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Italy Ever After
by Leonie Mack

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

She always looked as though she were hurtling through life straddling a hydrogen bomb.

She was finally letting go of her identity as Phil’s wife and latching on to the first man who came into range. Urgh, it made her sound like a sniper peering through her scope.

Watching Lou suppress a moan at the mushroom ravioli was like accidentally catching a glimpse of someone in the shower.

He knew it hadn’t been easy for her, but she didn’t just accept life’s lemons, she grabbed them off the tree and made silly faces with them.

My Review:

I adored every word of this cleverly amusing and delightfully engaging tale. It was my first chance to read this witty and talented author and I found her work pleasantly entertaining as well as insightful and deliciously textured with humor, lush descriptions, and keen observations.

A newly divorced mom finds she is crushing on teacher – her daughter’s teacher – but it is a huge crush and she can’t stop looking at his delectable backside while he conducts her young daughter’s music group. And that could be a problem as she is to chaperone her daughter’s class of preteens to a musical retreat with the hot teacher at his family’s farm in Italy. And be still my heart, the hot man blushes, a lot.

The struggling characters were fun to unravel and endearingly appealing, except for the heinous ex-husband, he was a waste of good skin. The premise was inviting while the writing craftily took us on an exploratory adventure of the heart and soul as well as exposure to a new country. Sigh. I seem to have an intense craving for pasta with some gelato for dessert. There goes my diet…

Detective Hanlon is addicted to violence. She likes the rush, the danger, the losing control…

When Hanlon is suspended from the force for assaulting a suspect, she escapes to the remote Scottish island of Jura, home to the mysterious Corryvreckan whirlpool.

But wherever Hanlon goes, violence is sure to follow.

As soon as she checks into The Mackinnon Arms, Hanlon senses something isn’t quite right about the staff at her home for the week.

Sure enough, within days of arriving, the body of a member of staff is found floating in the sea. While police believe she was claimed by the local whirlpool, Hanlon isn’t so sure.

As she pieces together the evidence, dark secrets begin to unravel. Can Hanlon work out what is going on before another floating body is found…?

The start of a gripping new crime series, perfect for fans of Angela Marsons, Robert Bryndza, and Lisa Regan.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

She wasn’t exactly friendless in the Metropolitan Police, but it surely felt that way. She was like a wounded lioness in a pack; the others had smelled her weakness and were moving away from her. Hyenas were circling in the distance.

About twenty or so people were sitting, in various stages of undress, watching a widescreen TV with rapt attention. There was a lot of wrinkled flesh on offer. The baby boomers were not going gentle into that good night. She stared at what was going on in horrified disgust… The Mackinnon Arms hotel was obviously the centre for some sort of ageing island swingers group.

It stood on a street corner as a tired old prostitute might, soliciting trade, and not doing very well. Its sign was peeling; a chalkboard advertised ‘Exotic Dancers’ on Saturday afternoons. A poster said, ‘Food available’. In the Rob Roy that sounded more like a warning than a promise.

She watched his face redden; it happened from the base of his neck upwards like mercury rising in a thermometer. His normally pale face was flushed and she didn’t think it was from exertion.

The flat was sparsely furnished with cheap furniture. As well as the smell of the cannabis, there was a strong smell of poverty. The carpet was threadbare, the sofa had been fixed with duct tape. The armchairs were of the sort that old people were sometimes discovered dead in.

My Review:

This crafty wordsmith is flawless. I am totally enamored with and ensnared by his impressive word voodoo. The man has mad skills! His use of metaphors and descriptions was cleverly creative, vivid, and easily pulled keen visuals to mind. Plus, I cannot get enough of his complex and enigmatic kickass chick character of DCI Hanlon. I know it was mentioned in an earlier book but I honestly don’t recall her first name, everyone just calls her Hanlon, as does she when she introduces herself. She is deeply flawed and tough as steel-toed boots, yet still human and able to feel the occasional prickles of unease at how others relish her misfortunes and are enjoying her downfall, although she is surprisingly comfortable in her own skin. I will most likely always be striving for her level of self-acceptance. I adore her but wouldn’t want to have her laser focus honing in on me.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Mack looked legit, like a young Indiana Jones, only more anaemic and homely, you know? Who’d have thought under all that gabardine and paleness there’d beat the heart of a scumbag?

Just knowing he’s next to me helps me switch off my brain which has been delivering a long lecture with PowerPoint slides all evening, entitled, ‘An illustrated history of all the completely obvious ways gullible, naive Jude was manipulated by Dr Mack the snake’…

I’ve never been anywhere apart from here… Except for in books; I’ve been twice around the globe and halfway across the galaxy in books.

My Review:

This was a light and fun tale that was cast with a bevy of oddly enticing and eccentric small village characters that kept me grinning and fully engaged as I read their descriptions and interactions. This was only my second time reading this talented scribe and I easily fell into her words and enjoyed her storytelling, dialogs, and the endearing main character Jude’s inner musings. Oh, how I adored Jude!

The storylines and writing style were evocative, cleverly amusing, shrewdly paced, and easy to follow while laced with relevant real-world problems. The narrative was unpredictable and scrolled smoothly and believably and dealt with several rather serious issues while remaining unfailingly entertaining due to Ms. Dunbar’s adroit word skills. I will be chasing this author until the day I die for more of her clever arrangements of words.

And, score! I picked up a new entry to my Brit word list with cutpurse, which the omnipotent Mr. Google informed me, is a pickpocket.

The Survivors
by Jane Harper 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

She was four years younger than him and shy to the point that he wasn’t even sure he knew what her voice had sounded like.

… it must have been good fun, Kieran thought, otherwise why did they do it every weekend? But it was interesting looking back how the good fun had sometimes felt a lot like hard work… It had all seemed so important at the time, Kieran thought as he stood on the beach now. Life and death.

He had fed Audrey and read to her from a picture book that hinted heavily on its front cover that it would unlock her genius potential. Instead, it had sent her back to sleep, which in that moment seemed like an even better result. They should have put that on the cover.

My Review:

This was one of those slowly unwinding tales that kept me feeling a bit uncomfortable, on edge, impatient, tense, and unable to put my Kindle down without feeling annoyed at the intrusion.   I was hooked from the beginning and full of nagging suspicions as at one time or another, almost every character seemed a bit off and capable of something dreadful. The writing was cleverly realistic with deeply flawed yet enticing characters while shrewdly plotted and cunningly paced to drive me mad in brain itching increments. It was brilliant.

I was provided with a review copy of this powerful piece of literature by  TLC Book Tours and  Thomas Nelson publishing.

Angela Jackson-Brown is an award-winning writer, poet, and playwright who teaches Creative Writing and English at Ball State University in Muncie, IN. She is a graduate of the Spalding low-residency MFA program in Creative Writing. She is the author of the novel Drinking From A Bitter Cup and House Repairs.

Connect with Angela

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Summer Secrets at Streamside Cottage
by Samantha Tonge

Favorite Quotes:

‘You’re talking to the person who a couple of years ago dabbled with online dating. I lied about my birth date to register. A woman asked me to send her a dirty picture.’ He covered his eyes with his hands. ‘I sent her a photo of me in my muddy cricket kit.’

I’ll buy us a big palace and they won’t have to work. We can eat all the chocolate we want and I’ll only wear clothes covered in glitter.

Have you never made a mistake? One you spent years wishing you could take back? Because if you haven’t already, believe me, it’s just a matter of time.

My Review:

I count sixteen books listed on Amazon for this crafty wordsmith and though I’d love to read them all, I’ve only gotten to four of those so far. While I have enjoyed each of those four, this one is definitely my favorite to date. There was a perfect balance of wit, family drama, villainy, curiosity arousing mystery, tragedy, and a budding romance for a young woman at a major life crossroads while uncovering long-buried family secrets. Ms. Tonge’s writing was smooth, lushly detailed, easy to fall into, and continuously engaging while shrewdly paced. She relentlessly poked at my inquisitive nature and had me fit to burst before finally revealing the well-contained family secrets, and there were several unexpected yet quite cleverly plotted outcomes. What a wily minx!

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

I was told by Mama that I would be much better placed to marry well if I knew how to get out of a motorcar without flashing my own undercarriage.

Handsome? Heavens no, but he had two of the best qualities you can hope for in a husband…. a vast fortune and a dicky heart!

She’d scare Hades himself away from the Underworld… Churchill should have sent her into Berlin and cut the whole thing short years ago.

My Review:

This was a well-plotted, unpredictable, and slowly unwinding cozy mystery with lush descriptions and active storylines involving new friendships, post-WWII recovery challenges, transcontinental ocean cruise travel and hijinks, shopping and dining fare in three countries, crossword puzzle development, burglary, and murder. I couldn’t even begin to solve this one as Ms. Chester had me addled and intrigued with her well-contrived schemes, yet the clues were there, just to skillfully buried among the richly detailed and abundant aspects described in each crime scene and series of events for the little pea in my brain to put together.

The characters were an interesting and unusual grouping of personalities and circumstances with Americans including a radio showbiz entertainer, a wealthy American heiress, and her vile Aunt, who was a detestable and snobbishly elitist old dragon who bossed and insulted everyone and got away with it; as well as a Nazi scientist quietly hiding in cabin #13. I adore Fen Churche and her honorable and straightforward nature and keep hoping a romance will spark for her soon with the deliciously handsome and highly likable Viscount. I do loves me a HEA.

About the Author

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Fliss Chester lives in Surrey with her husband and writes historical cozy crime. When she is not killing people off in her 1940s whodunnits, she helps her husband, who is a wine merchant, run their business. Never far from a decent glass of something, Fliss also loves cooking (and writing up her favorite recipes on her blog), enjoying the beautiful Surrey and West Sussex countryside, and having a good natter.

JUST GET HOME
by Bridget Foley

Favorite Quotes:

Sometimes there is a recognition between two people that hastens their transition from strangers to friends. Like falling in love, but without the hormones.

It will be chaos for days. Weeks. There will be looting. Riots. The earthquake isn’t the real disaster, Dessa. The disaster is what happens after.

What must it be like to have that power? To not be afraid, but to have others be afraid of you? Not just right now on this dark street, but on all the dark streets.

Beegie’d never thought of it before, but she realized most people sounded like animals when they laughed; Barb sounded like a donkey, brays with big deep breaths in between. And Eric sounded like a chimpanzee, kinda screaming and baring his teeth.

You know only white people camp, right? … Camping, hiking… all that is a white thing. Black people, Mexicans, Latinos, whatever, we don’t do shit like that… It’s rich people pretending to be poor. Sleeping outside. Eating on the ground and shit. Only white people are crazy enough to play homeless for fun. All ‘getting in touch with nature.’ Brown people, uh-uh. We don’t pretend. We don’t get in touch with nothing.

My Review:

Wow, this was a tense, insightfully observant, and all too realistic and disturbing revelation of the unchecked inhumanity and brutality once terror and lawlessness are unleashed following a natural disaster.

Dessa was socializing with friends on one side of LA while her toddler was at home with a new babysitter when an earthquake rips the town apart. The challenges from the lack of resources, destruction, and environmental hazards were a lesser impediment to her attempts to return to her child than the dangerous, surreal, malicious, and uninhibited cruelty and barbarism of the citizens she encountered along the way.

Bridget Foley ever so aptly captured the fractured underbelly of all levels of society while exposing their anxious inner musings, memories, biased observations, regrets, poor choices, and base natures. The storylines were fraught with distress and taut with angst and impending peril with each encounter. It was riveting, exhausting, compelling, and disheartening, and oh so shrewdly and cunningly paced. Ms. Foley is quite the storyteller, but her evocative words are not ones I’d want to peruse before heading off to the land of nod least I thrash in my sleep.