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Hello world!

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Let’s talk about books. What type of book do you like to read? Do you stick to the same authors or are you willing to take a chance on something radically different from your norm? I have a cluster of authors that I gobble up the new books they put out like a binge eater…all in one sitting. And in between waiting for said authors to put out the next book, I have a group of “fill in” authors. And then there are the ones I read because I am so very curious about everything. It has been pointed out to me that my reading list is probably linked to Homeland Security but how can you have an opinion on anything if you haven’t fully researched it?

On my bookshelf you will find every James Patterson novel, every Laurell K. Hamilton, every Stuart Woods, Harlan Coben, Catherine Coulter, Iris Johansen, Anne Rice, Laura Childs, Tom Clancy, George R.R.Martin, Kim Harrison, Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, Lisa Scottoline, Lisa Unger, Karin Slaughter, Don Winslow, Sara Blaedel along with all the classics. I don’t do romance books, no heaving bosoms or glistening abs for me.

Reading is a magical thing that can take you places you would never have access to in the living world. I love everything about books. The cover, the feel, and smell of the paper, it all has to come together for me.  Books are like a good friend who stays around.

So here we are going to be talking about books. What we’ve read, what we are reading and what we hope to read. I find it so interesting that two people can read the same book and have totally different takes on it. But that is the fun of books and imagination. Everyone is different and I am intrigued by those different opinions.

Stick around for some really good, new authors I have found and feel free to make suggestions and comments!  Join us on Facebook for free books, authors looking for reviewers and new releases and giveaways! On Twitter, @GaPirate  Email me at piratepatty@hotmail.com. Have your Marketing people or Publisher contact me for reviews.

Hello August! Please Be Gentle With Us!

Happy August! And Sunday!

This has been the strangest year so far. With the Plague, the Murder Hornets and Bounties on our troops, and everyone losing their everloving mind!

Let’s start with the plague. OU Boy and I had this before it had a name. It turned into pneumonia and while he bounced back, I did not. Six weeks of feeling horrible and finally just about the time they named it, I was better.

We went to the beach for a week in Texas and did not come into contact with anyone and we arrived home just as Texas became a hot spot.

On our days off we headed to a secluded lake and camped and hiked and turned off the news! Then one of the employees tested positive and came into work to tell us. SMH

So everyone got tested and they were all fine. And then I got it again. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. Okay, that’s probably not true. Trump and his entire crime family could have it. It was bad. My doctor told me I was wheezing and put me on a nebulizer and steroids and the Z pac. Then told me I should probably go to the hospital.

I did not listen as I knew there were really sick and contagious people there. So home we go and I used the breathing machine for 4 solid days but tossed the meds. I tried explaining that it was swimsuit season and steroids make me bloat and I was allergic to the antibiotic. Finally this week I felt human. I was floating in my pool with a mask every day. So that explains where I have been. Much the same as everyone we are still in limbo with work and why in the world people keep coming from Texas and Florida and Iowa and complaining because Marriott is requiring a mask or you can leave. Some people have been downright violent. The world has lost its mind.

Curacao is still not letting us in so we have rebooked for November hoping we can, at last, get back. I hope you have all been well and I have missed reading your thoughts and adventures!

See you tomorrow!

xx P

THE NIGHT SWIM by MEGAN GOLDIN

The Night Swim

True Crime Podcasts are all the rage at the moment. And Rachel Krall has become an overnight success with hers after helping to set an innocent man free. She receives tons of mail and e-mails begging for her help solving cases and while her voice is distinctive and recognizable, her face is not. Not everyone is a fan and she takes care to keep herself safe.

On her way to cover a rape trial in Neapolis, she finds an envelope under her windshield at an out of the way diner. Creepy. But it seems to be just someone going that extra step to ask for help.

In the meantime, she discovers the town is quite divided and secretive. The accused rapist is a swimmer on the way to Olympic greatness with a family who is very shady. The girl, the granddaughter of the former police chief.

Rachel is determined Season Three of her podcast will be a success and is determined to dig in and do her homework before the trial begins. But the mysterious letters keep appearing. In her locked hotel room, her car and Rachel is intrigued.

Hannah Stills is begging for Rachel to help find who killed her 16-year-old sister twenty-five years ago. Officials say she drowned. But there is no police report or autopsy report. Hannah was only ten years old when this happened and her mother died soon after. But she never forgot what she saw and heard. Or the threats.

When Rachel begins to ask questions she is met with silence. But when she uncovers similarities in the old case and the new one, she digs in to find justice for both girls and in the process may not have worry about Season 3!

Small towns have a way of protecting the rich and connected and demonizing anyone different. What these men did was horrific and unforgivable and the sad part is they may get away with it a second time.

Always a thrill ride with Goldin! I absolutely loved it!

NetGalley/ August 4th, 2020 by St. Martin’s Press

 

 

 

 

behind the red door by Megan Collins

Behind the Red Door: A Novel

From the author of The Winter Sister, comes this psychological thriller that seriously messed with my head!

Fern had an unorthodox upbringing to say the least! There are gaps in her memory and one day watching the news she sees a story about Astrid Sullivan, 34, and missing. But this isn’t the first time she has gone missing. Fern is positive she knows this woman. Scraps of memories bring nightmares that feel real.

Fern’s husband is convinced she is probably just remembering reading the first story as it happened near her childhood home. But Fern isn’t so sure.

When her distant father asks her to come home to help him clear out the house, she should have just hung up the phone!

I really don’t want to say a lot about the story. It is too wickedly twisted and you should have the joy of discovering what I did. And OMG! I just thought my family was screwy!

A great followup to The Winter Sister!

NetGalley/ August 4th, 2020 by Atria Books

 

 

 

Tea & Treachery, A Tea by the Sea Mystery by Vicki Delaney

Tea & Treachery (Tea by the Sea Mysteries #1)

In this charming new cozy mystery series from nationally bestselling author, Vicki Delany, a New York City expat-turned-Cape Cod tea shop owner must solve the murder of a local real estate developer to help her feisty grandmother out of a jam
. . .
It was a wonderful surprise to find out Delany had a new series out! And it’s a tea room by the sea.
Lily Robers is one busy lady! As the owner and head pastry chef at her little tea room Tea by the Sea, you can have traditional English Tea and a view of Cape Cod. She is always running between her grandmother, Rose’s Bed, and Breakfast which she helps out in the mornings.
Rose is one great character. She may be elderly but she isn’t dead yet and until she is she will fight with all of her might to not let the sketchy Jack Ford buy the property next door to put up some golf course/resort. For a small old lady, she is not one to mess with.
Everyone thinks there is something fishy about Jack so it seems appropriate that he is found dead on the beach having fallen down the stairs on Rose’s property.
It looks like the police are railroading Rose and not looking anywhere else. But boy oh boy are there a lot of places to look! No one liked this man. NO. ONE. A con man and a slimeball, there are so many suspects Lily may never get her Grandmother out of hot water!
This is the first in a new series. And I loved every minute of it. The characters are so well done and I can’t wait for the next one!
NetGalley Reviews/July 28th, 2020 by Kensington Publishing Corporation

 

 

CROSSINGS by ALEX LANDRAGIN

Crossings

Crossings is an unforgettable and explosive genre-bending debut—a novel in three parts, designed to be read in two different directions, spanning a hundred and fifty years and seven lifetimes.

Paris. About to be overrun with Nazis is not the best place for a not only German man but a Jewish one as well. As all-around is chaos and fear, a courier arrives at his bookbinding shop with a manuscript from a Baronness who would like it re-bound in the red leather she sends with it.

Inside are three stories, very unlikely tales. When the Nazis arrive the manuscript is forgotten for a bit and when he retrieves it he keeps it. Later he learns it can be read two ways. Straight through or in a very different way. The fantastical tale is hard to believe and takes us all over the world. The one commonality is Charles Baudelaire. He wrote at least the first one and a lot of this content is about him and a mysterious woman.

That is all I am saying here. This was something I have never seen a writer attempt. The word Epic comes to mind. The planning and detail this took are beyond anything I’ve seen.

Personally, I read it both ways and understood everything just fine. Although at one point I took a few notes to keep everyone straight.

Historical Fiction mixed with fact and fantasy. Well Done!

NetGalley/ St. Martin’s Press July 28,2020

A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Murder by Dianne Freeman

A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Murder (A Countess of Harleigh Mystery, #3)

A Countess of Harleigh Mystery #3

In Dianne Freeman’s charming Victorian-era mystery series, Frances Wynn, the American-born Countess of Harleigh, finds her sister’s wedding threatened by a vow of vengeance.

This is one of my favorite Historical Fiction Cozy Mystery series! Frances Wynn, an American whose overbearing mother pushed her into a miserable marriage for a title in the British aristocracy, has been a widow for a while now. Living in London with her daughter and now her sister Lily who has fallen head over heels in love with Leo.

George and Frances are keeping their engagement secret until after Lily is wed. Unfortunately, Leo and Lily jumped the gun and are now in a position of having to move the wedding forward quickly.

George comes to the rescue by having everyone to his family estate in the country and the entire party is transported to Hampshire for some hunting, riding and you just know there will be drama when the parents of the couple arrive.

But drama begins almost as soon as they arrive. Deaths, accidents, and sketchy guests are all on the menu.

Frances isn’t about to be left out of the investigation, especially when her own George may be in danger.

There is a killer on the grounds and as they set a trap for the suspect they may find themselves caught in it!

I love these characters. They are funny and strong and get themselves into the most dangerous of predicaments.

Always a pleasure!

NetGalley/July 28th, 2020 by Kensington Books

 

 

playing NICE by J P DELANEY

Playing Nice

What if you found out that your family isn’t yours at all? How far would you go to protect them? A gripping new psychological thriller from the bestselling author of The Girl Before. . . .

The day Pete Riley answers his front door to find a stranger standing there will lead to a nightmare that any parent would find unbearable.

Miles Lambert is the one giving Pete this news. Turns out Theo, Pete, and Maddies’ son is actually not their son at all. He belongs to the Lambert family and their son is actually Pete and Maddies.

Stunned and shell shocked, Pete and Maddie go along with Miles’ idea to sue the hospital as David, the other child will need life long care. And Miles is one pushy dude. He wants them to all get along and each get to know their own child. Or does he? Why can’t they just swap the children back? What does Miles know that they don’t?

Miles is a gaslighter. He gaslights his own wife, who is terrified of him. When Pete and Maddie begin questioning Miles’s motives, he sues them, threatening to take both boys until someone steps up and does the right thing. No more nice guys here. Now they are going to find out who stole the baby and what horrible things are going on in that house!

Domestic Suspense at it’s best!

NetGalley/ July 28th, 2020 by Ballantine Books

 

 

LINEAGE MOST LETHAL by S.C.PERKINS

Lineage Most Lethal (Ancestry Detective #2)

Ancestry Detective Mystery 2

Welcome to the second book in this series about Texas genealogist Lucy Lancaster.

Lucy is crazy busy trying to wrap up a project for Pippa Sutton of Sutton Hotel fame. After months of work, she is ready to present her results to Pippa and the rest of the Sutton family. And it’s just a week before New Year’s Eve.

After a day of research, she comes back to the hotel but before she reaches the steps a man stumbles towards her and shoves something in her hands before dropping dead. Whispering a cryptic message to “keep them safe”.

Looking at her hand she sees it is a Mont Blanc pen and while her grandfather is a collector Lucy doesn’t understand what the man meant, so she calls in grandpa and all of a sudden Lucy is wondering what in the world she has gotten herself into!

After speaking with him, things get very interesting! And Lucy isn’t sure who her grandpa is anymore, but boy is he interesting!

A really good mystery here. Spies, murder, an old vendetta based on a lie. It’s all here! Enjoy!

NetGalley/ July 21st, 2020 by Minotaur Books

 

 

 

 

THE DEVIL’S BONES by CAROLYN HAINES

The Devil's Bones (Sarah Booth Delaney)

Sara Booth Delaney #21

Spunky southern private investigator Sarah Booth Delaney tackles a thorny murder while away on a girls’ weekend. 

Another adventure with Sarah Booth and friends. This time Tinkie is hosting a girls’ weekend with Sarah Booth and CeCe in Lucedale, Mississippi at the posh Bexley B & B.

With Tinkie pregnant it will be a while before they can all get together. Here they can have massages and spa treatments and organic meals. But Tinkie’s wish is to be at the Easter Sunrise Service at the Palestinian Gardens, a miniature of the Holy Land created by Daniel Reynolds. It covers 20 acres and has stirred up a bit of controversy with the town’s savior of all species.

Up at dawn to attend the services, a walk through the garden turns in to a crime scene when they find a body laid out by the Mount of Olives.

The body belonged to one Perry Slay. A man generally not liked. Sneaky and underhanded, he won’t be missed.  But when the local pharmacist asks Sarah Booth to find out who the killer is all the girls jump in! It is not looking good for poor Erick when the autopsy says the man was poisoned!

As more bodies turn up in the Holy Land, everyone is looking suspicious and the ladies need to find out who is doing what before they end up in the Holy Land!

These characters are so charming and well done. I love Sarah Booth and all her adventures!

NetGalley/ Minotaur Books

 

 

 

 

THE VACATION by T.M.LOGAN

The Vacation

Seven days. Three families. One killer.

Four women. Friends since college decide to join each other and their families for a week’s vacation in a lovely villa in France.

Things are tense from the start. It looks like everyone’s family is not quite as together as they would like one to think. Only one of them has not married and she’s acting sketchy. Heck, everyone was shady and keeping secrets!

To tell you the truth I did not care for even one of them. Maybe Daniel. But it doesn’t matter because the story was that good!

Someone is willing to kill to keep their truth secret. But is it who you think it is?

This is one vacation I’ll pass on. But I’ll take the book!

Well Done!

NetGalley/ July 21st, 2020 by St. Martin’s Press