madley family lived, and was murdered, in Newington House. Louise Jensen cleverly manipulates the storyline – I had no idea where she was taking me but was quite happy to go along for the ride – and throws in a few stunning twists. She creates a chilling atmosphere with a palpable air of mystery surrounding all the characters.

And the ending? – Twisted. You’ll need to suspend your belief. It is disturbing but strangely fitting.

I listened to the audiobook of The Intruders which was superbly narrated by Helen Keeley.

And don’t skip the author’s note at the end where she relates how this book came about.

⭐⭐⭐⭐.3

#TheIntruders #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: When I was little I was obsessed by Enid Blyton. Her characters were so real to me they became my friends. I often huddled under my covers, stifling my yawns and straining my eyes, as I read ‘just one more page’ by torchlight.

Mr Townsend, my primary school English teacher always encouraged my love of literature, and it wasn’t long before I’d read everything my school had to offer. The first book I created was six pages long, had stick-man illustrations and was sellotaped together. I was immensely proud of it. Writing was a huge part of my life, until one day it wasn’t.

I can’t remember ever making a conscious decision to stop writing but it became easier to act on the advice I was given – ‘grow up and get a proper job’ – and my dreams were tightly packed away, gathering dust for the next twenty years.

My thirties were a car crash. Literally. I sustained injuries which when coupled with a pre-existing condition forced me to radically change my lifestyle. I felt utterly lost and utterly alone. Always an avid reader I began to devour books at an alarming rate. ‘You’ll have read every book in here soon,’ my local librarian said. ‘You’ll have to write your own.’

And there was a flicker, a shift, a rising of hope. I grasped that nugget of possibility and I wrote. I wrote when I was happy. I wrote when I was sad. I wrote when I was scared and in-between writing, I read, read and read some more. Words have the power to lift, to heal. They have illuminated my world, which for a time became very dark.

As Anne Frank said ‘I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.’

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Harper Collins UK Audio, HQ via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of The Intruders written by Louise Jensen and narrated by Helen Keeley. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.