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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