I Know You Know

by Gilly Macmillan

HarperCollins | Amazon | B & N

Paperback: 384 pages
 Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (September 18, 2018)

From New York Times bestselling author Gilly Macmillan comes this original, chilling and twisty mystery about two shocking murder cases twenty years apart, and the threads that bind them.

Twenty years ago, eleven-year-olds Charlie Paige and Scott Ashby were murdered in the city of Bristol, their bodies dumped near a dog racing track. A man was convicted of the brutal crime, but decades later, questions still linger.

For his whole life, filmmaker Cody Swift has been haunted by the deaths of his childhood best friends. The loose ends of the police investigation consume him so much that he decides to return to Bristol in search of answers. Hoping to uncover new evidence, and to encourage those who may be keeping long-buried secrets to speak up, Cody starts a podcast to record his findings. But there are many people who don’t want the case—along with old wounds—reopened so many years after the tragedy, especially Charlie’s mother, Jess, who decides to take matters into her own hands.

When a long-dead body is found in the same location the boys were left decades before, the disturbing discovery launches another murder investigation. Now Detective John Fletcher, the investigator on the original case, must reopen his dusty files and decide if the two murders are linked. With his career at risk, the clock is ticking and lives are in jeopardy…

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

If you can control where an interview takes place, you are part of the way to controlling the interview itself. Location matters. Fletcher’s wife announced she was leaving him when they were in the Costco car park. He didn’t see it coming. He remembers acutely the humiliation of loading bags into the boot of the car while she explained across the laden shopping trolley that their marriage was over. “Well, why are we buying in bulk then?” was all he could think to ask.

It’s a resting place for cold cases, and Fletcher thinks of it as an archive of failure. For every high-profile solve, there’s an unsolved crime shelved here. In each tidily filed box, Fletcher thinks, there are not just papers, photographs, and other case materials, but other things, invisible things. There are traces of the open emotional wounds an unsolved crime leaves on the families and detectives affected by it. There is also the shadow of something more rotten: the person who got away with it.

Like a nodding dog ornament on a dashboard, she moves her head laboriously to look at Danny. Everything she does is so slow it makes Fletcher’s joints feel as if they’re liquefying under the strain of being patient.

I said you’re a prat, John Fletcher. Always have been, always will be. I’m fed up of you strutting about like you own the place when you passed your sell-by date years ago. The only time I’ll look forward to seeing you will be at your retirement party.

I did a bit of unscientific research on the subject—by which I mean to say that I looked it up on the internet…

My Review:

I was unprepared for the twists and turns of the diabolically clever Gilly Macmillan. Her fascinating yet despicable characters were as compelling as the well-crafted storylines they inhabited. They squeezed then broke my heart while holding me captive to my Kindle as I hissed and huffed my distress. No one was innocent, except for the condemned patsy, and no one was as they had initially appeared, it was brilliant.

Gilly Macmillan has strong word voodoo. Cunningly woven into this adroitly written book were the gut-churning savagery of children, blackmail, police coercion, nefarious manipulations, greed, ambition, corruption, and desperation. The writing was exquisitely nuanced, the wily characters were deeply damaged and irreparably flawed yet keenly described and depicted in a cleverly magnetizing manner. It was riveting, yet tragic and heartbreaking. I was enthralled and even though she turned me inside out, I covet her mad skills and greedily want all her words.

New additions to my Brit Vocab list include tearaways which Mr. Google tells me is a wild or reckless person; bung which is a bribe or payoff; and cobblers which apparently has two meanings as it is nonsense to some, and testicles to the Cockneys – although those two things are pretty much the same thing to me 😉

I was provided with a review copy of this stunningly well-crafted book by HarperCollins and TLC Book Tours.

About Gilly Macmillan

Gilly Macmillan is the Edgar Nominated and New York Times bestselling author of What She Knew. She grew up in Swindon, Wiltshire and lived in Northern California in her late teens. She worked at The Burlington Magazine and the Hayward Gallery before starting a family. Since then she’s worked as a part-time lecturer in photography, and now writes full-time. She resides in Bristol, England.

Find out more about Gilly at her website, and connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

 The Boy at the Keyhole

by Stephen Giles

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

304 pages

Hanover Square Press; Original edition (September 4, 2018)

Nine-year-old Samuel lives alone in a once-great estate in Surrey with the family’s housekeeper, Ruth. His father is dead and his mother has been abroad for months, purportedly tending to her late husband’s faltering business. She left in a hurry one night while Samuel was sleeping and did not say goodbye.

Beyond her sporadic postcards, Samuel hears nothing from his mother. He misses her dearly and maps her journey in an atlas he finds in her study. Samuel’s life is otherwise regulated by Ruth, who runs the house with an iron fist. Only she and Samuel know how brutally she enforces order.

As rumors in town begin to swirl, Samuel wonders whether something more sinister is afoot. Perhaps his mother did not leave but was murdered—by Ruth.

Artful, haunting and hurtling toward a psychological showdown, The Boy at the Keyhole is an incandescent debut about the precarious dance between truth and perception, and the shocking acts that occur behind closed doors.

“A fiendishly efficient, gorgeously written, nasty little thrill ride of a psychological thriller. I couldn’t put it down, and it’s entirely possible that I’ll never sleep again. A true tour-de-force of a debut novel.”–Lyndsay Faye, author of The Gods of Gotham and Jane Steele

“The Boy at the Keyhole is sinister and tight, amusing and intense, an emotional story of a sweet boy in a precarious psychological place. A fun and wicked read that is impossible to put down!”–Matthew Sullivan, author of Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Ruth could do that. Make a decree, like a queen or something, that certain topics had reached their end and that would be that.

Now that he stood on the precipice of this wrongdoing, he felt the fluttering in his chest that made every breath sound as if he were sitting on a rattling train.

The same wine his mother said made his father prone to unsettling fits of national pride and falling asleep midsentence.

Part of the reason Samuel was sent to the local school and not somewhere more distinguished, like his father and uncle had, was because his mother didn’t want him turning out like his uncle Felix, who she said was a pompous buffoon wrapped in tweed, dipped in gin and rolled in horsehair.

Samuel saw the lies easily enough; they practically leached from her skin like poisonous gas. She twisted everything, turning the truth in on itself until it looked like something else.

My Review:

I am in quite a pique over the ending, or lack thereof, so rating this skillfully crafted book puts me in a quandary. The story didn’t seem anywhere near a stopping point, yet it ended. Gah – I am infuriated as I was riveted to my Kindle while reading and hissed in complaint at any interruption.   Needless to say, adulting did not happen today, as evidenced by my profane and childish reaction to hitting the last page. Yet, I cannot deny that Stephen Giles is a master storyteller who is extremely gifted with the word voodoo. His writing was mesmerizing and laced with observant details and massive insightfulness into the mind of a child. His characters were compelling and deftly written, I was eager to learn every little nuance I could wring from the narrative. His storylines were tautly written and adroitly textured, I was on edge and keenly interested throughthroughout. I couldn’t settle on a theory and developed and cast off several while reading. The housekeeper was vile and monstrous, harsh on a good day; the mother was absent, irresponsible, and self-absorbed; and the child – oh, he squeezed my heart, I ached for him. But that ending – he really left me hanging, would it have killed him to have kept going just a few more pages? It rankles, but I have to give him his due. Sigh, 5-Stars. This would make an excellent movie.

About Stephen Giles

Stephen Giles is the Australian author behind the lauded children’s series “Anyone But Ivy Pocket”, penned under the pseudonym Caleb Krisp. The series, published in the US by HarperCollins/Greenwillow and the UK by Bloomsbury, appeared on the New York Times Best Seller List, has been translated into 25 different languages and was optioned by Paramount Pictures.

Prior to selling his first book, Stephen worked in a variety of jobs to supplement his writing including market research, film classification and media monitoring. “The Boy at the Keyhole” is Giles’ first work for adults and the film rights for this book have been acquired by New Regency.

.

 About The Author

C.A. Harms
Goodreads 
Website
Twitter

I am an Illinois girl, born and raised. Simple and true. I love the little things; they truly mean the most. I may have a slight addiction to my new Keurig—oh my, that thing is a godsend. And so fast too. I have two children who truly are the greatest part of my days, and their faces never fail to put a smile on my face. I have been married to my best friend for seventeen years, and looking forward to many more.

FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorCAHarms/
INSTAGRAM: Instagram.com/authorcaharms/
NEWSLETTER: http://bit.ly/1xsgHCS
AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/C.A.-Harms/e/B0…

White As Silence, Red as Song

by Alessandro D’Avenia

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble

Hardcover: 272 pages

Publisher: Thomas Nelson (September 4, 2018)

Hailed as Italy’s The Fault in Our Stars, this Italian bestseller is now available for the first time in English.

“I was born on the first day of school, and I grew up and old in just two hundred days . . .”

Sixteen-year-old Leo has a way with words, but he doesn’t know it yet. He spends his time texting, polishing soccer maneuvers, and killing time with Niko and Silvia. Until a new teacher arrives and challenges him to give voice to his dreams.

And so Leo is inspired to win over the red-haired beauty, Beatrice. She doesn’t know Leo exists, but he’s convinced that his dream to win her over will come true. When Leo lands in the hospital and learns that Beatrice has been admitted too, his mission to be there for her will send him on a thrilling but heartbreaking journey. He wants to help her but doesn’t know how—and his dream of love will force him to grow up fast.

Having already sold over a million copies in Italy, Alessandro D’Avenia’s debut novel is considered the Italian The Fault in Our Stars. Now available in English for the first time, this rich, funny, and heartwarming coming-of-age tale asks us to explore the meaning—and the cost—of friendship, and shows us what happens when suffering bursts into the world of teenagers and renders the world of adults speechless.

I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy this book as I tend to avoid YA and it took a few beats to acclimate to the author’s innovative and slyly colorful writing style. I soon found myself fully immersed in the cleverly crafted and jagged, yet fascinatingly compelling, stream of consciousness of Leo, a post-pubescent teenaged boy whose thoughts tended to ramble and flit about in a captivating and heart-squeezing manner. Leo’s inner dialogue was wryly amusing as were his personal observations and hard-won and ironic teenaged wisdoms.

This wily author well remembers the insecurities and dramatics of youth and demonstrated remarkable insight into the rapid variability of their intense and extreme emotions, which soar to exhilaration as quickly as they can plummet to the vast pit of despair. I reveled in Leo’s inner musings as he obsessed over every nuance of his infatuation with the lovely and angelic redheaded schoolgirl named Beatrice.   His fertile imagination, creative use of nicknames, and fixation on defining colors kept a smirk on my face while reading. Leo’s world revolved around playing soccer, his batscooter, his study friend Silva, the drudgery of school and teachers, and his undeclared love for the perfection known as Beatrice. This ingeniously well-crafted story detailed Leo’s most transformative year of enlightening life-lessons.

About Alessandro D’Avenia

Alessandro D’Avenia holds a Ph.D. in Classical Literature and teaches Ancient Greek, Latin, and Literature at a high school in Milan. White as Silence, Red as Song was his first novel, published in Italy in 2010. It sold a million copies in Italy, has been translated into over twenty languages and was released as a film in 2012. Alessandro has since published four more books, the latest of which, Every Story is a Love Story, was published in October 2017.

Haircuts, Hens, and Homicide

by Stephanie Dagg

Goodreads

Amazon / B&N

Megan finds mayhem when she arrives in France to bury her Gran and sort out her affairs. She expected difficult encounters with civil servants and red tape but not with wandering chickens, an imperious policeman, and a dead body. Together with her unlikely new friend, the elderly and grumpy Alphonse and his canine equivalent, Monsieur Moustache, Megan becomes involved in investigating the fowl-related foul play that’s at work in this sleepy part of rural France.
She’s helped but mainly hindered by the people she comes across. These include the local mayor, who wants Megan to stay and set up a hair salon in his village to help keep it alive. There are the cousins Romain, the gendarme, and Nico, the clumsy but hunky farmer. They have always clashed, but do so constantly now that Megan is on the scene. Michelle, Romain’s terrifying ex who wants him back, appears along the way, as does Claudette, a wheelchair-bound old lady, and Kayla, Megan’s best friend, who is hugely pregnant but not above taking on the forces of French law and order when Megan finds herself the prime suspect after Alphonse is stabbed.

There’s excitement, humor and lots of ruffled feathers in this rom-com slash cozy mystery, the first in a projected series.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

The first time I’d visited Gran in France I’d expected to see the entire male population wearing berets. My school textbooks had been resolute on the matter.

I didn’t know French women cried. I thought they only had one emotional setting: ferocity. Mind you, looking back I’d always been in Gran’s company when I’d met any French women and she had the knack of bringing that quality out in everyone.

There were a good few words I’d never heard before. I made a mental note to look them up later. You could never have too many swear words at your disposal in any language.

I’d become a good judge of what people were saying without actually listening. I mean, there’s only so many long rambling tales of child prodigies, cute cats and cheating boyfriends you can listen to without wanting to stick your scissors in your eye.

“I’ve always been attracted to older men,” Claudette went on, “so each of my men was twenty years old than me. Hans was ninety-four when we shacked up.” I fought desperately to keep my face blank, but ‘ninety-four’ and ‘shacked up’ are so not words you expect to hear in the same sentence. “I finished him off in four years,” was Claudette’s next deadpan remark.

Jason had been a slim guy so didn’t slim just represent the first four letters of slimy, after all?

Now for all I knew, my father might own a string of racehorses or a fleet of oil tankers or even a small Caribbean island, maybe several. Nah, it was far more likely he owned a beer belly, a clapped-out car and a pile of debt.

My Review:

This wittily amusing book was a delight from start to finish. Ms. Dagg’s writing sparkled with more twinkles than my friend Nikki’s disco ball. The lively storylines were cleverly crafted and just so much fun. I adored all the quirky and colorful characters, vibrantly detailed and glee-inducing escapades, the nimbly plotted chicken napping murder mysteries, and hilarious inner musings and insightful observations of the main character of Megan.

After the humorously whimsical Megan, my second favorite character was Nico, who despite his appeal and sweet nature, was a walking hazard and unwittingly wrought destruction and injury to any unfortunate object, person, or creature within his reach. The storylines were laced with all manner of clever little tidbits and lovable antics such as Catastrophe – the “little scabby tabby;” the duck that thought she was a chicken and avoided the duck pond; and the ancient kleptomaniac chicken expert Megan privately labeled “Chikipedia” and his ugly dog with the precious name of Monsieur Moustache.   The hardest part of writing this review was winnowing down the many pages of mirthfully rib-tickling favorite quotes I had marked. This was my first exposure to Ms. Dagg’s deft literary artistry and it left me with a greedy want of all her clever words.

Author Bio –

I’m an English expat living in France, having moved here with my family in 2006 after fourteen years as an expat in Ireland. I now consider myself a European rather than ‘belonging’ to any particular country. The last ten years have been interesting, to put it mildly. Taking on seventy-five acres with three lakes, two hovels and one cathedral-sized barn, not to mention an ever-increasing menagerie, makes for exciting times. The current array of animals includes alpacas, llamas, huarizos (alpaca-llama crossbreds, unintended in our case and all of them thanks to one very determined alpaca male), sheep, goats, pigs, ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys, not forgetting our pets of dogs, cats, zebra finches, budgies , canaries, lovebirds and Chinese quail. Before we came to France all we had was a dog and two chickens, so it’s been a steep learning curve. I recount these experiences in my book Heads Above Water: Staying Afloat in France and the sequel to that, Total Immersion: Ten Years in France. I also blog regularly at www.bloginfrance.com.

I’m married to Chris and we have three bilingual TCKs (third culture kids) who are resilient and resourceful and generally wonderful.     

I’m a traditionally-published author of many children’s books, and am now self-publishing too. I have worked part-time as a freelance editor for thirty years after starting out as a desk editor for Hodder & Stoughton. Find me at www.editing.zone. The rest of the time I’m running carp fishing lakes with Chris and inevitably cleaning up some or other animal’s poop.   

Social Media Links – @llamamum

www.facebook.com/StephanieDaggBooks/

www.bloginfrance.com

The Oddest Little Cornish Tea Shop

by Beth Good

Goodreads

Amazon US / UK  / B&N

‘I love Beth Good’s quirky style!’ Katie Fforde

It’s a big day for Charlie Bell – the grand reopening of her Aunt Pansy’s long-closed tea rooms in Tremevissey, a quaint Cornish seaside resort. But not everyone is happy for Charlie. The locals say the tea rooms are cursed. For Pansy was cruelly jilted by her lover, and walked out into the ocean, never to return.

Charlie dismisses the ‘curse’ as superstitious nonsense, but by the end of the first day, her world is in tatters, and she’s not even sure the tea rooms can open again.

Then in walks a rugged, taciturn man with a sexy smile and everything he owns on his back, looking for a summer job . . .

Is Gideon Petherick an angel in disguise? Or is history about to repeat itself?

The latest novella in Beth Good’s quirky and popular ‘Oddest Little Shop’ romcom series.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

…‘are you having it off with that total sex god, Gideon Petherick? … Oh come on, don’t tell me you’re too shy to admit it. I’d be telling anyone who’d listen if I’d caught someone like that.’ Elsie wriggled oddly beside her, as though her knickers were too tight and she was trying to adjust them. ‘After all, look at him. It’s not like he isn’t the sexiest beast on two legs in this back-of-beyond village. If I was you, I’d have jumped his bones soon as he walked into my place.’

Elsie fell silent suddenly, then made a kind of strangled moaning noise in the back of her throat. She was staring at Gideon’s rear as he bent over the pool table to take his shot. ‘Christ, will you look at that? I bet that’s a mouth-watering parcel in tight, white cotton boxers… Like two hardboiled eggs in a hanky,’ she finished under her breath.

‘Maybe a little bit handsome,’ she ventured, careful not to let him see how sexy she found him. Even though she had probably given it away once or twice. Okay, definitely twice. ‘Definitely not as hot as Poldark. But you’re … passable. It wouldn’t be a hardship to be seen in public with you, let me put it that way. Especially in a posh car,’ she added shamelessly.

My Review:

I have come to the end of my Beth Good stash and am feeling a bit melancholy and rueful having completed this one as it is the last treat in the bag for me as I’ve now finished all the published installments of the Odd Little Shop series. I enjoyed the curiosity prickling storyline and adored all the colorful characters in this one. Poor Charlie, she had worked so hard to reestablish her family’s business but a string of disasters struck during the Grand Re-Opening the of the Cornish Tea Rooms, mainly due to personnel issues, like grossly incompetent ones. The locals had long claimed the Tea Rooms were cursed, but Charlie didn’t think so. Luckily, all was not lost as a very sexy knight in shining apron named Gideon arrived on her doorstep seeking a job. Gideon had the ladies all a flutter and overheating and caused Charlie to have recurring problems with concentration and breathing.   They worked well together and found their collaboration leading to a different kind of business after-hours, which produced high temperatures in other rooms besides the kitchen.

How unexpected and ingenious for a series to not overlap in some way. I personally believe the divine and sublime Ms. Good should continue this cleverly amusing series into perpetuity, and why not? Cornwall appears to be a treasure trove of quirky villages with which she could continue to apply her own distinct and special blend of witty wares. I have cherished each of her five uniquely appealing and mirthfully entertaining novellas and she has hooked me with her pleasantly addictive style, and like a crack-head on the pipe, I feel rather desolate with the inability to reach for more.

Author Bio –

Born and raised in Essex, England, Beth Good was whisked away to an island tax haven at the age of eleven to attend an exclusive public school and rub shoulders with the rich and famous. Sadly, she never became rich or famous herself, so had to settle for infamy as a writer of dubious novels. She writes under several different names, mainly to avoid confusing her readers – and herself! As Beth Good, she writes romantic comedy and feel-good fiction. She also writes thrillers as Jane Holland, historicals as Victoria Lamb and Elizabeth Moss, and feel-good fiction as Hannah Coates.

Beth currently lives in the West Country where she spends a great deal of time thinking romantic thoughts while staring out of her window at sheep. (These two actions are unrelated.)

You can find her most days on Twitter as @BethGoodWriter where she occasionally indulges in pointless banter about chocolate making and the Great British Bake Off. Due to a basic inability to say no, she has too many children and not enough money, which means she needs as many readers as she can get.

Social Media Links –

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

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/BethGoodWriter