The Girl She Wanted
by K.L. Slater

My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

He was dog-tired most of the time these days, even on his day off. Exhaustion was like a fusty smell that clung to his clothes no matter how often he washed them. It was always there.

My Review:

I rarely write negative reviews as I generally stop reading, so keep in mind, this is just my highly unqualified opinion. But I felt all itchy and prickly reading this one – it just wasn’t doing it for me.   The storylines were all over the place and were extremely far-fetched and didn’t hold water while cast with characters who were too annoying for words, or maybe I can’t seem to find the right words to express my discontent.

The main character was painfully exasperating and working my last nerve as she was terminally naïve and living in a death spiral of gullibility while suffering a stubbornly fatal case of denial. Yet the author kept me reading, damn my insatiable curiosity and need for closure, they are a plague and will most likely be the death of me!

My friend Shalini has niggles, I have moanings, carpings, grumbles, grousings, and with this tale, I dare say I’ll go all fancy pants with remonstrances. Yet I kept reading, and I will confess – I never saw this ending coming, at all! So I was glad I hung in there, but again, this is just my highly unqualified opinion.

My Husband’s Daughter
by Emma Robinson 

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From interior designer to author, when Linn B. Halton’s not writing or spending time with the family, she’s either upcycling furniture or working in the garden. Linn won the 2013 UK Festival of Romance: Innovation in Romantic Fiction award; her novels have been shortlisted in the UK’s Festival of Romance and the eFestival of Words Book Awards. Living in Coed Duon in the Welsh Valleys with her ‘rock’, Lawrence, and gorgeous Bengal cat Ziggy, she freely admits she’s an eternal romantic. Linn is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Society of Authors. Linn writes feel-good, uplifting novels about life, love, and relationships.

Sometimes it takes a stranger to find a killer…

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

I’m the one who sells Mick his beer. Every night when he leaves the Tavern he’s like a puppet with the strings cut.

Fletcher knew it was uncharitable to understand why Walt had found comfort in the arms of another woman, but the pernicious Mrs. Renard had stripped him of his desire to see her in a positive light… he couldn’t see her as the killer. He figured that would be too quick, too painless for a woman like her. That she’d be the type who’d gladly cut her own nose off to spite someone else’s face. She’d want to make her husband suffer, to have him regret his dalliance every time she gave him a look or chastising word. She would prefer to execute him with a thousand verbal cuts than a knife to the heart or a slash to the throat.

Dressed as he was in a black suit with white shirt and black tie, the caller was either an FBI Special Agent, or an out-of-work actor who was about to attend an audition for a remake of Reservoir Dogs.

Like so many other librarians he’d met, she had a pair of reading glasses hanging against her chest on what Wendy referred to as a “granny chain.”

She was late forties to early fifties and had the look of someone who’d ambushed more than one bottle of wine.

My Review:

I relish Mr. Ryder’s descriptions and character development, I found myself looking forward to the introduction of each new character to delight in the witty and pithy manner in which he would describe them. His humor went a long way in easing the unrelenting tension facing the tightly coiled main protagonists.

This was a complicated and gritty tale that I would never have unraveled under my own steam. I struggled some with the number and length of the violent physical conflicts poor Fletcher had to endure. This installment would undoubtedly be more popular and exciting for bloodthirsty readers as it was heavy with pages and pages of brutal physical altercations, and combative knife fights in minute blow-by-blow detail.   And while I understand that may be thrilling to some, it grew tiresome for me. I wanted my clever hero to get back to the snarky observations and amusing and slick displays of one-upmanship.   Not that I have ever behaved in such a manner 😉

John Ryder is a former farmworker and joiner. He’s turned his hand to many skills to put food on the table and clothes on his back. A life-long bibliophile, he eventually summoned the courage to try writing himself, and his Grant Fletcher novels have drawn inspiration from authors such as Lee Child, Tom Cain, Zoe Sharp, and Matt Hilton. When it comes to future novels, he says he has more ideas than time to write them.

When not writing, John enjoys spending time with his son, reading, and socializing with friends. A fanatic supporter of his local football team, he can often be found shouting encouragement to men much younger and fitter than he is.

Author Social Media Links:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnRyderAuthor/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnRyder101

Olivia learns that she gave birth to a baby who later died in the nursery. Instead of telling his wife what happened, Ben switched the child with another. And as if that’s not enough, Ben’s will doesn’t reveal which of their five sons is truly not hers.

Olivia visits each of her sons to share a final connection before facing the truth that will change their family and discovers that each of them has been harboring a painful secret, just like their father. But will the secrets destroy their family, or bring them closer together?

Her Final Prayer
(Detective Clara Jefferies #2)
by Kathryn Casey

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

I thought of those I knew who used religion to control the lives of others and the unfairness of a world where so many have no power and no voice.

On the day my parents delivered me to him I was seventeen, and my husband was sixty-four. He could have been my grandfather.

My Review:

The first book in the series, The Fallen Girls, left a mark on my memory and I have been curious ever since to know more of Clara’s history. The storylines were tense and prickly, much like the main protagonist, as well as a bit gruesome and cast with adult characters I wanted to take a sharp switch to while hissing like a serpent. I know there are weird secular cults in every culture and that they are basically everywhere, but these extreme religious sects that are basically abusing children and women with the women’s consent are just horrific and inexcusable. The mystery wasn’t as unpredictable as the first installment but it was still twisted and disconcerting and kept me on edge.