Month: June 2022

COLD COLD BONES by KATHY REICHS

A Temperance Brennan Novel #21

#1 New York Times bestselling thriller writer Kathy Reichs returns with her twenty-first novel of suspense featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan who, after receiving a box containing a human eyeball, uncovers a series of gruesome killings eerily reenacting the most shocking of her prior cases.

We aren’t in Montreal anymore and yet it’s still snowing in North Carolina. Its winter and crime is down. Not too many folks looking to be out in a storm. It also means a lighter caseload for Brennan. She would be happy to spend time with her daughter Katy, finally home after her stint in the army. But she brought some demons home with her so Tempe is treading carefully with her.

When they both arrive at Tempe’s home to find a wrapped package with an eyeball in it, things are weird. The eye seems pretty fresh, but where is the rest of the body? Finding GPS coordinates on the eyeball leads them to a Benedictine monastery. There another very strange sight awaits.

When she is asked to examine a mummified corpse found in a state park, even she is a bit jumpy.

These crimes are beginning to look a lot like crimes she solved years ago. Is someone angry at her?

And then her daughter disappears. And things get weirder. Revenge, it seems has no expiration date.

There has always been a coldness about Tempe. It was more evident in this book. I understood who the bad people were early on. It just did not hold my interest.

NetGalley/ July 5, 2022 Scribner






HER DARKEST SECRET by Jessica R. Patch

When a cold-case serial killer returns, FBI special agent Fiona Kelly has one last chance to stop him before he claims the prize he’s always wanted—her.

FBI SA Fiona Kelly is living in Chicago now. After blowing up her marriage to her husband and fellow agent, Asa Kodiak. It’s been almost twenty years since she and her sister and other girls were abducted and later found dead with a feather on their bodies. She was the only one who survived. Escaped. Dubbed the Nursery Rhyme Killer due to the posing of the victims, no one has been able to figure out who he is.

But now Asa is dealing with a murderer with the same MO. And Fiona wants in. Asa has tried to move on with his life after Fiona, but it just isn’t working. But the killer hasn’t moved on either. He still wants her. The one that got away. This time Fiona’s own secret about that time in her life will come to light and her life will be in even more danger. Someone wants her dead and someone wants her for himself.

Fiona has put her life on hold until she finds the killer. It has become the only thing in her life and she is taking chances she should not be taking. It just might get them all killed.

A really good serial killer novel! And the ending was perfect!

NetGalley/June 28th, 2022 Harlequin

Other People’s Words Wisdom For An Inspired And Productive Life by Seth M. Siegel

Other People's Words: Wisdom for an Inspired and Productive Life

I love quotes and collect them like seashells. What Mr. Siegal has done is put them in order.

There are eleven different topics and several subtopics within those. No matter what you are dealing with someone somewhere has been there and has written something either witty enough or meaningful enough that you will be able to relate.

Most I had heard before, but a lot of them I have not and was grateful I could borrow those.

A very interesting book with a really good forward by the author.

NetGalley/ May 4th, 2021 St. Martin’s Press

THE LOCKED ROOM by ELLY GRIFFITHS

A Ruth Galloway Novel #14

This is the fourteenth book in the Ruth Galloway series.

Ruth is in London cleaning out her mother’s things before her father and his new wife get back. She’s a lovely woman and Ruth’s mother has been gone for three years. As Ruth is going through things, she finds a photograph of a cottage in Norfolk. Her cottage in Norfolk, only in 1963. The only clue is the date and the name Dawn. Her father isn’t any help and her mother hated the cottage and never spoke about it.

Back in Norfolk, Nelson has a murder on his hands. It looks like a suicide until more bodies with the same MO pop up. Just as Ruth returns, Covid hits, and everyone’s world is thrown into chaos, which makes it so much harder to find a killer.

Meanwhile, Ruth and Kate are bored to tears until they meet their neighbor, a healthcare worker who Ruth and Kate both like a lot.

Nelson is looking for a serial killer now and somehow links it to an archaeological discovery and thinks of Ruth. Breaking all of the lockdown rules, he enlists Ruth’s help in finding out how she can help find a killer. But first, he needs to tell her that her neighbor was accused of murdering patients. While Nelson is terrified for Ruth and Kate, the secrets that come spilling out will leave you with your mouth hanging open!

Love this series!

NetGalley/ June 28th, 2022 by Mariner Books



MUDDLED THROUGH by BARBARA ROSS

A Maine Clambake Mystery #10

Mud season takes on a whole new meaning in the coastal town of Busman’s Harbor, Maine, when local business owners sling dirt at one another in a heated feud over a proposed pedestrian mall. Vandalism is one thing, but murder means Julia Snowden of the Snowden Family Clambake steps in to clean up the case . . .

Julia and her family are back with another mystery and murder. This one begins with Julia seeing police cars in front of the shop Livvie works in, Lupine Design, a successful pottery store. While Livvie is safe the shop is trashed.

Lupine’s owner, Zoey, is out digging mud for more projects when the police arrive to tell her the bad news. She is shocked. Who in the world would do this to her? And why? While she and many others in town are all for a pedestrian mall to bring in more tourists and revenue there is one troublemaker. And he is in the shop next to Lupine. In an odd turn, they both share a basement.

Surely the fuss over a pedestrian mall isn’t enough to destroy property, but when the neighbor turns up dead in the basement, Zoey has some explaining to do.

This one was a bit more twisty than usual. So many secrets people are keeping. For decades, old slights fester and the more she digs, the more she finds herself in the line of fire.

Always a good time with the Clambake series.

NetGalley/ Kensington June 28, 2022



Donut DISTURB by Ellie Alexander

A Bakeshop Mystery #15

Spring has come to Ashland, Oregon and flowers are blooming along with love for Juliet and her team at Tort, as they cater the wedding of Thomas and Kerry at the park. It’s a beautiful day and everyone is on the green watching the bride come down.

But when an uninvited guest pops up it’s a shock for everyone. Including the bride. And why is Kerry’s father here? He is supposed to be living in a gated community as a guest of the state! What is going on?

As if things couldn’t get any worse, the bass player for the band is found dead by his own instrument. What next? We all know Jules is going to jump in with both feet to find out what is going on and hopefully before she’s next on the killers’ invite list!

Always a pleasure to see one of Alexander’s mysteries!

NetGalley/ June 28, 2022, St. Martin’s Press



LISA JACKSON’S THE GIRL WHO SURVIVED

In this deviously volatile, deliciously creepy thriller from the #1 New York Times bestseller, the lone survivor of a brutal family massacre must uncover the awful truth about the fateful night that left her forever marked…

Has she already had her last chance to be the final girl?

After losing her entire family in a brutal and confusing mass murder, Kara doesn’t want to be known as just the girl who survived a vicious attack at her family cabin in Oregon. All she knows for sure is that her sister locked her in the attic and left. When she got herself out she found no sister and only one brother clinging to life in the bloody living room. And he says one thing. Run. So she does. At seven years old, she can’t run far or fast but she runs from the shadowy figure standing at the door.

Her brother, Jonas, could be violent but she isn’t sure he did this. The state, however, is certain and now after twenty years, he is out. On a technicality, but out. As Kara tries to process what this means for her she also begins getting messages from someone claiming to be her sister telling her she is alive.

As she gets closer to figuring out what happened, will she finally be the girl who didn’t survive? Because the killer is still out there and is very close to finishing his job.

So much tension in this thriller! Just when I thought I knew, I did not. Good read!

NetGalley/ June 28, 2022, Kensington

LADY OF BONES by CAROLYN HAINES

A SARAH BOOTH DELANEY MYSTERY #24

We’re back in Mississippi with Sara Booth, Tinkie, and Jitty! It’s Halloween time and the entire gang is gathering to admire Tinkie’s new baby, Maylin, and do a bit of decorating too! But you know a good time here usually gets interrupted by a disaster.

This time it is Sara Booth’s mother’s dear friend, Frankie. Frankie is distraught and wants to hire the detectives to find her missing daughter in New Orleans. Christa is trying to when a journalism scholarship and is on to a hot story about cults. Soon after her roommate goes missing and two days later so does Christa.

So the team heads to New Orleans to find answers. Who is behind this mysterious cult that promises eternal life and youth? And what are they doing over in the Garden District talking about sacrificing women?

People of Eternity are wealthy and connected. Maybe even the police. But the ladies are determined and with the hunky detective on board, they try to stay alive long enough to find the missing girls and figure out who this mysterious Rhianna is.

It’s always a good time with Sara Booth and Jitty! That ghost kills me! Suspense, murder, and laughs make this a good read!

NetGalley/ St. Martin’s Press June 17, 2022

THE LIES I TELL by JULIE CLARK

Never con a con. Ms. Clark has given us two narrators of their lives. Meg and whatever the last name she’s using at the moment, and Kat, struggling with her writing, her relationship, and blaming Meg for all of it. A woman she doesn’t even know. But ten years ago a phone call from Meg sent Kat out on a lead that led to a life-altering trauma.

Meg has many names and many plans. She’s the ultimate con artist. But why? That is what Kat is trying to figure out.

Told in both voices, they are both playing at being honest and yet trying to get to the truth. Both for different reasons. And when Kat finally figures it all out, Meg is gone and Kat has some decisions to make.

This was much like a pretzel. Twisty and good! It was hard to keep up with all of Meg’s motivations and her cons. And she was good. Some women are content to move on after trauma. These are not those women. These are the women who are going to use every resource to get justice.

Well Done!

NetGalley/June 21st, 2022 Source Books Landmark

POINT LAST SEEN by CHRISTINA DODD

Life Last Seen Gothic Series #1

LIFE LAST SEEN

On a lonely stretch of beach in California is the remote town of Gothic. It’s the place to find lost souls. And when Adam Ramsdell finds a body in the surf, a woman who is obviously dead, he flips her over and hauls her off the beach. Only to have her come to life. Who is this woman and why isn’t she dead? It looks as if someone tried to kill her. She has bruises around her neck and has been battered by the ocean.

Elle. Her name is Elle. She thinks. She just isn’t sure of much else. So she takes refuge in Adams’s home. Remote and private. Just the way he likes it. Adam isn’t a talker. He says he has no friends, but everyone in town likes him.

As she heals and begins to get fragments of her memory back, she is terrified. What is it she can’t quite see in her nightmares? Or who? Someone tried to kill her and she has no idea who or why. Which makes trusting strangers difficult. It seems everyone in this town has at least one secret and she suspects Adam has a few as well.

And when her nightmare turns into reality, more people will be hurt.

This was a good mystery/suspense read. The characters were fun and the tension was real.

NetGalley/June 21st, 2022 by HQN