Month: June 2019

The Scandal – Nicola Marsh

My life is like one of those cheap snow globes my twins collected when they were younger. Shiny and pretty on the outside, blurred beyond recognition when shaken.

Ever since her twin girls left home, Marisa has felt there’s something missing from her life. Her sprawling mansion is no longer filled with laughter and chaos, and she’s desperate to feel needed… and to be distracted from the secret she’s been hiding from her husband for all these years.

Coffee with her best friends might be the only thing holding Marisa together. But Claire and Elly have their own secrets. Like why Claire hasn’t been to work in weeks, or why Elly won’t tell anyone who’s buying her flowers.

When Jodi, a pregnant young girl, turns up at Marisa’s doorstep, Marisa is quick to come to her aid. She sees herself in Jodi and she knows how devoting yourself to looking after others can take up all your time in the most marvellous way.

But Jodi’s arrival quickly pushes everyone’s lies to the surface. The father of her unborn child is someone the women know very well, and Marisa starts to wonder if her obsession with helping Jodi might come at a devastating price…

 

Review

 

One night during a gossipy – very Witches of Eastwick-esque girlie get together at a house in the Hamptons, the doorbell goes and a pregnant girl faints on the doorstep. She’s the catalyst in the story ensuring a wide range of secrets and lies will need to bubble to the surface before anyone finds out – who the father is!

But this isn’t just a gossip book – it’s a proper thriller too as the characters come out of their shells and start to reveal their true natures and as things take a more sinister turn.

To be honest, this isn’t my usual read but it did keep me turning pages to the very end. And I  didn’t see the end coming. A proper small-town noir thriller.

Thank you Netgalley and Bookouture for the Advanced Copy

Something Fishy – Lois Schmitt

The Blurb

When attorney Samuel (Sam) Wong goes missing, wildlife magazine reporter Kristy Farrell believes the disappearance is tied to her latest story concerning twenty acres of prime beachfront that the Clam Shell Cove Aquarium hopes to purchase. Sam works for multi-millionaire land developer Lucien Moray who wants to buy the property for an upscale condominium. The waterfront community is divided on this issue like the Hatfields and McCoys, with environmentalists siding with the aquarium and local business owners lining up behind Moray. Meanwhile, a body is found in a nearby inlet. Kristy, aided by her veterinarian daughter, investigates and discovers deep secrets among the aquarium staff—secrets that points to one of them as the killer. Soon the aquarium is plagued with accidents, Kristy has a near death encounter with a nine foot bull shark, and a second murder occurs. But ferreting out the murderer and discovering the story behind Sam’s disappearance aren’t Kristy’s only challenges. When her widowed, septuagenarian mother announces her engagement, Kristy suspects her mom’s soon to be husband is not all he appears to be. As Kristy tries to find the truth before her mother ties the knot, she also races the clock to find the aquarium killer before this killer strikes again.

The Review

This aquarium themed murder mystery thriller is definitely different. Cosy in a way only a US murder-mystery can be. The story is written very economically, without much frill but I felt this kept it moving along at a good pace. But despise its frivolity, at its heart it’s a proper whodunit with the net (pardon the pun) tightening around the suspicious character that we’ve all grown to love to hate. A very good read. And an awesome cover by the way.

Thank you Netgalley and Encircle Publications for the Advance Copy.

Something Fishy

by Lois Schmitt

Encircle Publications LLC

You Can’t Hide – Steve Parker

Cheeky Cockney Johnny Clocks turns up at JFK with a psychopath to find. He already sounds like a nasty piece of work, mean to kids – and it gets worse – so although Clocks originally intends to do things the right way, all above board, things get tangled and he ends up doing it his own way.

Review

Now bearing in mind, I haven’t read any of the other stories in the series, so perhaps that was a mistake on my part, but when I first started reading I wasn’t sure if it was a parody-thriller book. The scene setting is a little mundane, with Clocks’ trip through JFK Arrivals meticulously detailed including the ‘hell of luggage claim’ as if it were something much more interesting and as if this guy hadn’t seen things which were much more hellish, then almost a page of description on the female co-villain’s attractive-but-not-that-attractive appearance leaving me with the image of a young woman in mom-jeans in my mind, but you know what, after all this was out of the way, I really got into the story and decided it wasn’t meant to be a piss-take. It’s a bloke book – written by a bloke and that in itself has real charm. Looking back at the parts which wrangled me, I thought nah – that works, this guy can stand over bleeding bodies and still consider the business of ‘a nightmare’ he’s that sort of blokey guy who uses the same words to describe the M25.

So in the end, I really enjoyed the read – a fast paced thriller which you can finish in a trip from Gatwick to JFK.

Thank you to Netgalley and Joffe Books for the Advanced Copy.

YOU CAN’T HIDE

by STEVE PARKER

Joffe Books

Bound for Murder – Victoria Gilbert

Description

Blue Ridge library director Amy Webber learns it wasn’t all peace and love among the “flower children” when a corpse is unearthed on the grounds of a 1960s commune.

Taylorsford Public Library director Amy Webber’s friend “Sunny” Fields is running for mayor. But nothing puts a damper on a campaign like an actual skeleton in a candidate’s closet. Sunny’s grandparents ran a commune back in the 1960s on their organic farm. But these former hippies face criminal charges when human remains are found in their fields–and a forensic examination reveals that the death was neither natural nor accidental.

With Sunny’s mayoral hopes fading, Amy sets her wedding plans aside, says “not yet” to the dress, and uses her research skills to clear her best friend’s family. Any of the now-elderly commune members could have been the culprit. As former hippies perish one by one, Amy and her friends Richard, Aunt Lydia, and Hugh Chen pursue every lead. But if Amy can’t find whoever killed these “flower children,” someone may soon be placing flowers on her grave.

Review

I was really happily surprised by this find – it’s not the usual sort of crime I’d read, being not very gritty but also not the traditional cozy crime genre variety either. Instead it’s a lovely story, full of imagery and southern charm and a good dose of modern realism and social commentary too. The story runs along the lines of… what would you do if the metaphorical ‘skeleton in the closet’ was really a historic murder that could sink your friend’s political career? Amy Webber uses real investigatory skills – well, she is a librarian – to put together a case to prove her friend’s innocence and along the way learns and gets more than she bargained for. I really liked the fact that this was real detection and inquiry, not just physical forensic. A welcome relief when I was after some light reading.

The only thing I didn’t love was the cover. The image is too fussy and the font doesn’t suit it.

Thank you Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for the Advance Copy

Bound for Murder

A Blue Ridge Library Mystery

by Victoria Gilbert