The Killer’s Girl
(Detective Morgan Brookes #2) 
by Helen Phifer 

‘Mama, wake up.’

The little girl reached for her mother’s face with one pudgy hand. But the eyes stayed closed, and the blood continued to trickle across the floor.

When the body of a young woman is found, tied to her bed and the victim of a brutal attack in her own home, Detective Morgan Brookes is sickened by what she finds as she searches the house. And unprepared for the nightmares it inspires about her childhood.

When the DNA collected gives a positive ID, Morgan can’t wait to put the attacker behind bars. But the person it matches to is already in prison. How could the DNA of someone who has been locked up for over twenty years have shown up in Morgan’s crime scene? And then they make another close match. To Morgan herself.

Faced with the impossible proof that she is somehow connected to this case, Morgan delves deep into the crimes of a killer who stalked the Lake District two decades ago. But distracted by the old case, she misses the signs that he has found a new victim. And when he strikes close to home, Morgan finally realizes that she has been living on borrowed time. To find this killer, it’s clear she must confront the nightmares in her past…

A heart-racing, nerve-wracking crime thriller. Fans of Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott, and Patricia Gibney will be completely gripped.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Despite him being in love with himself, there was no denying his black hair, tanned skin and brown eyes were easy on the eye. It was no wonder women swooned over him, not that she’d ever tell him that; his head was big enough.

If she did agree to come stay at his house, he was going to have to go shopping and clean up. Living alone meant a different takeaway every night and getting the polish out when the dust was too thick to see the image clearly on the TV screen.

I’d rather shit in my hands and clap…

My Review:

Poor Morgan, she seems to attract trouble as fast as my thighs amass cellulite, which apparently is exponential. I am rather new to police procedurals but I am lapping up this series and developing quite a taste for them while enjoying the devious and conniving wordcraft of Helen Phifer, she is a master of misdirection. She kept me guessing while the killer was front and center the whole time. The storylines were intriguing, interestingly detailed, and thrummed with tension. Her characters are more than a bit fractured and weary, yet endearing and oddly compelling. I am besotted and enamored with Declan and hope he will be featured in greater detail in a subsequent installment.

In addition to an absorbing and gripping read, Ms. Phifer has also provided me with the latest addition to my Brit Words and Phrases list with “I’ll be mother,” which Mr. Google tells me means being in charge of the teapot.   Oddly, Mr. Google had no idea what “being father” would mean – I would suspect sneaking off to the pub.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

He knew what his problem was: it came to him each night before he fell asleep and it whispered loudly in his ear. He was lonely, and the loneliness slithered over his life like a cold snake and stole his confidence and made him shiver inside his own skin.

Sylv chuckled. ‘Well he’s a budgie… but he mocks people and he’s a bird, so…’ ‘So?’ Dawnie screwed up her face, thinking. ‘So he’s called Tequila Mockingbird?’

‘I want to be like Bruce and say “Yippee ki-yay” to his arse.’ Vinnie frowned and followed his mother out into the street. For someone of her advanced years, she was walking quite quickly, her elbows jutting out from her body as if she was looking for a fight… Dilly screwed up her eyes so that her face became tough and imperious. ‘Are you feeling lucky, punk? … go ahead and make my day… Any more of this gossip about Billy and you’ll have me to deal with, Malcolm Frost. And you know what will happen if I hear about you bad-mouthing my friend?’ She waggled the finger under his nose, made a firing sound and blew down the nail. ‘I’ll be back.’

It has taken me years to get it to this state of imperfection.

My Review:

I reveled in every well-chosen word of this lively tale. The storylines were astoundingly witty, thoughtfully insightful, tenderly poignant, and laced together with exceedingly clever and vibrant arrangements of words that whisked me into a colorful vortex where I was practically bouncing in my chair with glee while giggle-snorting and smirking throughout perusal.

Each inimitable character was well-honed, multi-layered, oddly peculiar, vastly intriguing, and uniquely dynamic. The primary characters of Dawnie and Billy were seventy-years young and more high-spirited and energetic than most people in their thirties. I adored them. I was also quite taken with the eighty-six-year-old Dilly who enjoyed watching and quoting Bruce Willis films and claimed she was “on the pull” during their 60s disco adventure. Dilly’s story threads often found me cackling.

While brimming with clever levity and remarkably comical, there were also topical and heart-squeezing elements relevant to our world today including PTSD, grief, anxieties, ageism, bigotry, depression, and social bias. Judy Leigh’s delightful storytelling was smooth, flawlessly engaging, and rapturously transportive. Ms. Leigh cunningly plumbed all the feels while keeping me mirthfully entertained and tethered to my kindle and now finds herself with the burden of a rabid new fangirl for life – unless she starts writing about zombies, I despise zombies.

When Jade Ferguson’s affair with a married man abruptly ends, she’s devastated.

There is no quick fix for a broken heart. A fresh start is required.

New job. New home. New neighbours.

The residents of Gresham Terrace seem pleasant enough.

Except for one…

An absolutely gripping debut psychological thriller.

My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

…mistress. Jade flinched at the label. She’d never thought of herself as such a person.

My Review:

Earlier in the year, I read this author’s delightfully humorous Willow’s Wedding Vows and promptly added her entire listing to my TBR. Silly me, when I started this book, I didn’t realize I was currently picking up her initial foray into her darker side by delving into her first thriller. Thankfully, Ms. Viggiano didn’t leave her sense of humor or witty banter behind and frequently tucked in snarky exchanges and musings as well as wryly-amusing observations.

The pacing was a bit disconcerting and the storylines were slow to evolve yet my curiosity was well teased and taunted with sporadically dropped breadcrumbs and seeds to keep the little pea in my brain busy and engaged in gathering clues and formulating hunches.

I struggled with the unstable main character of Jade as she was the type of person I go out of my way to avoid in the real world as I am retired no longer have to accommodate crazy. Jade was deeply damaged, highly paranoid, devious, snide, arrogant, hostile, OCD, and generally obnoxious to almost everyone. The secondary characters were more endearing although they were also a peculiar lot of strangely torqued yet compelling and enigmatic personalities that added intrigue and flavor to the suspense.

Given this adroit author’s flexibility and creative straddling of genres, I’m curious to see what the wily minx scribbles out next.

Silent Ridge
(Detective Megan Carpenter #3)
by Gregg Olsen 

A Christmas Wedding At The Castle
(Life on the Moors Book 5)
by Eliza J. Scott

Do you believe in fate? Livvie Weatherill does…

This time last year, if anyone had told Livvie Weatherill she’d have fallen in love and would be making plans for her Christmas wedding to Zander Gillespie, she would have laughed in their face. If they’d gone on to say they’d be planning to have their wedding at the imposing Danskelfe Castle, she’d have laughed even louder!

But it would seem fate had plans for her…

Since moving to the pretty moorland village of Lytell Stangdale Livvie is happier than she’s ever been. She’s living with Zander and she’s working at her dream job as a wedding dress designer at Romantique with her friends, Kitty and Violet. It’s fair to say, she’s enjoying immersing herself in village life, from romantic walks in the countryside, to meeting friends at the quaint Sunne Inne. And she can’t think of anything better than rounding off the day cozying up with Zander.

Life is sweet.

Her blossoming friendship with Freda Easton, the endearing but reclusive elderly lady who lives down the lane, has taken everyone by surprise. But Freda has a secret and, in a turn of events no one could predict, she finds herself grateful for Livvie’s fierce loyalty, cementing their friendship further.

Just when things seem to be running smoothly, a face from the past arrives on the doorstep casting a shadow over Livvie’s wedding plans. Adding to the drama, an icy blast of Arctic air brings heavy snowfall to the village, covering the moors in a thick blanket of snow.

Is their love strong enough to withstand the challenges thrown at them? Will they get their magical Christmas wedding?

Join Livvie and Zander – and all the usual characters – for a sparkling Christmas full of love and laughter in Lytell Stangdale.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

I’m absolutely starving; I could eat a scabby horse between two mattresses!

I know it’s a shock, but I can’t help thinking the worst thing to come out of this is having Lady Davinia as your sister-in-law. She’s got a face pinched tighter than a cat’s bum.

Precariously, Livvie stepped out of her lacy knickers and flung them flamboyantly behind her where they landed on Alf’s head. The Labrador yelped in shock and ran off to watch proceedings from a safe distance.

My Review:

This was a fun and delightfully cheeky read packed with eventful and lively storylines laced with witty banter, irreverent humor, and riotously amusing scenarios that kept me smirking and giggle-snorting in mirth. I adore this sassy group of tight-knit and supportive friends who enjoyed a good chinwag, wore deely-boppers to hen night, and frequently dropped comical quips about various topics ranging from serious family issues to carpet burgers. My favorite threads involved a drunken striptease and the long-overdue dressing down of the vile and snooty Lady D. Personally, I live for such moments. I am looking forward to my next trip to this peculiar little village, which appears to be populated with the most oddly alluring characters.

Happily This Christmas: A Novel
(Happily Inc #6)
by Susan Mallery 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

His words made her feel a little floaty, which was silly. She was in some serious trouble here— she hadn’t been this flaky even in high school. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to start flipping her hair and saying “like” in every sentence.

Most guys don’t like shopping, which I’ve never understood. All you have to do is pretend you’re hunting. You stalk, you pounce, you strap it to the car and take it home. A total win, but men don’t see it that way.

Wynn did her best to keep her happiness to herself. Being cheerful was one thing, but giddy tended to confuse her employees and frighten the customers.

The whole process is insane and unnatural… The cliché is true. If it were up to men to have babies, the human race would be dead in a generation.

My Review:

While I haven’t read all the books in this series, the ones I have read have been golden. I have thoroughly enjoyed every trip I’ve taken to Happily, Inc. and fervently hope Ms. Mallery never runs out of residents to feature. The main characters in this installment were highly likable, thoughtful, and admirable people I’d like to know and spend more time with. The writing was wittily amusing, smooth, expertly paced, and flowed through my gray matter like a ribbon of film through a movie projector while eliciting sighs, smirks, and contented smiles throughout a highly satisfying perusal.

No Room at the Little Cornish Inn
by  Nancy Barone

Rosie Anderson was hoping to whisk her young son Danny away for a lovely Christmas with family, far from the hustle and bustle of her life in London. But then her boss at the head office – aka Susan the Sacker – suddenly assigns her to go in incognito and save a tiny inn in Cornwall from being closed permanently. Rosie doesn’t know why The Old Bell Inn is performing so badly but it’s on her to sort it out!

Hours in the car later, Rosie arrives at the inn to find she’s been double booked – there are no rooms left. And she isn’t there for more than a minute before she’s butting heads with the manager, Irishman Mitchell Fitzpatrick. He seems to dislike her on sight, so it’s confusing that he seems to get on so well with Danny… But if he’s as terrible as his reputation, Rosie will have to be the one to fire him.

This really isn’t the Christmas Rosie was dreaming of. But maybe, just maybe, it could be a whole lot more…

A sweet and uplifting Christmas romance, No Room at the Little Cornish Inn is perfect for fans of Philippa Ashley, Holly Martin, and Jenny Hale.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

… blasting from my mobile phone in the form of the infamous and ominous The Ride of the Valkyries tune. It’s the ringtone I’ve assigned to the HR manager at Johnson Hotels Head Office, Susan Hearst – better known as Susan the Sacker… Rumour has it no men are allowed anywhere near her home, where she lives with her divorced sister who joined the Single and Furious Club. Apparently, they have a ground-to-air missile they use to fight off blokes.

I hug myself and breathe deeply, and feel a sudden, unfamiliar rush of what I soon realise must be joy. I didn’t know happiness could have its own fragrance.

My Review:

This was a fun, light, and sweet holiday read with a bit of somewhat underhanded hidden motives as well as some snooping and sneaking around during an undercover investigation.   The characters were likable and relatable and the storylines were easy to follow with amusing bits of levity, a blossoming romance, and curious tidbits tossed in that poked at my curiosity.   This was my introduction to Nancy Barone and I enjoyed her fluid writing style and gently paced storytelling.

Ms. Barone also provided me with a new entry for my Brit Words and Phrases list with bubble and squeak – which Mr. Google tells me is a traditional British dish that was named for the sound it makes while cooking and is made from cooked potatoes and cabbage which is mixed together and fried, although looking at the pictures it appears that sometimes meat, a fried egg, or other vegetables are also added.