#BookReview The Maid’s Diary by Loreth Anne White @Loreth @AmazonPub @ThomasAllenLTD #TheMaidsDiary #LorethAnneWhite #MontlakeRomance #ThomasAllen

#BookReview The Maid’s Diary by Loreth Anne White @Loreth @AmazonPub @ThomasAllenLTD #TheMaidsDiary #LorethAnneWhite #MontlakeRomance #ThomasAllen Title: The Maid's Diary

Author: Loreth Anne White

Published by: Montlake Romance on Mar. 1, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 380

Format: Paperback

Source: Thomas Allen & Son

Book Rating: 9/10

Kit Darling is a maid with a snooping problem. She’s the “invisible girl,” compelled to poke into her wealthy clients’ closely guarded lives. It’s a harmless hobby until Kit sees something she can’t unsee in the home of her brand-new clients: a secret so dark it could destroy the privileged couple expecting their first child. This makes Kit dangerous to the couple. In turn, it makes the couple—who might kill to keep their secret—dangerous to Kit.

When homicide cop Mallory Van Alst is called to a scene at a luxury waterfront home known as the Glass House, she’s confronted with evidence of a violent attack so bloody it’s improbable the victim is alive. But there’s no body. The homeowners are gone. And their maid is missing. The only witness is the elderly woman next door, who woke to screams in the night. The neighbor was also the last person to see Kit Darling alive.

As Mal begins to uncover the secret that has sent the lives of everyone involved on a devious and inescapable collision course, she realizes that nothing is quite as it seems.

And no one escapes their past.


Review:

Sophisticated, ominous, and riveting!

The Maid’s Diary is a highly suspenseful, character-driven thriller that takes you into the life of Kit Darling, a young maid whose obsessive compulsion to snoop may finally have caught up with her when her latest wealthy clients, the Rittenbergs, are willing to do whatever it takes to keep their secrets from the past hidden for good.

The writing is tight and intense. The characters are complex, secretive, and troubled. And the plot is a devious, sinister tale full of twists, turns, lies, deception, manipulation, suspicions, revelations, corruption, mayhem, obsession, and familial drama.

Overall, The Maid’s Diary is a tortuous, sinister, unnerving tale by White that kept me guessing from the very first page and, as always, was deliciously surprising, relentless and absolutely bursting with misdirection.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to Thomas Allen & Son for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Loreth Anne White

Loreth Anne White is an award-winning, bestselling author of romantic suspense, thrillers, and mysteries.

A three-time RITA finalist, she has also won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Romantic Crown for Best Romantic Suspense and Best Book Overall, in addition to being a Booksellers’ Best finalist, a multiple Daphne Du Maurier Award finalist, and a multiple CataRomance Reviewers’ Choice Award winner.

A former journalist and newspaper editor who has worked in both South Africa and Canada, she now resides in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest with her family. When she’s not writing, you will find her skiing, biking, or hiking the trails with her Black Dog.

#BookReview A Death at the Party by Amy Stuart @AmyfStuart @SimonSchusterCA #ADeathattheParty #AmyStuart #SimonSchusterCA

#BookReview A Death at the Party by Amy Stuart @AmyfStuart @SimonSchusterCA #ADeathattheParty #AmyStuart #SimonSchusterCA Title: A Death at the Party

Author: Amy Stuart

Published by: Simon and Schuster on Mar. 7, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 304

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

In this tense, spellbinding thriller set over the course of a single day, a woman prepares for a party that goes dreadfully wrong—for fans of Ashley Audrain and Lisa Jewell.

Nadine Walsh’s summer garden party is in full swing. The neighbors all have cocktails, the catered food is exquisite—everything’s going according to plan.

But Nadine—devoted wife, loving mother, and doting daughter—finds herself standing over a dead body in her basement while her guests clink glasses upstairs. What happened? How did it come to this?

Rewind to that morning, when Nadine is in her kitchen, making last-minute preparations before she welcomes more than a hundred guests to her home to celebrate her mother’s birthday. But her husband is of little help to her, her two grown children are consumed with their own concerns, and her mother—only her mother knows that today isn’t just a birthday party. It marks another anniversary as well.

Still, Nadine will focus just on tonight. Everyone deserves a celebration after the year they’ve had. A chance for fun. A chance to forget. But it’s hard to forget when Nadine’s head is swirling with secrets, haunting memories, and concerns about what might happen when her guests unite.


Review:

Simmering, sinister, and seductive!

A Death at the Party is a character-driven, domestic thriller that takes you into the life of Nadine Walsh, a mother of two who, after ending the night of her mother’s sixtieth birthday party and the thirtieth anniversary of her aunt’s tragic death standing over the body of a dead man, takes us back to the start of the day and into all the deception, infidelities, suspicions, and deviant behaviours that led her there.

The prose is intricate and intense. The characters are unreliable, secretive, and consumed. And the plot unfolds and unravels briskly into a murky tale full of twists, turns, surprises, familial drama, manipulation, resentments, scandal, wickedness, depravity, vengeance, and murder.

Overall, A Death at the Party is a tight, devious, relentless tale by Stuart that delves into the complex bonds that exist between friends and family members and reminds us that behind all those happy, smiling faces often lies an abundance of destructive lies and devastating secrets.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Amy Stuart

Amy Stuart is the #1 bestselling author of three novels: Still Mine, Still Water, and Still Here. Shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Best First Novel Award and winner of the 2011 Writers’ Union of Canada Short Prose Competition, Amy is the founder of Writerscape, an online community for hopeful and emerging writers. Amy lives in Toronto with her husband and their three sons.

Photograph by Joey Stuart.

#FeaturePost The Foreign Exchange by Veronica G. Henry @veronicawrites @KayePublicity @AmazonPub #TheForeignExchange #VeronicaGHenry #MamboReina #KayePublicity

#FeaturePost The Foreign Exchange by Veronica G. Henry @veronicawrites @KayePublicity @AmazonPub #TheForeignExchange #VeronicaGHenry #MamboReina #KayePublicity Title: The Foreign Exchange

Author: Veronica G. Henry

Series: Mambo Reina #2

Published by: 47North on Feb. 28, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 288

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Kaye Publicity

A Vodou priestess turned amateur sleuth investigating a ritual murder is embroiled in an insidious case of corruption that reaches beyond the shadows of New Orleans.

After solving a crime blamed on Vodou in New Orleans’ French Quarter, Vodou priestess turned amateur detective Reina Dumond has returned to her benevolent work as a healer. But when her friend and enigmatic client Evangeline “Vangie” Stiles comes to her for a spell, Mambo Reina quickly realizes what Vangie really needs is a sleuth.

Something is amiss in the Stileses’ marriage. Five thousand dollars has inexplicably appeared in the bank account Vangie shares with her scam-artist husband, Arthur, and she smells trouble. So does Reina. Especially when her investigation into Arthur’s likely new con leads to murder. Considering the manner of death and the signs on the victim’s body, Reina recognizes it for what it is: ritual magic of the vodouisant kind.

As Reina digs deeper, she encounters a conspiracy exploiting vulnerable youth—one of whom may have abilities just like hers. With the help of her friends Darryl and Tyka, Reina must hone her ever-evolving skills to uncover a mystery that reaches further than she imagined.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Kaye Publicity and Amazon Publishing for gifting me a copy.

 

About Veronica G. Henry

Veronica G. Henry is the author of Bacchanal, The Quarter Storm, and The Foreign Exchange in the Mambo Reina series.

Her work has debuted at #1 on multiple Amazon bestseller charts, was chosen as an editors’ pick for Best African American Fantasy, and shortlisted for the Manly Wade Wellman Award.

She is a Viable Paradise alum and a member of SFWA and MWA. Her stories have appeared, or are forthcoming, in the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and FIYAH Literary Magazine.

She writes from North Carolina, where she eschews rollerballs for fountain pens and fine paper. Other untreated addictions include chocolate and cupcakes.

Photo courtesy of Author's Website.

#BookReview The Angel Maker by Alex North @CeladonBooks #alexnorth #alexnorthauthor #theangelmaker #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner

#BookReview The Angel Maker by Alex North @CeladonBooks #alexnorth #alexnorthauthor #theangelmaker #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner Title: The Angel Maker

Author: Alex North

Published by: Celadon Books on Feb. 28, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 336

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 8/10

A dark, suspenseful new thriller about the mysteries of fate, the unbreakable bond of siblings, and a notorious serial killer who was said to know the future.

Growing up in a beautiful house in the English countryside, Katie Shaw lived a charmed life. At the cusp of graduation, she had big dreams, a devoted boyfriend, and a little brother she protected fiercely. Until the day a violent stranger changed the fate of her family forever.

Years later, still unable to live down the guilt surrounding what happened to her brother, Chris, and now with a child of her own to protect, Katie struggles to separate the real threats from the imagined. Then she gets the phone call: Chris has gone missing and needs his big sister once more.

Meanwhile, Detective Laurence Page is facing a particularly gruesome crime. A distinguished professor of fate and free will has been brutally murdered just hours after firing his staff. All the leads point back to two old cases: the gruesome attack on teenager Christopher Shaw, and the despicable crimes of a notorious serial killer who, legend had it, could see the future.


Review:

Dark, gritty, and spine-chilling!

The Angel Maker is a layered, unsettling, psychological thriller that delves into all the devastating emotional, psychological, and physical effects caused by violence on its victims, as well as their families, and highlights just how easily the most heinous of evil can often live comfortably amongst us merely hidden behind masks of normality.

The writing is sharp and crisp. The characters are secretive, cunning, and vulnerable. And the plot, told from multiple perspectives, builds quickly creating intensity and suspense as it unravels all the relationships, motivations, personalities, deception, and devious behaviours within it.

Overall, The Angel Maker is, ultimately, a story of lies, revelations, jealousy, obsession, familial drama, mental illness, depravity, guilt, manipulation, violence, and murder. It’s a tight, clever, disturbing thrill ride by North that had just the right amount of twists, turns, and surprises to keep me thoroughly engrossed from start to finish.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Alex North

Alex North is the internationally bestselling author of The Whisper Man and The Shadows. He lives in Leeds, England, with his wife and son, and is a British crime writer who has previously published under another name.

Photo by Charlotte Graham.

#BookReview Murder at Haven’s Rock by Kelley Armstrong @KelleyArmstrong @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #MurderatHavensRock #KelleyArmstrong #HavensRock #HavensRockNovels #MinotaurInfluencers #SMPInfluencers

#BookReview Murder at Haven’s Rock by Kelley Armstrong @KelleyArmstrong @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #MurderatHavensRock #KelleyArmstrong #HavensRock #HavensRockNovels #MinotaurInfluencers #SMPInfluencers Title: Murder at Haven's Rock

Author: Kelley Armstrong

Series: Haven's Rock #1

Published by: Minotaur Books on Feb. 21, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 352

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Minotaur Books

Book Rating: 9/10

New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong’s Rockton Novels had one of the most unique towns in crime fiction. Murder at Haven’s Rock is a spinoff, a fresh start… with a few new dangers that threaten everything before it even begins.

Haven’s Rock, Yukon. Population: 0

Deep in the Yukon wilderness, a town is being built. A place for people to disappear, a fresh start from a life on the run. Haven’s Rock isn’t the first town of this kind, something detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, know first hand. They met in the original town of Rockton. But greed and deception led the couple to financing a new refuge for those in need. This time around, they get to decide which applicants are approved for residency.

There’s only one rule in Haven’s Rock: stay out of the forest. When two of the town’s construction crew members break it and go missing, Casey and Eric are called in ahead of schedule to track them down. When a body is discovered, well hidden with evidence of foul play, Casey and Eric must find out what happened to the dead woman, and locate the still missing man. The woman stumbled upon something she wasn’t supposed to see, and the longer Casey and Eric don’t know what happened, the more danger everyone is in.


Review:

Menacing, atmospheric, and absorbing!

Murder at Haven’s Rock is a dark, intricate tale that takes us back to the Yukon, where Casey Duncan and Sheriff Eric Dalton have begun building a new community, a hidden refuge surrounded by miles of forest that they’re hoping will escape the pitfalls, deception and danger that began to ravage their last home of Rockton but their not the only ones staking a claim to this rugged wilderness and before the final building is complete workers will start to go missing, bodies will begin to surface, and greed will once again rear its ugly head.

The prose is brisk and tight. The characters are secretive, troubled, and multilayered. And the plot is an intense, gripping tale full of twists, turns, surprises, secrets, suspects, malevolence, deduction, revelations, lies, desperation, avarice, violence, and murder.

Kelley Armstrong is the author of one of my all-time favourite mystery series, Rockton, so when I heard she was writing a spinoff series, I was super excited, and Murder at Haven’s Rock did not disappoint. It’s a suspenseful, eerie, action-packed read by Armstrong and a fantastic start to what is sure to be another must-read series for me.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Minotaur Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Kelley Armstrong

Kelley Armstrong has been telling stories since before she could write. Her earliest written efforts were disastrous. If asked for a story about girls and dolls, hers would invariably feature undead girls and evil dolls, much to her teachers' dismay. All efforts to make her produce "normal" stories failed.

Today, she continues to spin tales of ghosts and demons and werewolves, while safely locked away in her basement writing dungeon. She's the author of the NYT-bestselling "Women of the Otherworld" paranormal suspense series and "Darkest Powers" young adult urban fantasy trilogy, as well as the Nadia Stafford crime series. Armstrong lives in southwestern Ontario with her husband, kids and far too many pets.

Photograph by Kathryn Hollinrake.

#BookReview It Ends at Midnight by Harriet Tyce @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #ItEndsatMidnight #HarrietTyce #bookmarkedbylandmark

#BookReview It Ends at Midnight by Harriet Tyce @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #ItEndsatMidnight #HarrietTyce #bookmarkedbylandmark Title: It Ends at Midnight

Author: Harriet Tyce

Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark on Feb. 21, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 320

Format: Hardcover

Source: Sourcebooks Landmark

Book Rating: 8.5/10

From the acclaimed, Sunday Times bestselling author of Blood Orange comes a thriller of a party spiraling into murder when one guest’s plan to right old wrongs ends in blood, told with Tyce’s signature dark and propulsive twists.

It’s New Year’s Eve and the stage is set for a lavish party in one of Edinburgh’s best postcodes. It’s a moment for old friends to set the past to rights – and move on.

The night sky is alive with fireworks and the champagne is flowing. But the celebration fails to materialize.

Because someone at this party is going to die tonight.

Midnight approaches and the countdown begins – but it seems one of the guests doesn’t want a resolution.

They want revenge.


Review:

Gripping, suspenseful, and unnerving!

It Ends at Midnight transports you into the life of Sylvie Munro, a successful barrister who, while presiding over a nasty case in Youth Court that has swirled up some conflicting emotions of her own, reaches out at the request of her sick friend Tess to a girl they both wronged as teens, triggering the past to collide with the present, long-buried secrets to come to light, and the truth to finally be revealed.

The prose is tight and edgy. The characters are secretive, consumed, and troubled. And the plot using a past/present, back-and-forth style, builds and unravels quickly into a compelling tale full of drama, deception, lies, guilt, corruption, ambition, manipulation, revenge, and the complex, toxic relationship that can exist between friends.

Overall, It Ends at Midnight is an engrossing, cunning, sinister novel by Tyce that kept me enthralled from the very first page and is the perfect choice for anyone who loves a menacing, highly entertaining, eerily tension-filled read.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Harriet Tyce

Harriet Tyce was born and grew up in Edinburgh. She graduated in 1994 with a degree in English Literature before working as a criminal barrister for nearly a decade.

Having escaped law and early motherhood, she started writing, and completed the MA in Creative Writing – Crime Fiction at the University of East Anglia. She has written three novels to date, the Sunday Times bestsellers Blood Orange and The Lies You Told. It Ends At Midnight was published in April 2022 to critical acclaim.

She lives in north London with her husband and children, and two very nice dogs.

Photo by Rory Lewis Photography.

#BookReview Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun by Elle Cosimano @ElleCosimano @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #MinotaurInfluencers #FinlayDonovanJumpsTheGun #FinlayDonovan #ElleCosimano

#BookReview Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun by Elle Cosimano @ElleCosimano @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #MinotaurInfluencers #FinlayDonovanJumpsTheGun #FinlayDonovan #ElleCosimano Title: Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun

Author: Elle Cosimano

Series: Finlay Donovan #3

Published by: Minotaur Books on Jan. 31, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 304

Format: Hardcover

Source: Minotaur Books

Book Rating: 8.5/10

Author and single mom Finlay Donovan has been in messes before―after all, she’s a pro at removing bloodstains for various unexpected reasons―but none quite like this. When Finlay and her nanny/partner-in-crime Vero accidentally destroyed a luxury car that they had “borrowed” in the process of saving the life of Finlay’s ex-husband, the Russian mob did her a favor and bought the car for her. And now Finlay owes them.

Mob boss Feliks is still running the show from behind bars, and he has a task for Finlay: find and identify a contract killer before the cops do. The problem is, the killer might be an officer themself.

Luckily, hot cop Nick has just been tasked with starting up a citizen’s police academy, and combined pressure from Finlay’s looming book deadline and Feliks is enough to convince Finlay and Vero to get involved. Through firearm training and forensic classes (and some hands-on research with a tempting detective), Finlay and Vero use their time in police academy to sleuth out the real contract killer to free themselves from the mob’s clutches―all the while dodging spies, confronting Vero’s past, and juggling the daily trials of parenthood.

From USA Today bestseller and Edgar-Award nominee Elle Cosimano, comes Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun—the highly anticipated, hilarious, and heart-pounding next installment in the beloved Finlay Donovan series…


Review:

Sassy, amusing, and unpredictable!

Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun is a mysterious, captivating read that transports you back into the lives of romantic suspense author and mother of two Finlay Donovan and her partner in crime Veronica Ruiz as they find themselves once again reluctantly messed up in the world of crime when Russian mobster Feliks Zhirov continues to pressure them to identity the online contractor killer EasyClean before his case goes to trial and their amateur sleuthing leads them to a member of the Fairfax County PD and a placement in the citizen’s police academy run by the delectable Detective Nicholas Anthony.

The prose is light and fun. The characters are stressed, resourceful, and clumsy. And the plot is a spirited, action-packed tale full of life, love, family, friendship, parenthood, lies, secrets, tricky situations, humorous hijinks, danger, and a dab of romance.

Overall, Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun is another cute, comical, outlandish addition to the Finlay Donovan series by Cosimano that had just the right amount of zany antics and entertaining storyline to keep me engaged and laughing from start to finish.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from the following links.

           

 

 

Thank you to Minotaur – St. Martin’s Press for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Elle Cosimano

ELLE COSIMANO is an award-winning author. Her YA debut, Nearly Gone, was an Edgar Award finalist and winner of the International Thriller Award. Her novel Holding Smoke was a finalist for the International Thriller Award and the Bram Stoker Award. Her essays have appeared in The Huffington Post and Time. Elle lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with her husband, two sons, and her dog. Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is her adult debut.

Photo by Powell Woulfe Photography.

#BookReview Unnatural History by Jonathan Kellerman @randomhouse #JonathanKellerman #UnnaturalHistory #AlexDelawareSeries #RandomHouse

#BookReview Unnatural History by Jonathan Kellerman @randomhouse #JonathanKellerman #UnnaturalHistory #AlexDelawareSeries #RandomHouse Title: Unnatural History

Author: Jonathan Kellerman

Series: Alex Delaware #38

Published by: Ballantine Books on Feb. 7, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller, Police Procedural

Pages: 320

Format: Hardcover

Source: Random House

Book Rating: 8.5/10

The most enduring detectives in American crime fiction are back in this electrifying thrillerof art and brutalityfrom the #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense.

Los Angeles is a city of stark contrast, the palaces of the affluent coexisting uneasily with the hellholes of the mad and the needy. It is that shadow world and the violence it breeds that draw brilliant psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis into an unsettling case of altruism gone wrong.

On a superficially lovely morning a woman shows up for work with her usual enthusiasm. She’s the newly hired personal assistant to a handsome, wealthy photographer and is ready to greet her boss with coffee and good cheer. Instead, she finds him slumped in bed, shot to death.

The victim had recently received rave media attention for his latest project: images of homeless people in their personal “dream” situations, elaborately costumed and enacting unfulfilled fantasies. There are some, however, who view the whole thing as nothing more than crass exploitation, citing token payments and the victim’s avoidance of any long-term relationships with his subjects.

Has disgruntlement blossomed into homicidal rage? Or do the roots of violence reach down to the victim’s family—a clan, sired by an elusive billionaire, that is bizarre in its own right?

Then new murders arise, and Alex and Milo begin peeling back layer after layer of intrigue and complexity, culminating in one of the deadliest threats they’ve ever faced.


Review:

Complex, menacing, and gritty!

In this thirty-eighth instalment in the Alex Delaware series, Unnatural History, we head back to Los Angeles where LAPD Lieutenant Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware now find themselves immersed in a tricky case involving a murdered photographer who happens to be the youngest son of an enigmatic billionaire and whose latest project entitled the Wishers involved photographing homeless people dressed up as the person they always wished they could be.

The writing is tight and crisp. The characters are multilayered, vulnerable, and elusive. And the plot is a sinister tale full of twists, turns, deception, mayhem, suspicious personalities, revelations, homelessness, familial dysfunction, mental illness, and murder.

Overall, Unnatural History is an ominous, sophisticated, entertaining tale by Kellerman that has just the right amount of mystery, intrigue, and intensity to keep you engaged from start to finish and leave fans of this incredibly long-running series more than satisfied.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Random House for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Jonathan Kellerman

Jonathan Kellerman is the Number One New York Times bestselling author of more than forty crime novels, including the Alex Delaware series, The Butcher's Theater, Billy Straight, The Conspiracy Club, Twisted, True Detectives, and The Murderer's Daughter.

With his wife, bestselling novelist Faye Kellerman, he co-authored Double Homicide and Capital Crimes. With his son, bestselling novelist Jesse Kellerman, he co-authored Crime Scene, The Golem of Hollywood, and The Golem of Paris.

He is also the author of two children's books and numerous nonfiction works, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children and With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars. He has won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony awards and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association, and has been nominated for a Shamus Award. Jonathan and Faye Kellerman live in California and New Mexico.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

#BookReview Twisted by Emily McIntire @authoremilym @Read_Bloom #ReadBloom #Twisted #NeverAfterSeries #SourcebooksCasa

#BookReview Twisted by Emily McIntire @authoremilym @Read_Bloom #ReadBloom #Twisted #NeverAfterSeries #SourcebooksCasa Title: Twisted

Author: Emily McIntire

Series: Never After #4

Published by: Bloom Books on Feb. 7, 2023

Genres: Contemporary Romance, Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 416

Format: Paperback

Source: Sourcebooks Casablanca

Book Rating: 8.5/10

She’s his diamond in the rough. He’s her worst nightmare.

Yasmin Karam, daughter to one of the richest men in the world, has never known strife. So, when her beloved father falls ill, she’s determined to make his final days his happiest. His last wish? To see her married to a man of his choosing. Except Yasmin’s heart already belongs to someone else. A servant. A street rat. A man her father would never consider worthy. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Yasmin strikes a desperate deal with her father’s right-hand man, Julian, not realizing he has his own twisted agenda.

Julian Faraci has one goal: become the most powerful man in the world. He’s built a future from broken bones and faded bruises, never caring who he hurt along the way. But when his mentor falls ill, he finds himself on the verge of losing everything, and he’ll stop at nothing to inherit what is rightfully his. Even if it means forcing a woman he can’t stand into marriage.

Yasmin is a brat who speaks out of turn, and he’s the villain of her story. But he decides she’ll be his—no matter what it takes to convince her.


Review:

Edgy, addictive, and darkly delicious!

Twisted is a dramatic, spicy tale that takes you on a journey into the life of Yasmin Karam, the intelligent daughter of a successful diamond retailer who, after finding out her father wishes her to marry before he passes away, agrees to fake an engagement to the one man she despises, Julian Faraci, her father’s savage right-hand man who’ll do anything necessary, even marry the one woman he loathes, in order to acquire what he believes he legitimately deserves.

The writing is sultry and smooth. The characters are consumed, brazen, and intense. And the plot is a tantalizing tale full of desire, temptation, chemistry, mystique, danger, deception, violence, secrets, and sizzling romance.

Overall, Twisted is another steamy, alluring, captivating tale by McIntire that has all the elements I’ve come to know and love in her previous novels, including a fierce heroine, a dangerous bad boy, and a fast-paced, seductive storyline that I can happily say I devoured in one sitting.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

Thank you to Bloom Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Emily McIntire

Emily McIntire is an international and Amazon top 15 best-selling author known for her Never After Series, where she gives our favorite villains their happily ever afters. With books that range from small town to dark romance, she doesn’t like to box herself into one type of story, but at the core of all her novels is soul deep love. When she’s not writing you can find her waiting on her long lost Hogwarts letter, enjoying her family, or lost between the pages of a good book. The author and her family live near Knoxville, TN.

Photo courtesy of Author's Website.

#BookReview The Devil You Know by P. J. Tracy @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #TheDevilYouKnowBook #PJTracy #MinotaurInfluencers #SMPInfluencers

#BookReview The Devil You Know by P. J. Tracy @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #TheDevilYouKnowBook #PJTracy #MinotaurInfluencers #SMPInfluencers Title: The Devil You Know

Author: P. J. Tracy

Series: Detective Margaret Nolan #3

Published by: Minotaur Books on Jan. 17, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller, Police Procedural

Pages: 304

Format: Hardcover

Source: Minotaur Books

Book Rating: 8/10

LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan returns in The Devil You Know, the next book in the series where P. J. Tracy “seems to have found her literary sweet spot” (New York Times Book Review).

Los Angeles has many faces: the real LA where regular people live and work, the degenerate underbelly of any big city, and the rarified world of wealth, power, and celebrity. LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan’s latest case plunges her into this insular realm of privilege, and gives her a glimpse of the darkness behind the glitter.

The body of beloved actor Evan Hobbes is found in the rubble of a Malibu rockslide a day after a fake video ruins his career. It’s not clear to Nolan if it’s an accident, a suicide, or a murder, and things get murkier as the investigation expands to his luminary friends and colleagues. Meanwhile, Hobbes’ agent is dealing with damage control, his psychotic boss, and a woman he’s scorned. But when his powerful brother-in-law is murdered, he and Nolan both find themselves entangled in a scandalous deception of deadly proportion that shakes the very foundation of Hollywood’s untouchables.


Review:

Tense, captivating, and mysterious!

The Devil You Know is a scheming, twisty tale that sweeps you away to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, where deception is rife, tensions are running high, everyone has a hidden agenda, and despicable behaviour, backstabbing, partying, sex and murder seem to always be on the table.

The writing is crisp and tight. The characters are ambitious, self-obsessed, and ruthless. And the plot is an enticing mix of lies, secrets, duplicity, infidelity, manipulation, mayhem, vengeance, and murder.

Overall, The Devil You Know is another entertaining, enjoyable, satisfying addition to the LAPD Detective Margaret Nolan series by Tracy that does a wonderful job of reminding us that revenge is best served cold.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About P. J. Tracy

P. J. Tracy is the pseudonym of Traci Lambrecht, bestselling and award winning author of the Monkeewrench series. Lambrecht and her mother, P. J., wrote eight novels together as P. J. Tracy before P. J. passed away in 2016. Lambrecht has since continued the Monkeewrench series solo. She spent most of her childhood painting and showing Arabian horses, and graduated with a Russian Studies major from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, where she also studied voice. She now lives outside Minneapolis.

Photo by Pamela Stege.