Could your dream home be your worst nightmare? After what happened in London, Kirsty needs a fresh start with her family. And running a guesthouse in the Welsh mountains sounds idyllic. But then their first guest arrives. Selena is the last person Kirsty wants to see. It’s 17 years since she tore everything apart. Why has…
I believe a more apt title for this novel would have been—”Cold War Reboot“. This is due to the fact that the narrative and style applied by the author make the reader feel like they could be back in the 1960s. In fact, one of the characters drives a classic car that still has an…
To begin with, the debut novel from author Alice Henderson probably has the coolest title I’ve seen in a long time—A Solitude of Wolverines. At one point early in the novel, a character asks the protagonist, biologist Dr. Alex Carter: ‘So what is a group of wolverines called, anyway? I mean, there’s a pride of…
Author Aimee Molloy has already been referred to as ‘a master of clever misdirection’—and that was just from her debut novel, The Perfect Mother, which has already been optioned for a feature film starring Kerry Washington. Molloy has the misdirection tool firmly in use with her second release, Goodnight Beautiful. It’s one of those novels…
Anyone who has ever taken a creative writing class, whether it be for long or short fiction, will recognize that one of the golden rules before starting is to write what you know. This allows you to write with a more confident voice and allow your story to remain grounded in reality. This is precisely…
Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, with Tampa Bay Noir edited by Collete Bancroft. Akashic Books, who has produced dozens of Noir novels in this series since 2004, had the misfortune of having their latest one — Tampa Bay Noir —scheduled for release during the pandemic lockdown. Post-lockdown it has begun…
Rachel Howzell Hall has produced a mystery novel that has a second mystery at its heart running throughout as a creeping undercurrent. And Now She’s Gone could have been produced as a pure mystery/private investigator story but ends but being something much bigger. It opens with a haunting snippet from poet Emily Dickinson: One need…
The latest psychological thriller from Araminta Hall, Imperfect Women, explores guilt and retribution, love and betrayal, and the compromises we make that alter our lives irrevocably. Author Araminta Hall had the difficult task of following up her previous novel, Our Kind of Cruelty, which was voted the best book of 2018 by both Crime Reads…
Fire and Vengeance by Robert McCaw is the second book in the Koa Kane Mystery series—set in Hilo, Hawaii—where an elementary school inexplicably built on top of an active volcano explodes and the chief detective must connect the dots to ensure justice is served for the victims. Hawaii may be part of the United States,…
For me, the release of a new Jenny Milchman novel is an event. The story always battles the unique locations she uses for setting and this consistently makes for a great read. I am pleased to say that The Second Mother is no different. It starts in a small Adirondack town and then moves to…
