Category: suspense

sunset beach by mary kay andrews

Sunset Beach

Drue Campbell is 36 years old. Her mother just died. She is still limping as a result of a serious kiteboard accident which has knocked her out of that sport for good. At a very low point in her life you could say.

Drue and her mother have lived in Fort Lauderdale since the divorce and Drue hasn’t seen her father in a very long time. When he shows up at her mothers funeral, Drue is shocked to see him. He wants to offer her a job on the east coast side of Florida at his law firm, where he is a local bigshot injury attorney. He also has a more precious gift to give her. The keys to her grandparent’s cottage on a pricey stretch of beach.

Swallowing her pride and taking a low-level phone job is bad enough but to find out her father is married again and to her former bestie from elementary school! Drue and Wendy had a falling out in school and now it looks as if Wendy is doing everything she can to get Drue to quit.

But Drue meets a client and gets involved personally trying to track down a killer. As if that isn’t enough she has found paperwork in the cottage attic that makes her believe her father may be not so honest after all. And may be responsible for a long cold case of a missing woman.

This was so different from what I was expecting! And I was way off base on who the bad guys were.

All of the warm fuzzies we feel with this author and a suspense/mystery! Very well done!

NetGalley/ May 7th 2019 by St. Martin’s Press

 

 

 

CELEBRATING MAY DAY WITH 4 NEW RELEASES!

 It is 1955, and the three Fayette sisters have lived their whole lives in the enchanting French Quarter of New Orleans. Though neglected by their parents, they share a close bond with one another?from afternoons in their small, shared bedroom, to trying to speak with ghosts beneath the sweeping trees in their garden. When the middle sister Constance disappears, the family believes she has run away, as she has done before; it is only the youngest?fourteen-year-old Bonavere (known as Bonnie)?who suspects there is more to it. Met only with grief from her family and resistance from the police, Bonnie embarks on a journey to bring her sister home, venturing through fabled Red Honey Swamp, and the city’s vibrant and brutal history. Unravelling the layers of her sister’s secret life, Bonnie discovers a pattern of girls found half-mad in the Louisiana swampland, and a connection to the wealthy, notorious Lasalle family. To rescue her sister, she must confront the realities of true violence, and the very nature of insanity.

Devil's Fjord (A Faroe Islands Mystery Book 1) by [Hewson, David]

New District Sheriff Tristan Haraldsen uncovers a series of dark secrets when he investigates the disappearance of two boys in the remote Faroe Islands.
Silent Footsteps (An Ash and Best Mystery Book 6) by [Bannister, Jo] Constable Hazel Best attracts a sinister new admirer in this absorbing police procedural.

When does a secret admirer become a stalker? When chocolates on the doorstep give way to the sound of an intruder on the stairs? When the victim’s friends are waylaid in the dark and beaten bloody? When she receives photographs memorializing these events? Or when people start dying?

Prisoner of Midnight (A James Asher Vampire Novel Book 8) by [Hambly, Barbara] Vampire Don Simon Ysido has been captured and held aboard a ship heading to the US to act as a slave, and Dr Lydia Asher must stop it . . . at any cost.

DEVIL’S FJORD by DAVID HEWSON

Devil's Fjord

I really wanted to read this book. I love the author’s Nic Costa series and I was not disappointed in this Faroe Islands Mystery!

In a small, dying village Tristan Haraldsen and wife Elsebeth are looking forward to living in the small fishing village of Djevulsfjord, a rather remote place

Tristan has taken the job of District Sheriff which doesn’t demand a lot. First up on the job list is overseeing the rules of the Grind. A whale hunt. For generations the villagers have depended on the meat from the whales to see them through the winter.

This time two boys go missing and the small, isolated village is shook. As Tristan investigates the disappearance of the brothers he finds out they are not the first young men who have just disappeared on Vagar.

Tristan is determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. But this charming little fishing village has some ugly secrets and aren’t anxious to make Tristan’s job any easier.

This tale hit me in a few spots. I’m Norwegian and I’ve heard the stories of the grind. I am not in favor of it. The characters were developed well , the description of the area was easily pictured in my mind. This one had it all. The good, the bad and the very ugly.

But that ending….

Well Done!

NetGalley/ May 01, 2019  SevernHouse

 

PRAY FOR THE GIRL by JOSEPH SOUZA

Pray for the Girl

Fawn Grove, Maine is a small town full of small-minded people. It’s been a long time since Lucy Abbott has come back to her hometown and some things have changed and some are fighting change.

The refugees who have settled here are not wanted. There is so much tension you could cut it with a knife. Everyone seems to be prejudiced and duplicitous. Kids, adults, no one is being honest.

After suffering in Afghanistan, Lucy is hiding her identity from everyone but her immediate family. No one in town recognizes her. After what happened to her over there she is having trouble just leaving her room.

She can’t let go of the crimes happening in her own town. An Afghani girl buried up to her neck and stoned. A boy with his throat slit and an Islamic symbol left behind. Who is behind all of this hate and violence?

Well let me tell you this, the second half of the book there is a huge WOW! And the Wows just keep coming after that. The teenagers, including her own niece are absolutely despicable and you will have to read it to see just how bad they are.

One ending I did not see coming!

NetGalley/  April 30th 2019 by Kensington Publishing Corporation

 

 

 

 

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW by SALLY HEPWORTH

The Mother-in-Law

 

If you have been married, you know you are also inheriting your loved ones family. And with mother-in-laws it can feel like navigating a minefield. And this is what happens when Lucy marries Ollie and gains Diana.

Lucy lost her own mother long ago and has hopes that she and Diana will be close. Unfortunately Diana is not that type of mother-in-law. She keeps them all at a distance while running her own charity for refugees and young pregnant girls and being very hands on.

And when Diana is found dead, Lucy is scared. Lucy and Diana have secrets.  Diana had a lot of secrets with a lot of people. So who had the strongest motive to kill her?

I loved this story. I loved Diana. This family could have been so different if it weren’t for all of the secrets. Everyone was assuming and no one was asking questions.

I suspected everyone! They all wanted something from Diana that she had no intention of giving them and for one of them that will be the spark that ends Diana’s life.

Always a solid writer, this one was very well done!

Netgalley/ April 23rd 2019 by St. Martin’s Press

 

 

 

 

 

Saving Meghan by D.J.Palmer

I was very excited to receive this in the mail last week. Along with a holographic bookmark that depending on which way you tilt it either says, “It’s all real” or “It’s all in your head”. Very cool. Instructions from St. Martin’s were to share and read with the hashtags  #ProtectMeghan or #BelieveBecky.

All of my favorite thriller authors were endorsing it and I could not wait to jump in!

Can you love someone to death? 

On the outside looking in, Becky Gerard looks like a mother who will do anything she can to find out what is wrong with her 15-year-old daughter, Meghan.

Meghan Gerard has had a host of unexplainable symptoms and ailments that have become so bad, she has dropped out of her beloved soccer and become basically a shut in at home.

Carl Gerard has just about had it with his wife and daughter. He believes there is nothing wrong with Meghan and that Becky is just seeking attention and suffering from the wounds of her own dysfunctional mother.

Then Meghan’s symptoms take a turn for the worst and while one doctor thinks he knows the cause, the hospital thinks Becky has Munchausen syndrome, leaving them with no choice but to remove Meghan from their home and putting her in the hospital.

While Becky, Carl and the courts battle it out, Meghan is determined to get out of the hospital and defend her mother. But Meghan isn’t so innocent here. She has secrets too. But whose secrets will get them killed?

I was back and forth between Becky did it and Meghan is nuts. The thing is that not a single character in this thriller was innocent of wrongdoing. Everyone had their own agenda. Everyone was keeping secrets. Wickedly Twisty, it was a page turner! Smart, fast paced and just enough seeds of doubt to have you guessing and re-guessing!

Well Done!

St. Martin’s Press April 9,2019

 

THE STILLWATER GIRLS by MINKA KENT

The Stillwater Girls

A mother and her three daughters live totally off the grid in the Stillwater forest. A place no one wants to go. The girls, Wren, Sage and Evie know nothing beyond their own one room cabin and the mysterious supply man who their mother meets in the forest. The world is dark and dangerous they are told.

When Evie gets sick her mother leaves with to get help.  They never return. Months go by and Wren is sure they will die and then a mysterious man shows up asking questions and the girls take a chance and escape into the forest. What they will find on the other side will rock their lives.

The story is told from multiple view points and I was hooked from the first chapter! The author has a very engaging style and I was reading as fast as I could to see what happened. And at the end is when it all fell apart for me. It was so disappointing. I can suspend belief on a lot of things but this was just so real and raw and gritty up until the end that when the end came I couldn’t make it sync with the rest of the book.

Solid 3 stars on this one.

NetGalley/April 9th 2019 by Thomas & Mercer