EXCERPT: ‘You should find yourself a good woman.’ He paused before speaking and she waited, expecting some confidence, but obviously he thought better of it. ‘Yeah, well. Easier said than done. I’ve never had much luck in that line.’ He looked straight up at her. Those dark eyes that made you think like something out of a soppy magazine. I’d be your woman. Good or bad. Only no man has ever wanted me. The words came suddenly into her head and she was shocked by their bitterness. She turned away. Outside the light had almost gone and the street was quiet. There was a smell of woodsmoke. Not from a bonfire. There’d be wood-burning stoves in the big houses on the other side of the square. It was a wealthy village this, she thought. It wasn’t showy like the estate where Fletcher lived, but there was plenty of money around. As she waited to cross the road, Ashworth pulled up. While he was parking she watched a group of girls in school uniform come out of the post office with cans of coke and bars of chocolate. She wondered what they’s do in a place like this for a good night out. All kids liked to take risks, but until the murders you’d have put this down as one of the safest places on earth. So what would they do? Hang around each other’s houses looking for porn sites on the internet? Drink too much? Have sex with unsuitable lads? A girl like Abigail Mantel must have been bored silly here. What games had she been playing to bring a bit of excitement to her life?
ABOUT ‘TELLING TALES’: Telling Tales is the second book in Ann Cleeves’ Vera Stanhope series. Ten years after Jeanie Long was charged with the murder of fifteen-year-old Abigail Mantel, disturbing new evidence proving her innocence emerges in the East Yorkshire village of Elvet. Abigail’s killer is still at large. For Emma Bennett, the revelation brings back haunting memories of her vibrant best friend – and of the fearful winter’s day when she had discovered her body lying cold in a ditch. Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope makes fresh inquiries, and the villagers are hauled back to a time they would rather forget. Tensions begin to mount, but are people afraid of the killer, or of their own guilty pasts?
MY THOUGHTS: Telling Tales, although part of a series, is easily read as a stand-alone.
Vera is away from her home territory in Telling Tales, and not entirely comfortable with it. She needs to be north of the Tyne for it to feel like civilization to her. She has been brought in to make fresh inquiries into an old case; reopened when the woman convicted of the murder commits suicide and new evidence comes to light which proves her innocence. Joe Ashworth is by her side to help in the investigation.
Vera is quite candid about her own shortcomings – particularly with the opposite sex. She is a lone woman, not necessarily lonely, but fond of a dram or two to keep the cold at bay. She is very good at what she does, but Joe is more the diplomatic side of the pairing. Vera is blunt and to the point, yet at times she can be quite charming. That’s when she is at her most dangerous. She has a great understanding of human nature. Astute, with great powers of observation. Her appearance and demeanor often give suspects the wrong impression of her. She’s overweight, scruffy, comes across as a bit of a female Columbo. But she’s also quite capable of scaring the bejesus out of a suspect!
I loved the resolution to this particular murder-mystery. I never suspected . . .
⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
#TellingTalesVera Stanhope @anncleeves
THE AUTHOR: Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs – child care officer, women’s refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard – before going back to college and training to be a probation officer.
While she was cooking in the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle, she met her husband Tim, a visiting ornithologist. She was attracted less by the ornithology than the bottle of malt whisky she saw in his rucksack when she showed him his room. Soon after they married, Tim was appointed as warden of Hilbre, a tiny tidal island nature reserve in the Dee Estuary. They were the only residents, there was no mains electricity or water and access to the mainland was at low tide across the shore. If a person’s not heavily into birds – and Ann isn’t – there’s not much to do on Hilbre and that was when she started writing. She describes a couple of her early books as seriously dreadful!
DISCLOSURE: I own my copy of Telling Tales by Ann Cleeves.
EXCERPT: COMPANION WANTED FOR ELDERLY WOMAN – NORTH NORFOLK Temporary position. Live-in. BOX:765034 Job specifications: Live-in companion wanted for an elderly woman. You will have your own room with a private bathroom in a substantial home on a large country estate in North Norfolk. The position is temporary – seven days in the last week of August during a family wedding party. Your duties will be light. No persona care is involved. The woman requires, in essence, a friendly person to be her companion while the family are otherwise engaged with wedding preparations. You must be efficient, quick-witted and happy to join the family for their very special occasion. If the applicant is successful, there is the potential for a permanent position in the woman’s London home. . .
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 divorce papers 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?
MY THOUGHTS: I loved these two main characters! Eighty-nine-year-old Dot Reed and seventy-one-year-old Gina Knight just seem to hit it off. Dot really didn’t want a companion until she met Gina, who has a skill that Dot needs to fulfil her quest. Gina just wants out of the marital home which is in the process of being sold.
Gina doesn’t have a lot of self-confidence, shaken by a departing husband who describes her as ‘beige and unexciting.’ Dorothy tends to be impulsive and a holder of grudges. At first glance these two have nothing in common, but in truth both are quick-witted and suspicious. Juliet, Dot’s thirteen-year-old granddaughter makes the third person in the search for stolen goods in the host’s home.
Old Girls Behaving Badly is humorous romp (without being at all silly!) under cover of the upcoming nuptials in a large and stately manor house with staircases, cellars and hidden rooms. Dot and Gina made me think of an aged Nancy Drew!
This read is a lot of fun. It deals with divorce in the elderly, grief, finding your feet again and finding new friends in unexpected places. Every time I think about Old Girls Behaving Badly, I smile. The way Kate Galley has ended this book makes me believe there may be a second book on the horizon. I sincerely hope so.
⭐⭐⭐⭐.4
#OldGirlsBehavingBadly #NetGalley
THE AUTHOR: Kate Galley lives in Buckinghamshire with her husband, children and Meg, their Patterdale Terrier. Much of Kate’s inspiration co0mes from the varied lives of her client as a mobile hairdresser.
DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Boldwood Books via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of Old Girls Behaving Badly by Kate Galley for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.
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!
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.
EXCERPT: . . . the app played its little triple chime and flashed a new message on her screen: Wow, you’re on a roll! As a Bronze member you can unlock special features currently in beta and not available to members of lesser stature. Would you like to unlock those features now? Abby read the message and realised this was the first time it asked her a question and actually gave her he ability to answer Yes or No. Usually, there was only a single ok button. Maybe that was one of the glitches they’d fixed with yesterday’s patch. She tapped Yes. The app closed, and a small hourglass appeared on her screen as it downloaded some type of update. When the hourglass vanished, the app’s logo appeared with v1.1 in the bottom corner. Would you like to try a Sugar or a Spice? The font was slightly different, but otherwise everything looked the same. Abby had been sitting with her feet curled up under her on the chair, and her legs had fallen asleep. She stretched out beneath her desk, let out a yawn, and clicked on Sugar. Would you kill a total stranger to save your partner’s life?
ABOUT ‘BEHIND A CLOSED DOOR’: 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.
MY THOUGHTS: Question: Do you ever read fully the terms and conditions of the apps you download? I don’t. Or rather, I didn’t. But after reading Behind a Closed Door, I many never download another app. In fact, I may even downgrade to a non-smart phone. J.D Barker has scared the living bejesus out of me!
I have often commented to friends that if you search for something online, you are later bombarded with information and products that you have researched. This happens to all of us. But what about when you are simply talking about something? – no online searches, no mentions or likes – just a purely verbal conversation between you and whoever. Increasingly often, this subject/item pops up on your feed. Is your technology listening to you? My honest opinion? HELL YES!
J.D. Barker has taken this premise one step further in this chilling thriller. A seemingly innocuous app that controls the lives of the characters. An app that promises to enhance your life, put the zing back in your struggling/flagging love life. An app that promises to reward you . . . just follow the prompts. How bad can it be? You can always uninstall the app – can’t you?
I have loved everything I have read by this author, but all his previous novels pale in comparison to Beyond A Closed Door. This is one wild, but totally believable ride. And because it is completely plausible, possible, it is all that more scary.
For those of you who may be put off by the mention of erotica – don’t be. It’s really quite tame – definitely no Fifty Shades of Grey (thank goodness), and one heck of a lot better written!
Several hours after having finished reading, my heart is still pounding wildly. I am looking sideways at the smart TV. Feeling grateful I have never selected the option to connect the fridge to the internet, and I never purchased an Alexa. No robot vacuum cleaner. My car with all the bells and whistles? Nah, sorry, but I can’t give up my heated seats. NOT FOR ANYTHING!
The best read of my 2024 reading year. Devious, diabolical and very, very frightening.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
#BEHINDACLOSEDDOOR #NetGalley
THE AUTHOR: A note from J.D. As a child I was always told the dark could not hurt me, that the shadows creeping in the corners of my room were nothing more than just that, shadows. The sounds nothing more than the settling of our old home, creaking as it found comfort in the earth only to move again when it became restless, if ever so slightly. I would never sleep without closing the closet door, oh no; the door had to be shut tight. The darkness lurking inside needed to be held at bay, the whispers silenced. Rest would only come after I checked under the bed at least twice and quickly wrapped myself in the safety of the sheets (which no monster could penetrate), pulling them tight over my head.
I would never go down to the basement.
Never.
I had seen enough movies to know better, I had read enough stories to know what happens to little boys who wandered off into dark, dismal places alone. And there were stories, so many stories.
Reading was my sanctuary, a place where I could disappear for hours at a time, lost in the pages of a good book. It didn’t take long before I felt the urge to create my own.
I first began to write as a child, spinning tales of ghosts and gremlins, mystical places and people. For most of us, that’s where it begins—as children we have such wonderful imaginations, some of us have simply found it hard to grow up. I’ve spent countless hours trying to explain to friends and family why I enjoy it, why I would rather lock myself in a quiet little room and put pen to paper for hours at a time than throw around a baseball or simply watch television. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I want to do just that, sometimes I wish for it, but even then the need to write is always there in the back of my mind, the characters are impatiently tapping their feet, waiting their turn, wanting to be heard. I wake in the middle of the night and reach for the pad beside my bed, sometimes scrawling page after page of their words, their lives. Then they’re quiet, if only for a little while. To stop would mean madness, or even worse—the calm, numbing sanity I see in others as they slip through the day without purpose. They don’t know what it’s like, they don’t understand. Something as simple as a pencil can open the door to a new world, can create life or experience death. Writing can take you to places you’ve never been, introduce you to people you’ve never met, take you back to when you first saw those shadows in your room, when you first heard the sounds mumbling ever so softly from your closet, and it can show you what uttered them. It can scare the hell out of you, and that’s when you know it’s good.
Barker resides in coastal New Hampshire with his wife, Dayna, and their daughter, Ember.
DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Hampton Creek Press, IBPA, via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of Behind A Closed Door by J.D. Barker for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.
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.
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…?
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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
Sandy's Book a Day Blog 