Murder Mystery – 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!💕📚

Never Be the Same by Luke Williams

EXCERPT: . . . this morning something was very different.
They all seemed to be drawn to something down the street. Wait staff had joined customers to see what had pulled them from their tables to let their food go cold, some almost on tiptoes, necks outstretched as though it might enhance their view. Their faces were an even mix of worry and curiosity.
It didn’t take too long to discover the focus of attention. Blue and red police car lights flickered in the distance. They were probably a couple of hundred metres away.
Somewhere near my work.

ABOUT ‘NEVER BE THE SAME’: 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.

MY THOUGHTS: I’m going to be brutally honest here – when I started this book I really didn’t like it. The first few chapters are lumpy, awkward. I doubted I would finish – I have this thing of reading at least one third of the book before abandoning it – but pushed on. By the time I got to the third, I was hooked. It was like the author had suddenly found his writing mojo, realised he was enjoying himself, and it just flowed.

Ther are two main threads to this novel – the murder of Tom’s boss George and the disappearance of Tom and Lisa’s daughter Rachel. Added to these main threads, there are several other minor threads waving about which are eventually woven into the main story.

Never Be the Same is a cracker of a thriller. I’m not going to say any more about the plot because I don’t want to drop any spoilers. Don’t expect any great depth to the characters – this is an action thriller – but I found it really didn’t matter. I was swept along, wondering what on earth was going on, who had murdered George and what had happened to Rachel.

The various threads are all tied up at the end and I finished the book (in less than 24 hours) with not one question unanswered.

So if you are looking for a good action thriller, grab a copy of Never Be the Same, push through those initial lumpy chapters and settle in for the ride.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

#NeverBetheSame #LukeWilliams #PinchpointPress

THE AUTHOR: For Luke, the writing bug didn’t sink its teeth in until late into his twenties. For the wrong side of a decade, he slowly and quietly worked on his first novel, sharing his endeavour with only his wife and a trusted friend. Now with the cat out of the bag, Luke openly crafts thrillers where everyday people face heart-pounding situations, blending family dynamics into gripping plots.

He grew up surrounded by the laid-back charm of the Mornington Peninsula, but these days you’ll find him somewhere in Melbourne’s equally relaxed Bayside suburbs. At home, he’s outnumbered by his wife and two energetic daughters.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to author Luke Williams for providing a digital copy of Never Be the Same for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

What’s new on my bedside table? . . .

Happy hump day! It’s a stormy day here in New Zealand. Heavy rain but thankfully not particularly cold. I have been to Book Club at the library today and we had some very spirited discussions! I have come home with a bag of books to read – one library, the others borrowed from other group members. The librarian also talked to us about an app called Beanstack which a lot of libraries are using for inter-library reading challenges. I have been logging my reading on it for almost 3 weeks now and participating in the Master of Minutes challenge and the Bingo Genre Challenge. I’ll update you on my progress later in the post. But first, lets see what new books have arrived on my bedside table in the past week

I’ll deal with the library book first – On Call, a memoir from the life of a surgeon, daughter and mother by Ineke Meredith.

The world of surgery is strange, messy and intense. From a man presenting with fishhooks in his stomach to being punched in the face by a patient, it’s all in a mad day’s work for a female general surgeon. Even wit emergency operations in the wee hours and constantly being mistaken for a nurse, there are still moments of laughter and tenderness amid the chaos.

When Ineke’s parents in Samoa fall ill, she becomes torn between her roles as a surgeon, a daughter and a single working mother, leading her to ask: are the sacrifices of a life in scrubs worth it?

This is an extraordinary memoir from inside the operating room about the heart it takes to survive.

Now for my NetGalley ARC shelves: 5 new titles this week, which is better than the seven last week, BUT it has still pushed my total of books on my ARC shelf a few points higher. 😖

I selected Queen Macbeth by Val McDermid for two reasons. Firstly, I love Val McDermid’s writing, and secondly it fills the criteria of a retelling of one of Shakespeare’s plays for the World Book Day challenge on one of my Goodreads groups.

A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three companions – a healer, a weaver, and a seer. The men hunting her will kill her – because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no lady: she is the first queen of Scotland, married to a king called Macbeth. As the net closes in, what unfurls is a tale of passion, forced marriage, bloody massacre, and the harsh realities of medieval Scotland. At the heart of it is one strong, charismatic woman, who survived loss and jeopardy to outwit the endless plotting of a string of ruthless and power-hungry men. Her struggle won her a country. But now it could cost her life.

Thank you to my Goodreads friend CarolG for putting me onto The Fells by Cath Staincliffe. This is a new-to-me author.

A missing woman. A cold case. A dark secret, buried deep beneath the Yorkshire Dales.

Summer 1997. Vicky Mott slips out the door of her remote stone cottage, and into the pale dawn light. She won’t wake her friends. Not after the night they just had.

She scrawls a note, her hand trembling with excitement. Gone to see the sun rise. V xxx

That’s the last anyone ever hears from vibrant twenty-year-old Vicky.

Everyone warned her. Of the predator stalking the lush green fells. Convicted killer Terence Bielby. He strangled three hikers before he got to Vicky. Now he has her blood on his hands, too.

It’s only a matter of time until the evidence surfaces . . .

2019. A human skeleton is discovered in a dark and treacherous cave beneath the Dales. The final resting place of Vicky Mott?

Detectives Leo Donovan and Shan Young think they’ve found the key to this decades-old mystery. But every answer they unearth only leads to more questions.

All Donovan’s instincts tell him that, this time, Bielby’s innocent.

But if the Fellside Strangler didn’t do it, then who?

I discovered Australian author Janet Gover earlier this year and just loved her writing! Her new book, Wedding Bells by the Creek (a Coorah Creek novel) is due for publication in July.

Are there some things that can’t be forgiven?

Helen Walsh has never stopped searching for the daughter who ran away from home when she was just fifteen. Now Tia has found her. Helen longs for her daughter’s forgiveness. Will a Coorah Creek wedding help heal their rift?

Ed Collins has walked Helen’s path, and he knows that she needs more than her daughter’s forgiveness. Ed feels compelled to help her, as he is increasingly drawn to her kind and loving heart.

Then Ed’s wife Stephanie returns to the tiny outback town – thirteen years after she deserted Ed and their young son, Scott. Steph was his first and only love, and now Ed is being asked to forgive.

But how do you forgive what you will never forget?

Maddie Please is an author who never fails to please me. Her latest book, Old Girls on Deck is another July release.

It’s never too late to sail a new course…

When retired Jill Parker wins an all-expenses paid mediterranean cruise for two she is thrilled! At 63 life in retirement has got a little bit bland for Jill and this might be just the holiday she and husband Eddy need to get the sparks back in their marriage.

But when Eddy admits he would much prefer to build his patio and look through the latest DIY magazine, Jill is left with only one other option – her sister Diana.

Diana has become rather reclusive since her husband, Caspar died, but perhaps this is the push she needs to bring some excitement back into her life, too?

Could this trip be just what both sisters need to reconnect and chart a new path for their futures?

Excited to be exploring new horizons and catching up, the sisters soon discover that not everything is smooth sailing on board. And as they enjoy cocktails together at sundown, they discover that they are both actually a little all at sea…

I’ll be reading Silent Ritual by Andrew James Greig thanks to Ceecee, another Goodreads friend. He is also a new-to-me author.

An ear-shattering scream pierces the quiet Glasgow street as a mother stands frozen in her doorway, groceries strewn at her feet. Her son holds a bloodied knife while his father lies dead before him.

As Logan Martin begins his prison sentence for the brutal murder of his father, the eighteen-year-old’s aunt hires private investigator Teàrlach Paterson. She believes Logan is innocent and wants Teàrlach to uncover the truth.

Teàrlach’s visit to the Martin family home yields two disturbing discoveries: a pentagram etched under the carpet in Logan’s sister’s bedroom, and a link to the sinister deaths of their elderly neighbours—a journal with the same ominous symbol lies in the couple’s home.

While ritualistic murders plague the city, bodies placed precisely on an occult pentagram, bound in intricate knots, Teàrlach and his team unearth the sinister inspiration behind the killings in a mysterious ancient map.

Then, two young women are reported missing, and Teàrlach fears the worst. He’s inching closer to a killer who is weaving a complex web of murder rooted in Glasgow’s pagan past. But can Teàrlach stop the twisted soul from carrying out another cruel ritual? This time, one of his own is about to be in grave danger.

With my doing a fair bit of reading for pleasure in the past week, and a wee requesting spree, I have increased the number of titles on my NetGalley shelf from 515 to 519. I need to stop reading my friends’ reviews!🤣🤣 My feedback ration is somehow still at 72%, and I have 15 pending requests, down from 23.

I am a little ahead of schedule for my Aussie Readers May challenge having completed 6/10 reads I signed up for, and I have started the seventh book.

I am right on target to complete my Aussie Readers Autumn Challenge with 11/13 titles read and a little over two weeks to go.

Since I joined Beanstack 22 days ago, I have logged 6227 minutes reading and read 29 books. Our library has set a target of 2,000,000 minutes for the year. I have completed 7/24 genre challenges on my bingo card.

I am off to Dustin’s tomorrow. He is off on his annual boy’s weekend away with the mates he went through Tech with, so I am staying with Luke for the night, taking him to his hockey game Saturday morning then bringing him down to our place for the rest of the weekend. Dustin will pick him up Sunday night after he gets back. Luke and I are planning some serious brainstorming on the story we are writing – The Magic Island. I will do some work on it after aquarobics and grocery shopping this morning.

Sorry this post is late out. We had terrible weather yesterday and the internet kept cutting in and out, phone calls were dropping. I just couldn’t get the book covers to download. The weather is still stormy this morning, but my computer seems to be better behaved!

I had better get moving. I need to get ready for aquarobics and get on my way.

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.

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.

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.

With Winter Comes Darkness by Robbi Neal

EXCERPT: Wednesday, 4 June 1975 – The Darkest Day

The Peugeot doesn’t stand a chance when the Mercedes livestock truck carrying 150 unhappy sheep ploughs into it on the back road to Creswick. It is the fourth day of June 1975, the fourth day of winter and darkness falls by 5.30. Pippa, who is just six years old and loves nothing more than her Ballerina Barbie (though Deluxe Curl Barbie comes a close second), has chosen to perch on the edge of the back seat, right in the middle so she has a better view out the front windscreen because she isn’t quite tall enough to see out the side windows. But her brother Max, who is seven, just won’t stop the rib-digging and the hair-pulling, and when she complains her dad, Liam, says, ‘Don’t tease your sister, Max,’ and Max just keeps going, so finally she turns to punch him. She clenches her fist hard and she swings her arm out and right at that moment, before her fist even has the chance to connect with Max’s cheek, the truck lands on them.

ABOUT ‘WITH WINTER COMES DARKNESS’: 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.

MY THOUGHTS: With Winter Comes Darkness is not a book to be rushed through. The writing is intricate, richly detailed, quietly powerful and almost poetic at times. There were instances I had to close the covers and walk away just to breathe, to get away from the anguish that oozes from the pages. At times I felt my heart was breaking for Max, who stops talking, and for Alice, whose whole world has imploded, and yes, even (maybe especially) for Ellery, awaiting trial for murder.

Lena, Alice’s mother, and Maggie, Liam’s mother, are wonderful supplementary characters; each of whom expresses their love in different ways and each of whom has hidden depths. Bruce would have to get the award for the world’s most supportive and understanding boss. I fell in, then out, of love with Claudia very rapidly, and the less said about Liam the better. Detective Rush is another character with hidden depths. Every character in this book is so well drawn that they could walk off the page and into real life.

This is a book filled with drama, tragedy and love; a mother’s love for her child (several times over); the tragedy of losing a child; the drama of a marriage going down the drain. And then there is Ellery. Enigmatic, mysterious Ellery on remand for murder, who fascinates Alice and gives her life focus. Ellery is the character who really stood out for me. Ellery and Max, each of whom is carrying a massive burden, a secret that is crippling them.

This is a subtly written story, one that will tear at your heartstrings. I defy anyone to read this without shedding a tear or two. It is beautiful and tragic. It is a classic in the making.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#WithWinterComesDarkness #NetGalley

THE AUTHOR: She has lived in country Victoria, Australia, for most of her life. When Robbi isn’t writing, she is painting, or reading or hanging out with her family and friends, all of whom she adores. She loves procrasti-cooking, especially when thinking about the next chapter in her writing. She also loves cheese, any cheese, all cheese and lemon gin or dirty martinis, the blues, and more cheese.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Harlequin Australia, HQ & MIRA, via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of With Winter Comes Darkness by Robbi Neal 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.

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.

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 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. 💕📚

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.

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.

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

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. 💕📚

What’s new on my bedside table . . .

Yay!!!! Only three new ARCs arrived in my inbox this week! Excuse me while I do a little dance . . .

My first new title is a publisher’s widget – The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley. I see this isn’t getting great reviews, but I have enjoyed everything else I have read by her, so we’ll see . . . It certainly sounds enticing!

Midsummer, the Dorset coast

In the shadows of an ancient wood, guests gather for the opening weekend of The Manor: a beautiful new countryside retreat.

But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. And the candles have barely been lit for a solstice supper when the body is found.

It all began with a secret, fifteen years ago. Now the past has crashed the party. And it’ll end in murder at…

THE MIDNIGHT FEAST

I have read so many amazing reviews about Goyhood by new-to-me author Rueven Fenton that I just couldn’t resist requesting it.

When Mayer (née Marty) Belkin fled small town Georgia for Brooklyn nearly thirty years ago, he thought he’d left his wasted youth behind. Now he’s a Talmud scholar married into one of the greatest rabbinical families in the world – a dirt poor country boy reinvented in the image of God.

But his mother’s untimely death brings a shocking revelation: Mayer and his ne’er-do-well twin brother David aren’t, in fact, Jewish. Traumatized and spiritually bereft, Mayer’s only recourse is to convert to Judaism. But the earliest date he can get is a week from now. What are two estranged brothers to do in the interim?

So begins the Belkins’ Rumspringa through America’s Deep South with Mom’s ashes in tow, plus two tagalongs: an insightful Instagram influencer named Charlayne Valentine and Popeye, a one-eyed dog. As the crew gets tangled up in a series of increasingly surreal adventures, Mayer grapples with a God who betrayed him and an emotionally withdrawn wife in Brooklyn who has yet to learn her husband is a counterfeit Jew.

And to round out this weeks books is the latest in the Josie ‘nosey’ Parker cosy mystery series by Fiona Leitch – The Cornish Campsite Murder.

Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker is back in 2024 with a brand new Cornish mystery to unravel…

Just along the coast from Penstowan, the local festival has filled the area with revellers young and old. Former Met police officer Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker has agreed to step in and help run the Pie Hard food truck, along with her rather reluctant fiancé, DCI Nathan Withers.

As they prepare for a weekend of camping and being elbow deep in shortcrust pastry, Jodie hadn’t bargained on witnessing a fight between members of the lead band.

But when the body of one of the band members is found dead not far from the campsite, Jodie finds it hard to believe it was an accident. Especially when the other members had so much to gain…

I still have 22 pending requests, 2 past publication date but which are not archived until some time later in May.

I have 515 books on my NetGalley shelf, one less than last week. Hey, I’ll take it. It’s a gain, or a loss, however you want to look at it! At least it makes my 72% feedback ratio a little more secure . . .

Goodreads group, All About Books is having another readathon starting at 12.01 am Friday 26 April and finishing at 11.59 p.m. Sunday 28 April for which I have signed up.

I have completed 8/9 books and all four books by Australian authors for my Aussie Readers April challenge. I will read the 9th and remaining book after I have finished my current read. I will easily complete this challenge before the end of the month.

I have just signed up for the May Aussie Reader’s challenge. The featured author is Sophie Green.

I have read 7/14 books for the Autumn Aussie Readers challenge, so I am right on target!

I have completed my first task of 24 for the World Book Day Challenge which I need to complete before 23 April 2025.

When I was at the library recently, our librarian introduced me to Beanstack an online reading library-based reading challenge but I didn’t get around to signing up for it until yesterday. There is a timer where you can log your reading minutes, Book bingo on which I have this morning completed my first square, and a place to publish your reviews. There are several other features that I haven’t yet had time to explore but will do as soon as possible.

My annual goals I am just going to update at the end of each month, and as it is the last Wednesday of the month, here goes –

I have read 87 of my goal of 225 books for my 2024 Goodreads Reading challenge- 18 books ahead of schedule; and 64 of my goal of 150 NetGalley titles. I can always increase my goals later in the year.

I have read 13 of my goal of 20 Backlist titles for 2024. These titles must have been on my shelf for longer than 12 months to qualify.

I have read 22 of my 24 book goal for my 2024 library love challenge, so I may need to reset that goal too.

I selected the My Precious (I had my earbuds surgically implanted) level of 30+ audiobooks for 2024. I have so far listened to 19/30.

Another few days and we’ll be 1/3 of the way through the year!

Dustin and Luke fly back from Perth Thursday night – that week has gone by fast! Luke loved the reptile park so much that they made a return visit yesterday and Luke got to feed a snake! He was so excited. He keeps messaging me telling me what he’s doing. He’ll be spending time with his Australian grandad for the last two days of his visit which will be nice for both of them.

I have a busy morning ahead. I need to tidy up my office desk as I have mislaid two vital bits of paper. My friend Annette is staying tonight after we get back from seeing Dragon in concert so I need to make up a bed for her. Pete’s dinner is simmering away in the crockpot, but I need to get some food in for the weekend, do laundry, and sort out what I am wearing tonight. The day is going to be beautiful, but not that warm. It will be hot inside the event centre but cold outside. What to wear???? Boots, definitely. I hate to have cold feet!

Have a wonderful week, and read on!

What’s new on my bedside table? . . .

Happy hump day!

Until a few moments ago I only had three new ARCs on my shelf, but as I was looking, feeling quite pleased with myself I have to admit, up popped another! But as it was a Kate Robards book, Only the Guilty Survive, and I loved her first book – The Three Deaths of Willa Stannard – I’m not going to complain. And what a beautiful cover!

The mass suicide of a cult known as The Flock sent shockwaves through the small rural town of Iola, Michigan. Led by the charismatic Dominic Bragg, The Flock camped at an abandoned bird sanctuary before their sudden and shocking demise. The deaths came just weeks after one of their members, Laurel Tai, a local pageant queen, was abducted.

The town turned its blame and fear onto the sole survivor, Claire Kettler–Laurel’s best friend. Burdened by grief and unanswered questions about her friend’s murder and her fellow cult members’ deaths, Claire can’t help but wonder what really happened, especially when the cult leader is nowhere to be found.

When podcaster Arlo Stone begins poking around ten years later, determined to uncover the truth about the cult and Laurel’s murder, Claire is propelled back into action. In a desperate attempt to puzzle out the past and keep her secrets from being spilled for the entertainment of thousands of listeners, Claire must dig into a tangle of unanswered questions before time runs out and history repeats itself.

This weeks ARCs are all by authors whose previous books I have loved. I am trying to be a little more picky about my requesting. My second title is Guilty Mothers, the 20th title in the Kim Stone series by Angela Marsons.

In a quiet kitchen, where two mugs wait by the kettle to be filled, Sheryl Hawne lies in a pool of blood. Her only daughter, Katie, is found at her side, still clutching the murder weapon and apparently incapable of speech. To Detective Kim Stone, the case seems open and shut. But Katie is in no state to be questioned, so Kim and the team must dig deep to understand what triggered this brutal act.

Soon, they learn that Katie participated in beauty pageants as a child, and her mother kept a shrine to her achievements. As Kim gazes at the golden trophies and shiny rosettes, she is forced to wonder if this was what set Katie on the path to murder…

But then Kim receives a shocking call. Another woman is dead. And with Katie safely locked up, she cannot be the killer. The second victim also entered her daughter in pageants, and a broken tiara is found thrust down her throat. Someone clearly feels that these mothers are guilty – and that they deserve to die. Forcing back the memories of her own monstrous mother, Kim vows to find justice for these women, no matter what pain they caused.

Now more than a day behind their killer, Kim races to learn more about a competitive world where appearances are everything and mothers will go to any lengths to ensure their daughters triumph. Buried somewhere in this dark past is the key to unlocking the case… but will Kim be able to find it before another family is destroyed forever?

I read my first book by Australian author Leoni Kelsall earlier this year and so was excited to see another offering from he so soon. The Homestead in the Eucalypts is her new title and is due for publication 02 July.

When student doctor Taylor Lawrence’s city life is turned upside down, she seeks sanctuary on her grandparents’ farm in the South Australian countryside.

During the lonely nights, she fantasises of a time long-gone; of Anna, who, rising at dawn to milk the cows and fetch water from the well, is caught in a bushfire that threatens to leave her reputation as blackened as the surrounding bushland. And of Anna’s rescuer, fellow settler, Luke Hartmann.

Reality blurs as Taylor repeatedly escapes into Anna’s world, and she realises she must discover whether her dreams are pure fantasy—or if they recount a story more familiar than she could ever imagine.

Either way, it seems she’ll end up with a broken mind or a broken heart. The problem is, Taylor is no longer sure which she would prefer.

I posted a review of Caro Ramsay’s The Suffering of Strangers yesterday, and here today I have her new title – Out of the Dark, #3 in the DI Christie Kaplan series.

A young woman is missing, but has she run away – or been captured?

A dying cop asks DCI Christine Caplan to fulfil her last wish: to investigate a cold case that’s still preying on her mind. The naked body of a young man that was found in a lonely wood, dismissed as a down and out by her superiors. Caplan connects the case to other victims left to die in the bleak Scottish forests, injured and unable to escape. As the scent grows stronger, the cold cases suddenly seem dangerously hot.

In this thrilling hunt for the missing girl, Caplan must trace where love and control get out of hand, and question where power lies in any relationship. Meanwhile, the dark nights of Scotland conceal a terrifying game of cat and mouse . . .

So, I now have 516 unread books on my NetGalley shelf, one more than last week – a definite improvement! And I have 21 pending requests.

My feedback ratio remains on a very shaky 72%.

Next Tuesday I will be starting the

Challenge on The Perks of Beng a Book Addict group on Goodreads.

LIST OF TASKS

📖 Read a book with a character who is a writer
📖 Read a book with a character who loves reading
📖 Read a book with a character who is a librarian
📖 Read a book with the word “typewriter” in the text
📖 Read a book where the main setting is a bookstore
📖 Read a book with the word “LIBRARY” in the title/series title
📖 Read a book with the letters B*O*O*K in the title/series title and/or the author’s name
📖 Read a book with the letters P*E*N in the title
📖 Read a book with the author’s initials in the word “READING”
📖 (Re)read a book by a favourite author
📖 Read a book from a favourite genre
📖 Read a book of fiction where reference is made to a real book
📖 Read a book recommended to you by a GR Friend
📖 Read a book recommended by a favourite author
📖 Read biography about or the memoirs/autobiography of an author
📖 Read a book with an author using a pen name
📖 Read a non-fiction book connected to reading in some way (your explanation)
📖 Read a book where the main setting is one of the countries listed in the post above
📖 Read a book where one of the cities listed in the post above is mentioned
📖 Read a book from this list Portal
📖 Read a book with a title that starts with a letter from SHAKESPEARE (the/a(n) can be ignored)
📖 Read a book with a character or written by an author called William (or any of its variations)
📖 Read a book whose author was born in April
📖 Read a book that was first published between 1995 – 2024
📖 Read a book that is a retelling of one of Shakespeare’s plays
📖 Read a book that contains (parts of) a poem or a collection of poems
📖 Read a play or read a book where a character is an actor/actress
📖 Read a book originally written in a different language than your own
📖 Read a book you have borrowed from a Library
📖 Read a book you own and haven’t read yet

ABOUT THE CHALLENGE:

📖 This is an individual challenge

📖 You can complete all tasks, but it’s not necessary, however, you need to finish a minimum of 12 tasks to consider your challenge accomplished.

📖 You can start any time from 23 April 2024 and need to finish before 23 April 2025.

📖 You can use 1 book to cover a maximum of 3 tasks if you’d like to do so, but you can also use 1 book/task. Up to you.

📖 For this challenge, there are no restrictions/special conditions on page numbers, genres, etc… :), feel free to read whatever you like!

I am going to try and use only one book per task.

For the Aussie Readers April challenge, I have completed reading 4/9 titles and the first of the 4 Australian authors I selected. I have got the biggest read, Moth to the Flame by Joy Dettman 592 pages, finished but have yet to write my review. I am only a little behind on this challenge.

And for the Autumn Aussie Readers challenge I have completed 6/13 books including 3/4 Australian authors I selected. I am one book behind where I should be with this challenge.

We have been having very foggy mornings this week and cool evenings. Our cat is no fonder of this weather than I am and isn’t straying far from home. She has claimed the chair beside the fire for her own in the evenings.

We were meant to be going to the NZ SuperCars round in Taupo this weekend but someone (that would be me!) forgot to book the tickets and they sold out weeks ago. So I guess we will be watching on TV. No biggie – at least I’m warm, comfortable and can see everything!

We’ve a friend’s birthday on Saturday but, other than that, the rest of our plans are weather dependent. Pete wants to finish painting the exterior basement walls, and I have a few jobs to do in the garden that I need his ute for.

Have you any plans for the weekend?

Happy reading my friends and stay safe.