Tag: Netgalley Reviews

Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

Things You Save in a Fire

Cassie is happy. She is one of the only female firefighters in her Austin department. She’s so good at her job she’s about to receive an award for Valor when we first meet her. She loves her job and her team. Cassie is gobsmacked when the presenter isn’t the Mayor but a Councilman. An enemy from high school. Let’s just say he leaves the stage on a stretcher and Cassie may not be making Lieutenant or even have a job left.

Cassie’s mother left her and her father when Cassie was 16 and she isn’t over it or anything else. So when out of the blue she receives a call from Diana, her mother, asking her to move to the Boston area and stay with her for a year while she is having a bit of a problem with her eye.

Reminding herself it is only temporary she heads out knowing that she will have a job with a much smaller and older station with guys she knows don’t want a woman in their boys’ club. But she needs to stay away from Austin and let the dust settle.

Before leaving Austin her Captain had told her to not make waves and DO. NOT. Date. Firemen. Not a problem for Cassie as she doesn’t even believe in love and never dates. The hazing and lack of support at the station is compounded with a new guy who on day one turns her life upside down!

I loved this story. Every character was so well done. This was a tale of perspective, forgiveness, and the complicated love of family. I was so moved by the courage Cassie and her mother had.

Very Well Done!

NetGalley/ August 13th, 2019 by St. Martin’s Press

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SEEKERS (Krewe of Hunters) by HEATHER GRAHAM

This is #28 in this series.

THE TRUTH IS SCARIER THAN FICTION

 

Meet Keri. A Non-Fiction writer. Keri has been asked to help the crew of The Seekers, a ghost hunter type show, as they explore a haunted inn. It’s famous for a lot of reasons, the main one being the site of an ax-wielding killer in the ’20s.

They have just begun to set up when they find a body in the basement. And not just any body but the body of an FBI agent. Are the killings starting again? And who is the woman in white Keri sees by the body?

Joe has joined the Krewe of Hunters. A group within the FBI with paranormal gifts. Together with Dallas, they take over the inn and plunge into an investigation into not only the death of another agent but all of the odd things going on in this strange town.

And this was a strange town! Ghosts popping up, kidnappings, satanic cults. All the good bells and whistles.

This could be a stand alone. Or be like me and read them all!

NetGalley/Mira  July 23rd, 2019

 

 

 

 

A STRANGER ON THE BEACH by MICHELE CAMPBELL

A Stranger on the Beach

Told from two points of view, this thriller actually cost me a fingernail!

Caroline is living the dream. A successful interior designer, who quit to raise her daughter who is now off to college, she is determined to get back in the game and earn her own money. Her husband works long, hard hours in order to provide a lifestyle it would seem they both enjoy.

Staring out the expansive glass windows Caroline spots a man on the beach. Staring at her house. She debates calling the police since he isn’t really doing anything, but at the same time, there have been burglaries lately in this enclave for the rich and famous. Later she will say she wished she had called the police.

Aiden is a bartender in a local bar. Having served time for manslaughter and now determined to show his Chief-of -Police brother that he has changed. He isn’t a teenager anymore and is tired of being treated like trash.

At Caroline’s housewarming party everyone wants to know where Jason is. Even her husbands boss isn’t believing her story of him running late. Later when he shows up with a Russian hussy in tow everything blows up and in front of God and everyone he leaves with the Russian girl and wants a divorce.

Aiden is happy to come to the rescue and Caroline is happy to have him. For a bit.

That is all I’m giving away. Let me just say this was one twisted puzzle that had me speechless for a good hour in the end. What???  I did not see that coming. The pace was perfect. The timing was everything in this wickedly good thriller!

Well Done!

NetGalley/St.Martin’s Press July 23rd, 2019 by St. Martin’s Press

Window on the Bay by Debbie Macomber

Window on the Bay

A heartwarming story of two very strong and independent women. Jenna and Maureen have been best friends forever. Their dream was to go to Paris together after graduation from college. At the last minute, Maureen gets pregnant and has to get married. A short-lived event. Jenna, a nurse, marries Kyle, a surgeon. Bad idea. After having been a single mom for 20 years, she is now an empty nester.

Neither of the friends is into dating. But the house is awfully quiet now. Maybe it’s time to re-create themselves. Plan that trip to Paris now. Until each of them stumbles awkwardly into men they wouldn’t have looked twice at until they did.

Debbie always looks at the bright side of things in her books. Yes, there is heartbreak, misunderstandings, and dreams deferred, but in the end, I was crying like a baby. Because that is what her books do. They make you feel. The characters are so very human and make mistakes, but they are good people. I always feel as if I just had a true heart to heart with my grandmother after one of her books.

NetGalley/July, 16th 2019 by Ballantine Books

The Escape Room by Megan Goldin

 

The Escape Room

“Welcome to the Escape Room. Your goal is simple. Get out alive.”

Escape rooms can be really fun and right now they are all over the place and getting pretty creative. The premise is simple enough. A group of people locked in a room. Together they must look at clues that will allow them to escape. The clues are rarely straight forward and more than once will have you backtracking. In the real world, if you run out of time, they just let you out and you can do the walk of shame.

This isn’t that type of story. In this story, four very competitive co-workers are told that on this Friday evening they will be participating in an escape room challenge. None of them wants to do any team building exercises, but they also want to keep their jobs and the money that goes with those jobs, so they show up in a building that is undergoing construction, waiting for an elevator to take them to the escape room.

Little do they know as the elevator rises to the 70th floor that they are already in the escape room. And for the next few days, all of their dirty little secrets, failings, and crimes come out and they must all deal with their own shameful behaviors. And most importantly, which one of them is a killer?

Yes, we find out at the end who was running the show. But I have to say it was a rather unsatisfying end.

Netgalley/ July 30th, 2019 by St. Martin’s Press

 

 

 

SEASON of DARKNESS by CORA HARRISON

Season of Darkness (A Gaslight Mystery #1)

First in the Gaslight Mystery Series

Cora Harrison is one of my favorite authors. Her Reverand Mother series is wonderful reading!

In this new Historical Fiction Series, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins have teamed up to try and solve the murder of a young servant girl named Isabella Gordon. Isabella is one of the young ladies that Dicken’s charities had tried to help. Unfortunately, Isabella wasn’t a rule follower and she along with her friend, Sisena, moved on to work in a lodging house owned by a friend of Dickens. An American who supposedly made his fortune in gold.

Feeling a strong sense of responsibility to find her killer, Dickens, Collins, and Sisena are looking for clues. Was she blackmailing someone? Is the killer in the house? Will Sisena get greedy and go for the money herself?

I enjoyed the true parts tucked in with the mystery. Since this is the first in a series, I will say that I did not enjoy this one as much as her other series. But we’ll see where she goes with it!

NetGalley/ Severn House July 01, 2019

 

 

A Lady’s Guide To Gossip and Murder by Dianne Freeman

A Lady's Guide to Gossip and Murder by Dianne Freeman

A Countess of Harleigh Mystery #2

The Countess, Francis, is back in the second of this series. Now a widow with a full house in town, she has no desire to head for the country as most do in August. She isn’t hunting for birds or a husband.

Her younger sister is visiting from America and has brought a friend. Within a few short weeks, the sister announces she is going to marry a man she just met. Francis is worried. She doesn’t want her sister to marry someone she barely knows. Didn’t work out that well for Francis!

Along with her Aunt and her cousin Charles, she has her hands full. Charles is a lovely man but rather scattered. Francis has been encouraging him to see an acquaintance of hers, Mary Archer. Charles isn’t enamored of Mrs. Archer and picks a poor time to break off seeing her.  The next day the poor woman is dead, murdered in her own home. Charles just became a suspect.

With help from her friend and neighbor, George Hazelton, she hopes to find something in the poor woman’s belongings that will clear Charles. What they find sends them in an entirely different direction!

I really enjoyed this one. Historical Fiction is a favorite of mine and Ms. Freeman has a style of writing that is so easy to read. The characters are quirky and fun. Francis and George may have something going on soon so I hope we don’t have to wait long for the next book!

NetGalley/  June 25th, 2019 by Kensington