Book Review: Family (Glass Family #1) by Owen Mullen @OwenMullen6  @rararesources  @BoldwoodBooks

Family
(Glass Family #1)
by Owen Mullen

Family – might be the death of you…

The Glass family business is crime, and they’re good at what they do. Vengeance took Luke Glass behind bars – but now he’s free and he’s never going back. Luke wants out of the gangster life – all he has to do is convince his family to let him go.

His brother holds the reins of the South London underworld in his brutal hands – nobody tells Danny Glass no and expects to live – not even DCI Oliver Stanford, bent copper and one of the Met’s rising stars. The way Danny sees it, his younger brother and sister Nina owe him everything. The price he demands is loyalty, and a war with their arch enemy gives him the leverage he needs to tie Luke to the family once more.

Luke can’t see a way out, until Danny commits a crime so terrible it can’t be forgiven. Love turns to hate when secrets are unearthed which pit brother against brother. Left with no choice but to choose a side, Nina holds the fate of the family in her hands.

In the Glass family, Owen Mullen has created a crime dynasty to rival the Richardsons and the Krays. Heart-pounding, jaw-dropping with non-stop action, Family is perfect for fans of Martina Cole, Kimberley Chambers, and Mandasue Heller.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

If plunging to your death was an Olympic event, he’d have been in the medals for sure.

 

And the women… if ugly was contagious they’d be in quarantine. I’d move if I were you.

 

The phone dropped from his trembling fingers. Danny’s eyes bulged in his skull, his face so red I thought it might explode. Nobody did rage as he did: rising from his core, spewing like lava, scaring those around him to the bone.

 

Insanity explaining itself – the scariest thing I’d ever heard.

My Review:

 

I finished the book in a quandary as to how I felt about it, how to rate it, and even how to write a review. I was flummoxed until I perused my favorite passages, which removed all doubt. Mr. Mullen has mad skills! The book was superbly written with compelling characters and multi-textured and intriguing storylines that were intense and taut with tension. It was also cleverly snarky, distressingly violent, gruesome, gritty, heartbreaking, and oh, so, very, twisted.

I had trouble putting it down although I needed to walk away from it every so often when I found I was clutching my Kindle so tightly my hand was cramping. But even then, I continued to contemplate the characters’ dilemma in dealing with a vicious and unstable psychopathic criminal kingpin, and extra complications abound when all that mess is a sibling.

Twenty-four hours after being released from prison with the mindset to break from his family and start over clean, the main character of Luke had barely avoided death, had a massive hangover, been with a hooker, and was already drawn back into his vile brother’s brutal world of cruel and savage barbarism. The unsettling insights were brilliantly paced and shrewdly plotted. What a disturbingly cunning creature Mr. Mullen must be, I hope for their sake his neighbors take heed, keep the noise down, and frequently ply him with sweets.

About the Author

 

Owen Mullen is a highly regarded crime author who splits his time between Scotland and the island of Crete.  In his earlier life, he lived in London and worked as a musician and session singer. He has now written seven books and his first gangland thriller for Boldwood, Family was published in January 2021.

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/owenmullen6/

Newsletter Sign Up Link: https://bit.ly/OwenMullenNewsletter

Bookbub profile: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/owen-mullen

 

Book Review: All the Wrong Choices by C.A. Harms @Charms0814  @limitlessbooks

 

All the Wrong Choices
by C.A. Harms

Amazon  

 

A second chance romance packed with emotion!

Being left at the alter on your wedding day is devastating.

But when the man you are supposed to marry has run off with your younger sister, well, that’s an entirely new form of hell.

Everything I believed in, everything I envisioned for my future, was nothing more than a lie. I was a fool. The poor girl who couldn’t hold onto her man. Everyone pitied me, but I didn’t want nor need their pity.

Never again will I be the vulnerable one.

Never again will I allow myself to fall in love because let’s face it, love and commitment are nothing more than a waste of time.

Never again will I fall for a man’s lies.

I’ll remain distant and unattached and I will not falter. Not even when a tall, handsome, and incredibly hot man makes me question the plans I’ve made for myself.

I can’t give in, no matter how perfect he appears to be. I know better and all good things always come to a crashing, destructible finale. I know it will end and when it does, I’ll be the one left shattered.

I’m not sure I’ll survive another fall.

All the Wrong Choices, lead to heartbreak…

And my heart couldn’t take another hit.

My Rating:

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

When I say charming, I mean she looks as though she has itching power in her panties and is doing all she can to hide her discomfort.

 

I’m going home with Tony tonight… I’ve made the poor man wait long enough. And if I’m being honest, if I wait any longer, I’m going to attack him and most likely break him.

 

“He’ll come crawling back one day after he realizes what a mistake it was to walk away.” “And I’ll trip him as he moves on by…”

 

Reece is eyeing you like you’re a triple chocolate cake with cherries, and it’s been years since sweets have graced her tongue…

 

 My Review:

 

C.A. Harms is one of my go-to authors when I need a refreshing shot of sizzle and sass.   She populates her tales with primary and secondary characters who are endearing yet realistically flawed and packs her storylines with just the right balance of humor/angst/and sensuality to cure any funk I may have fallen into, whether it is a reading slump or external stressors. I enjoyed her latest missive featured a likable and accessible couple attempting to keep it casual when it was anything but.

 

 

About The Author

 

 

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.

I am one of those authors that adore my readers. I love to hear from you. After all, it is because of each one of you that I continue to write.
.

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…

Book Review: Between You and Me by Carol Mason @CarolMasonBooks  @rararesources 

Between You and Me
by Carol Mason

Amazon  / B&N / BB

Is her new husband really who she thinks he is?

When young doctor Lauren Matheson meets Joe, an older divorced businessman, at a glittering poolside in California, it’s a chance encounter that seems life-changing for them both. Back home in London, their feelings only strengthen. But Lauren soon discovers that building a happy future with Joe is going to be an uphill struggle…

She’s determined to be a good stepmother to his children, four-year-old Toby, and complicated teen Grace. But under the watchful eye of Meredith, Joe’s intimidating ex-wife, Lauren can’t seem to do a thing right. Why won’t Joe ever take her side against Grace? And what really happened between him and Meredith?

As her husband retreats into a cold, secretive version of the dashing man she met in California, Lauren starts to wonder if she’s made a costly mistake. Was Joe ever the man she thought she married?

My Rating:

  

My Review:

 

This was one of those maddening tales that kept me reading well into the night while greatly annoyed with ALL the characters. They each needed a few firm pinches and even a swat or two to the back of the head. Ms. Mason excels at creating curiously compelling yet vile characters I love to hate. Her well-textured and shrewdly paced storytelling lures me into an interwoven trail of storylines, each with an itchy web of nebulous veracity and questionable sincerity, and I just can’t help myself.

About the Author

Carol Mason is the Amazon Charts and Kindle #1 bestselling author After You Left (more than 300,000 copies sold), The Secrets of Married Women, The Last Time We Met, The Shadow Between Us, Send Me A Lover, and Little White Secrets which hit the Bookstat digital bestsellers list top 3 in the week of its launch. She was born in the North East of England where most of her novels are set. She now lives in Canada with her Canadian husband, a rescue dog from Kuwait, and a three-legged cat. When not writing, Carol loves to read, cook, and binge-watch Netflix.

Social Media Links –

https://www.facebook.com/CarolMasonAuthor

https://twitter.com/CarolMasonBooks

https://www.instagram.com/carolmasonauthor/

 

 

Book Review: The English Girl by Sarah Mitchell @SarahM_writer @Bookouture

The English Girl 
by Sarah Mitchell

Amazon  / B&N / Apple / GP / BB

He is German. She is English. Their countries are enemies. Can love bring them together? Inspired by an incredible true story, this is a sweeping tale about the power of hope in the face of war and the legacy of an impossible choice.

1946, Norfolk, England: Grief and fear spillover in Fran’s small village when German prisoners of war are sent to the nearby camp. After the death of her beloved brother on the front lines, Fran cannot see the new arrivals as anything but his killers.When one of the mines the Germans are clearing from the beach explodes, Fran is thrown into the path of prisoner Thomas as they rush to help the wounded. Thomas’s kind, artistic nature, and his bravery, putting himself in danger to save others, change everything for Fran. She realizes he is a boy just like her brother and was forced to fight in a war he never believed in.

From that day on, there is something powerful and unspoken connecting Fran and Thomas. But as battle lines are drawn across Europe and tensions within the village reach breaking point, they could be about to unleash something neither of them can control…

1989, Berlin: Tiffany arrives in Berlin from London, just as the wall that divided a nation finally falls. With only a few words of German, she celebrates with strangers in the streets and crosses the border between West and East. In her pocket is a crumpled letter addressed to her grandmother, yellowed with age, that has led her in search of a wartime secret with the power to change her future…

A book that you will carry with you long after having turned the final page. Fans of Fiona Valpy, The Forgotten Village, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society will be absolutely gripped from the very beginning until the final, heart-stopping conclusion of this unforgettable wartime story.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

At the time everyone had said the agony of not knowing, the uncertainty, must be the worst thing of all, but it hadn’t been. Uncertainty had meant hope, seconds, sometimes even whole minutes of time when they had convinced themselves he was still alive. The worst thing had been when the letter finally came, hearing the wild sobs of her mother behind her bedroom door, a racking, animal-like keening that sounded unlike anything Fran had ever heard before.

 

Her husband has become a stranger. A silent stranger. Some days she hardly speaks to anyone apart from Alice. It’s like being less and less present in her own life, as if she’s been reduced to a chalk drawing on a blackboard to which someone has taken a duster, and finger by finger, toe by toe, is slowly obliterating.

 

It’s like… it’s like I’m staring at the sun. I can’t see anything but him.

 

 My Review:

 

 My first exposure to Sarah Mitchell’s agile storytelling and she took me right into their homes, offices, and lives. I was sucked right into their vortex and beside the various characters in an alley while breaking up a fight, in their kitchens during family meals, in their car when it slid off the road into a snowbank. I felt the bitter chill of their winter as well as their poignant heartbreaks, hopes, and soaring spirits.   The woman has mad skills and I look forward to another time slip by delving into her words again and again.   More, please!  

 

About the Author
Sarah grew up in Norfolk and studied law at Cambridge University which led to a career as a barrister, working mainly in the field of human rights. After nearly twenty years she was tempted off-track by a creative writing course at the Open University and fell in love with making up stories instead of constructing arguments. Three years later she completed, with distinction, an MA in Creative Writing – Prose Fiction at the UEA.

Now she lives in Norfolk again, this time with her husband and three almost-grown-up children, where she combines writing with some legal work – and thanking her enormous number of lucky stars.

 

Book Review: A Second-Hand Husband by Claire Calman  @clairecalman @rararesources  @BoldwoodBooks

.

 

A Second-Hand Husband
by Claire Calman

Amazon  / B&NGP / BB

Natalie and Carl are newlyweds, but the honeymoon period is over already.

Carl has just announced he has bought their first home at auction without telling Natalie where it is, never mind showing her a picture of it.

Natalie is horrified to discover that the dream home is in Little Wyford, mere minutes away from Carl’s ex-wife Antonia. And to make matters worse, Antonia’s palatial country mansion has a fully-functioning roof (and a heated swimming pool!), unlike the ramshackle cottage Carl has bought for them…

Antonia is Little Wyford’s Queen Bee, mistress of the book club, organizer of the Christmas Fair, and leader of the ladies-who-lunch. No matter how hard she tries, Natalie just doesn’t fit in, and when Antonia insists on referring to Carl as ‘Our Husband’, Natalie’s dreams of happily-ever-after take another nosedive.

Second-hand furniture has much to recommend it, especially when doing up a country cottage, second-hand clothes can be ever-so chic, but second-hand husbands are proving to be a very bad idea indeed… Can Natalie ever escape the label of Wife Number Two or is she destined to share her husband forever?

Hilariously funny, wickedly witty, but with a heart of gold and warmth and wisdom that are all its own, A Second-Hand Husband is Claire Calman’s tour de force.

My Rating:

 Favorite Quotes:

 

‘That’s so old!’ Her face looks completely horrified, as if I have borrowed a frock from Miss Havisham and it’s covered in cobwebs.

 

There aren’t any family heirlooms because our family never owned anything significant to hand down to the next generation, other than a predisposition to bowel cancer and bad colds.

 

And – by the way, it is not OK for you to talk to me like that. You’re not my boss, and if you were my boss and spoke to me like that, I’d be taking you to an industrial tribunal. Be angry if you want to be, but there’s no excuse to talk to me as if I’m a bit of dogshit on your shoe. Do it again and I will be out the door in two seconds and heading for the M20 in my van – and you know I mean it. Do you hear me?

 

 My Review:

 

My first Claire Calman experience and I am enamored with her delightfully clever wit, which was often the delivery system for keenly observant insights as well as a day of pleasant entertainment. Her character development and wordcraft were stellar and kept me invested and engaged as I alternated between smirking, giggle-snorting, and chewing my cuticles. The spiky secondary characters were as actively involved and germane to the various story threads and more amusingly drawn than the featured couple.

I was ever hopeful the main character of Natalie would eventually locate her spine while I gleefully enjoyed her inner dialog along her route to tracking it down. I wasn’t sure I could get on board with her hasty choice of second-hand husband as Carl showed sparks of promise but he was often a thoughtless asshat who deserved a few swift applications of my crocs to his posterior to dislodge his lost cranium.   I had faith the author would get them there and my trust was not ill-placed.

I have a new author to add to my Favorites list and Ms. Calman has a new fangirl as I added her entire Goodreads listing to my TBR shortly after finishing this one.

 

About the Author

 

Claire Calman is a writer and broadcaster known for her novels that combine wit and pathos, including the bestseller Love is a Four-Letter Word. She has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and Loose Ends. Her first book for Boldwood was published in June 2020.

Social Media Links

Twitter: https://twitter.com/clairecalman

Newsletter Sign Up Link: http://bit.ly/ClaireCalmanNewsletter

Bookbub profile: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/claire-calman

Book Review: The Essence of Nathan Biddle by J. William Lewis   @TLCBookTours

The Essence of Nathan Biddle
by J. William Lewis

.

Amazon  / B&N / GP/ BB

 

A subtly wicked, almost Southern Gothic tale of existential angst told by 18-year-old Kit Biddle, an anti-Gumpian southern boy struggling with the complexities of life. The story unfolds against a backdrop of painful chaos: Kit’s revered uncle, Nathaniel Tyler Biddle, Jr., has sacrificed his only son on direct and specific orders, according to Rev. Biddle, from God himself. As Kierkegaard has suggested, the comic and the tragic converge on Kit’s desperate search for meaning in a willy-nilly world of opaque walls and filtered light.

The enigmatic Anna appears with all the attributes of Kit’s yearning and imagination and then, just like that, she disappears like a phantom in a fog, only to be replaced by the enigmatic Sarah who reverses the roles and projects onto Kit all her desires and imaginings. Standing on one leg in the darkness, Death beckons to Kit with a promise of light and comfort but instead leaves him lying in his own blood on hot pavement with neither clarity nor relief. Who is Kit Biddle? He may actually be Nathan Biddle but who in the world is that?

When the fog dissipates—if the clarity he seeks finally appears—does Kit really want the answers he finds?

My Rating:

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

Newt is blessed with a mass of unruly blond hair, an engaging smile, and a con man’s gift of schmooze. He has found little difficulty convincing women that he is misunderstood; he has had some difficulty getting them to remain convinced for more than a year, sometimes even less than that.

 

The “general theory of cranial calibration,” as Lichtman and I formulated it, is that the size of a girl’s brain is inversely proportional to the size of her boobs.

 

“He thinks he’s a wit,” I said testily. “He’s only half right.”

 

An exquisite random squib had appeared in the dark of my life, and I was grateful. I can’t remember some things and I’m sure I’m going to forget some more, but I’ll bet I won’t ever forget Cassandra prancing on that log wearing her plain cotton panties and a devilish grin. Maybe the really beautiful things are like that: little glowing sparks in the mundane darkness of everyday existence.

 

He has become my mother’s “special friend” whose specialness I have unfortunately failed to appreciate.

 

He all about booze and self-pity. He caught tragedy and now he spreads it like a virus.

 

Newt says he and Uncle Nat fought a lot, and he stopped shaving and bathing and looked and acted like Bigfoot on a moonshine binge.

 

She’s pretty, but she’s not bright. Lichtman described her perfectly. He said Dayla is built like an Italian sports car but her engine sputters. If you mention something more complicated than shoe size or the weather, she’ll stare at you like you’ve said something in Swahili.

My Review:

 

I am conflicted about how to rate this one.   I struggled with this book, and valiantly I might add. I had even considered a DNF but there were pros and cons to pushing forward and I’m honestly glad I did, but it was an arduous and challenging read. I found it cleverly amusing and wittily insightful for the most part but I also felt oddly annoyed and aggravated and it took considerable effort to push through the various characters’ cerebral postulating as well as the stratospheric level of vocabulary used. I typically read a book a day, yet this one took me three.

The main character of Kit had an odd childhood and bizarre family who obviously had a surfeit of intelligence but didn’t know what to do with it. Kit was floundering and exasperating. He was also unfocused, lazy, obsessive, uncommitted, aimless, and besotted with a girl who clearly and repeatedly told him she wasn’t interested. His teenaged angst and general malaise had me appreciating the fact I no longer have to work with adolescents. Retirement is sweeeeet!

The premise and storylines were oddly compelling while cast with a quirky collection of characters who, other than the lovely Sarah, were disturbingly repellent and truly ghastly creatures. I reveled in the humor of his descriptions and observations of others, but I was often felt bogged down in the prose. The author either has a treasure trove of unusual words circling his cranium or wrote with a thesaurus in his lap. I just know I am thankful I read on a Kindle with a built-in dictionary. I love words and while being far from mentally deficient I felt as such as I wore the battery down on my beloved device while frequently required to halt my perusal to look up the meanings of words like pluperfect, opacity, and lagniappe. Uncommon words I will most likely have to look up again if I ever run across them a second time.

But my main source of discontent was the ending, there wasn’t one. I am still stamping my little foot in pique; I need a semblance of closure and don’t have it. However, when I looked back at my highlighted and favorite passages, which were significantly pared down in this review, I was awed by the author’s craft and am determined to respect his process.

 

About the Author

.
Alabama native J. William Lewis is a former lawyer who lives in Shoal Creek, a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. Born in Chickasaw, Alabama, Lewis grew up in Mobile. He graduated from Spring Hill College (A.B., magna cum laude, English and Philosophy) where he was a member of Alpha Sigma Nu and recipient of the Merihl Award. While in college, Lewis served as editor-in-chief of the literary magazine The Motley. Lewis received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and served on the Editorial Board of the Virginia Law Review.

After a clerkship for the Honorable Walter P. Gewin on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Lewis practiced law in Birmingham for over three and a half decades.

Presently, Lewis serves as executive officer of his family’s investment company, Seaman Capital, LLC, and related companies.

He has been married to Lorraine Seaman Lewis for more than half a century.

The Essence of Nathan Biddle is his debut novel.

Book Review: Guarded Hart (Cross Creek, #3) by Kelly Collins  @kcollinsauthor

Guarded Hart
(Cross Creek, #3)
by Kelly Collins

 

Amazon  / BB

Welcome to Cross Creek where secrets abound, but love conquers all. Or does it?

I’ve been keeping a secret. One that could change a lot of lives, including my own. I came to Cross Creek to find my father. He’s the difference between life and death for me. During my search, I found love, only sexy builder Ethan Lockhart isn’t having any of it. I’ve done my best to make him mine, but he’s more slippery than a fish in a brook. I built my life here on a lie, but my feelings for this man are true. Will the secrets I keep destroy what Ethan and I creating?

 

I’m not the guy anyone picks first, so when Angie Sutton started flirting with my brother, I wasn’t surprised—that is until I found out she was doing it to get my attention. But this time, I’m determined not to give my heart away—not until I know who she really is. Letting someone get too close too fast is a blueprint for disaster. No matter how deeply I’m drawn to her, I know she’s hiding something, and until she can be honest with me, we don’t have a future.

Find out if the truth can really set you free in Guarded Hart, book three in the Cross Creek Series.

 

My Rating:

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

With careful steps, he made his way down the ladder. His shirt rode up, showing off his powerful body, and I had to stare. Any girl with working ovaries couldn’t look away.

 

I always had that sixth sense about things. I called it intuition. My brothers called it paranoia.

  

My Review:

 

Shucks, only one remaining Hart brother to go but there is still a small community that could continue this small-town contemporary romance series for quite some time. While angstier than I was expecting, the storylines tackled real-life issues and concerns in an insightful, entertaining, and informative manner. I was completely ignorant of the medical condition involved before reading this heart-squeezing installment which featured a cast of realistically flawed and struggling yet still endearing main characters. Thankfully, I trust the author to always deliver that highly desired HEA, as she has never failed me. I adore Kelly Collins and firmly believe she must be in possession of a magical pen.

ABOUT KELLY COLLINS   

 

  Goodreads  / Website  / AmazonFacebook / Twitter / Pinterest / Bookbub

International bestselling author of over 30 novels, Kelly Collins writes with the intention of keeping the love alive. Always a romantic, she blends real-life events with her vivid imagination to create characters and stories that lovers of contemporary romance, new adult, and romantic suspense will return to again and again.

Book Review: Friends With Benedicts by Staci Hart @imaquirkybird

Friends With Benedicts
by Staci Hart

Amazon  / B&N / Apple / BB

Timing is everything.

Presley Hale and Sebastian Vargas are no strangers to goodbye. Their high school summers were spent wrapped up in each other until she would inevitably go home to California. One season after college, Sebastian finally escaped the little Texas town to travel the world, and they said goodbye for what they thought might be the last time.
Sebastian went one way. Presley went the other.

For the first time in five years, they’re both in town, but the timing is no better than ever. So the only thing to do is what they do best. Keep it casual.

Friends with benefits.

They’ve done it before—doing it again will be easy.

But their hearts don’t get the memo.

When the lines of their arrangement blur, Presley and Sebastian are faced with decisions they’ve avoided for years. And that’s not even their biggest problem.
A small town in danger of failing.

A secret that could tear them apart.

And two hearts that can’t hide anymore.

They’ve shared so many summers, but none compare to what they’ll face.

Timing is everything.
And their time is almost up.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Lightning struck me dead to the spot—shock, I realized distantly. The sensation was followed by the frying of my ovaries like a couple of unsuspecting eggs. Sebastian Vargas had that effect on me and my eggs. I turned, smiling through my surprise. And there he stood, tall, dark and smirking at me in that way that made all the girls fling their panties at him.

It’s our curse. Our men either die young or leave. So just make sure he’s healthy and isn’t going anywhere.

“I really am a kick ass mom, aren’t I?” “Judging by the small fortune in the swear jar, I’d beg to differ.”

No more telling Priscilla her dad was busy fighting crime in Metropolis, or that he was on a moon station collecting rock samples. Don’t worry— she didn’t believe me. It was a running joke in our family. Sometimes he swallowed knives with the circus. Sometimes he was a baseball hall of famer. Just depended on my mood.

 

My Review:

 

This was a delightfully fun read with the steamy treats and witty and irreverent humor that I tend to savor. I am totally enamored with Staci Hart. While I may be a relatively new acolyte I am now a devoted one. I enjoy her breezy and cleverly amusing writing style with edgy insights and keen observations. Her characters are lovable and endearing yet a bit frayed and struggling. The storylines were engaging, relatable, and highly entertaining. In a word, it was delectable.

 

Staci has been a lot of things up to this point in her life — a graphic designer, an entrepreneur, a seamstress, a clothing and handbag designer, a waitress. Can’t forget that. She’s also been a mom, with three little girls who are sure to grow up to break a number of hearts. She’s been a wife, though she’s certainly not the cleanest, or the best cook. She’s also super, duper fun at a party, especially if she’s been drinking whiskey. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, sleeping, gaming, or designing graphics.

Amazon | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | Website | Newsletter

Book Review: Murder at the Fair (A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #6) by Verity Bright @BrightVerity @Bookouture

Murder at the Fair
(A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #6)
by Verity Bright

Amazon  / B&N

 

Summer flowers, warm sunshine, a maypole dance, and… is that another murder? A tricky case is afoot for Lady Swift!

Summer, 1921Lady Eleanor Swift, the best amateur sleuth in the country, is delighted to be in charge of the prize-giving at her village summer fair. But the traditional homemade raft race takes a tragic turn when the local undertaker, Solemn Jon, turns up dead amongst the ducks. Jon was the life of any party and loved by the entire village. Surely this was simply an awful accident?

But when a spiteful obituary is printed in the local paper, Eleanor realizes there may be more to Jon’s death than first thought. Despite handsome Detective Seldon giving her strict instructions not to interfere, Eleanor owes it to Jon’s good name to root out the truth. So with her partner in crime, Gladstone the bulldog, Eleanor starts digging for clues…

When another local dies in a riding accident, the police refuse to believe he was murdered. But a second vindictive death notice convinces Eleanor of foul play. Solemn Jon’s assistant, a bullish banker, and a majestic marquess make her suspect list, but it isn’t until she finds a dusty old photograph that she knows the true culprit behind both crimes. Then another obituary appears – her own! Can Eleanor nail the killer before she too turns up dead among the ducks?

An utterly compelling and charming cozy mystery! Pure delight for fans of Agatha Christie, T.E. Kinsey, and Lee Strauss.

My Rating:

 

 Favorite Quotes:

 

She wracked her brain for a more charitable description, but all she could think of was an underfed ferret. With his sharp dark eyes set in hollow sockets, protruding jaw and barely-there upper lip, his face seemed permanently set in a scowl.

 

We have to invite her, old friend of the family and all that. Personally, she constantly reminds me of the native Scottish thistle she is so fiercely proud of. Prickly year-round and thoroughly invasive.

 

Out of the blue he simply hurled the offer of marriage at me like I was a giddy, aged spinster who would bite his arm off to accept.

 

‘Have, er, Polly or Gladstone, met the vacuum cleaner yet?’… He sighed. ‘Polly is still terrified of the machine after Mrs Trotman told her it would suck her eyeballs out if she stared down the hose while it was on.’

 

Folk say she’s about as handsome as a three-legged horse born backwards, which is why she doesn’t have any young gentleman courting her.

 

Guilt’s a bad enough bedfellow without grief stealing in and hogging the quilt.

 

My Review:

 

I continue in my love fest with Verity Bright, as I am evermore enamored with this delightfully amusing cozy mystery series. I have enjoyed every installment, which only improves with each new entry. The books could be read as standalones although a quicker connection and deeper understanding could be had by reading the earlier publications as frequent mentions of her previous exploits were sprinkled throughout. I adore the kind and gentle Lady Eleanor (Ellie), who has a tendency to become embroiled and entangled in various schemes and becomes determined to solve the surrounding mystery and ferret out the culprits. This time, despite being admonished by her would-be suitor and police inspector to keep her nose clean, Ellie has stepped into several oddly mysterious deaths she suspects were murders, which led back to blackmail, family secrets of her own, and a few nefarious scams.

 

Generous helpings of wit, amusing humor, and entertaining side stories occur along the way as she and her ever-attentive butler apply their skills and attention towards unraveling the villainous schemes.   Verity Bright’s engaging writing style was refreshingly breezy and smoothly enticing in addition to being brain and rib-tickling as the cleverly plotted storylines and clues were a curious conundrum. I am already rubbing my hands together with glee contemplating her next adventure.

 

About the Author

.
Verity Bright is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing partnership that has spanned a quarter of a century. Starting out writing high-end travel articles and books, they published everything from self-improvement to humor, before embarking on their first historical mystery. They are the authors of the fabulous Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery series, set in the 1920s.
.

Book Review: Death on the Lake (DCI Satterthwaite #5) by Jo Allen  @JoAllenAuthor @rararesources 

 

Death on the Lake
(DCI Satterthwaite #5)
by Jo Allen

Amazon

 

Three youngsters, out for a good time. Vodka and the wrong sort of Coke. What could possibly go wrong?

When a young woman, Summer Raine, is found drowned, apparently accidentally, after an afternoon spent drinking on a boat on Ullswater, DCI Jude Satterthwaite is deeply concerned — more so when his boss refuses to let him investigate the matter any further to avoid compromising a fraud case.

But a sinister shadow lingers over the dale and one accidental death is followed by another and then by a violent murder. Jude’s life is complicated enough but the latest series of murders are personal to him as they involve his former partner, Becca Reid, who has family connections in the area. His determination to uncover the killer brings him into direct conflict with his boss — and ultimately places both him and his colleague and girlfriend, Ashleigh O’Halloran, in danger…

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

He’ll have persuaded himself that what he’s doing is somehow okay, just as those kids will have persuaded themselves there’s nothing really wrong with taking drugs. People are very quick to persuade themselves that something illegal really ought not to be and therefore it’s okay to do it. You must see it often. The illusion of victimless crime.

 

Miranda’s nerves tautened, as if they were the strings on a violin and a violinist was pulling then ever tighter, the pitch increasing. Any minute now and they’d start screeching, like the background music in Psycho.

 

No one went upstairs in his cottage. The dust would be as thick as March snow up there, and after he’d gone whoever came to clean up would be able to roll it up like a mat and throw it away.

 

Doing the right thing always did lose you friends. The more Jude saw it happen, the more he wondered why anyone bothered.

 

 My Review:

 

 I am relatively new to this genre so Jo Allen is a recent discovery and new favorite. I have enjoyed this smartly written and complex series and continue to look forward to the next. The characters’ personal lives and personalities are as intriguing as the criminal cases they are laboring to solve.  This case was another cleverly plotted head-scratcher laced with insightful observations and quirky secondary characters, and more of what I’ve come to expect from this crafty scribe.

 

About the Author

Jo Allen was born in Wolverhampton and is a graduate of Edinburgh, Strathclyde, and the Open University. After a career in economic consultancy, she took up writing and was first published under the name Jennifer Young in genres of short stories, romance, and romantic suspense. In 2017 she took the plunge and began writing the genre she most likes to read – crime. Now living in Edinburgh, she spends as much time as possible in the English Lakes. In common with all her favorite characters, she loves football (she’s a season ticket holder with her beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers) and cats.