Tag Archives: Mystery

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From Ashley at Amazon

Published:  August 29, 2017
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Goodreads:  From the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of When I’m Gone comes a compelling novel of a bond between sisters, tested by tragedy…

Ellie Brown thought she’d finally escaped her stifling hometown of Broadlands, Illinois; med school was supposed to be her ticket out. But when her father has a stroke, she must return home to share his care with her older sister, Amelia, who’s busy with her own family. Working as a paramedic, Ellie’s days are monotonous, driving an ambulance through streets she’d hoped never to see again.

Until a 911 dispatch changes everything. The address: her sister’s house. Rushing to the scene, Ellie discovers that Amelia and her husband, Steve, have been shot in a home invasion. After Amelia is rushed to the hospital, Ellie tries to make sense of the tragedy. But what really happened inside her sister’s house becomes less and less clear. As Amelia hangs on in critical condition, Ellie uncovers dark revelations about her family’s past that challenge her beliefs about those closest to her…and force her to question where her devotions truly lie.

From Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke

Published:  June 1, 2017
Publisher:  Lake Union Publishing

Goodreads:  Bestselling authors Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke make their suspense debut in this twisty, emotional thriller.

Elementary school teacher Jacqueline “Jacks” Morales’s marriage was far from perfect, but even in its ups and downs it was predictable, familiar. Or at least she thought it was…until two police officers showed up at her door with devastating news. Her husband of eight years, the one who should have been on a business trip to Kansas, had suffered a fatal car accident in Hawaii. And he wasn’t alone.

For Jacks, laying her husband to rest was hard. But it was even harder to think that his final moments belonged to another woman—one who had left behind her own grieving and bewildered fiancé. Nick, just as blindsided by the affair, wants answers. So he suggests that he and Jacks search for the truth together, retracing the doomed lovers’ last days in paradise.

Now, following the twisting path of that fateful road, Jacks is learning that nothing is ever as it seems. Not her marriage. Not her husband. And most certainly not his death…

These look like two good mysteries to curl up and read!
Look for reviews soon.

This Just In….

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From Victoria Bylin and Bethany House Publishing

Published: August 8, 2017
Publisher: Bethany House Publishing

Goodreads:  Heartwarming and Touching New Contemporary Romance from Victoria Bylin

After two broken engagements, nurse practitioner Mia Robinson is done with dating. From now on, she only trusts herself and God, and she’s focused on her eighteen-year-old sister, Lucy, and caring for patients. Just as she applies to work for an international aid organization, a phone call from Lucy, who’s pregnant and running off to marry her twenty-one-year-old boyfriend, throws a wrench into all of Mia’s plans.
Jake Tanner may have recovered from the physical injuries he sustained on the job as a police officer, but his heart has yet to heal from losing his former partner in the tragedy. He’s poured himself into starting a camp for the sons of fallen officers and mentoring Sam, the adult son of his deceased partner, who’s asked him to be his best man at his wedding.
Mia is expecting a mess when she arrives to sort out the situation with Lucy, but she wasn’t expecting Jake. And Jake, who can’t help envying Sam and Lucy, doubts he’ll ever experience their happiness for himself. But maybe Jake’s courage and Mia’s caring spirit are just what they need to bring them a lifetime of healing and a forever kind of love. . . .

From HarperCollins

Publication Date:  October 3, 2017
Publisher:  William Morrow Paperbacks

Goodreads:  How well do you know the people you love…?

Best friends Noah Sandler and Abdi Mahad have always been inseparable.  But when Noah is found floating unconscious in Bristol’s Feeder Canal, Abdi can’t–or won’t–tell anyone what happened.

Just back from a mandatory leave following his last case, Detective Jim Clemo is now assigned to look into this unfortunate accident.  But tragedy strikes and what looked like the simple case of a prank gone wrong soon ignites into a public battle.  Noah is British.  Abdi is a Somali refugee.   And social tensions have been rising rapidly in Bristol.  Against this background of fear and fury two families fight for their sons and for the truth.  Neither of them know how far they will have to go, what demons they will have to face, what pain they will have to suffer.

Because the truth hurts.

What has landed on your door step? 

 

 

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From Jennifer at HarperCollins

Publication Date:  September 5, 2017
Publisher: Harper

Goodreads:  Three years ago, Madison Culver disappeared when her family was choosing a Christmas tree in Oregon’s Skookum National Forest. She would be eight years old now—if she has survived. Desperate to find their beloved daughter, certain someone took her, the Culvers turn to Naomi, a private investigator with an uncanny talent for locating the lost and missing. Known to the police and a select group of parents as The Child Finder, Naomi is their last hope.

Naomi’s methodical search takes her deep into the icy, mysterious forest in the Pacific Northwest, and into her own fragmented past. She understands children like Madison because once upon a time, she was a lost girl too.

As Naomi relentlessly pursues and slowly uncovers the truth behind Madison’s disappearance, shards of a dark dream pierce the defenses that have protected her, reminding her of a terrible loss she feels but cannot remember. If she finds Madison, will Naomi ultimately unlock the secrets of her own life?

 

From Ashley at Lake Union Publishing

Published: August 1, 2017
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Goodreads:  Just beyond the Gilded Age, in the mist-covered streets of New York, the deadly Spanish influenza ripples through the city. But with so many victims in her close circle, young socialite Allene questions if the flu is really to blame. All appear to have been poisoned—and every death was accompanied by a mysterious note.

Desperate for answers and dreading her own engagement to a wealthy gentleman, Allene returns to her passion for scientific discovery and recruits her long-lost friends, Jasper and Birdie, for help. The investigation brings her closer to Jasper, an apprentice medical examiner at Bellevue Hospital who still holds her heart, and offers the delicate Birdie a last-ditch chance to find a safe haven before her fragile health fails.

As more of their friends and family die, alliances shift, lives become entangled, and the three begin to suspect everyone—even each other. As they race to find the culprit, Allene, Birdie, and Jasper must once again trust each other, before one of them becomes the next victim.

More good books to read!!!

One September Morning

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Author: Rosalind Noonan
Publisher: Kensington
Genre: Mystery / Romance
Source: Purchased

Goodreads:  The moment Abby Fitzgerald sees two soldiers approach her front door, she knows her husband is dead. John Stanton, who gave up his career as a star NFL running back to serve after 9/11, has been killed in Iraq. Suddenly Abby’s kitchen is overflowing with casseroles brought by the army wives’ club to which she has never really belonged. And her in-laws arrange a lavish funeral at Arlington National Cemetery in spite of Abby’s misgivings. John had grown to hate the war even though he loved his country, and Abby can’t reconcile the complex man she knew with the version being portrayed by self-serving politicians, military, and the media.
Shell-shocked, Abby strives to cope with her own heartache while comforting John’s loved ones, including his mother Sharice, his staunchly anti-war sister Madison, and his bitter younger brother Noah. But amidst her loss is a growing conviction that the truth about John’s death is far from over.
Gripping, thoughtful, and emotionally powerful, One September Morning is a story of loyalty and betrayal, of a shattered family’s journey toward healing, and of the courage it takes to confront the truth not just about our enemies, but about those we love best.

Ope’s Opinion:  The prologue took my breath away.  It set up the rest of the story, but took some of the mystery out of it for me.  I guessed and was correct where it was going.  Rosalind Noonan is one of my all time favorite authors and though I enjoyed this book, it was not my favorite of hers.

All the viewpoints made the story come alive, but it also confused me at times.  I had to make sure I knew who was talking at the beginning of  each chapter, so I understood the perspective I was reading.

The ending was a little too unbelievable.  I like happy endings and things wrapped up at the end of a book – a nice feel good ending, but this was a little too sugary sweet.

Dead Certain

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Author: Adam Mitzner
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Genre: Mystery, Legal Thriller
Source: Thomas & Mercer

 

Goodreads:  Ella Broden is living a double life.

By day, Ella works as a buttoned-up attorney on some of the city’s most grueling cases. By night, she pursues her passion for singing in the darkest clubs of Manhattan.

No one knows her secret, not even Charlotte, the younger sister she practically raised. But it seems she’s not the only one in the family with something to hide. When Charlotte announces she’s sold her first novel, Ella couldn’t be more thrilled…until she gets a call that her sister’s gone missing.

Ella starts investigating with the help of Detective Gabriel Velasquez, an old flame in the NYPD, and what she finds is shocking. If art imitates life, then her sister’s novel may contain details of her real-life affairs. And any one of her lovers could be involved in her disappearance.

Desperate to bring Charlotte home, Ella works through her list of suspects, matching fictitious characters with flesh-and-blood men. But will it be too late to save the sister she only thought she knew?

Ope’s Opinion: If you enjoy legal thrillers, you might want to read this one.  Some of the legal talk and explanations were a little tedious for me.  Other then that it was a quick read and the story line kept moving.

A book in a book is not my favorite way to get information or learn about a character.  Charlotte’s life in the book just seemed too graphic for my taste.  Charlotte’s story leading her sister to the killer was too neatly wrapped up.

 

Everything We Left Behind

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Author: Kerry Lonsdale
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Genre: Mystery
Source:  Ashley at Amazon

 

Goodreads:  From the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Everything We Keep comes the highly anticipated sequel. Told from one man’s two perspectives, Everything We Left Behind effortlessly blends suspense, mystery, and romance in an exploration of loss, resilience, and the compelling need to protect the ones we love at all cost.

Two months before his wedding, financial executive James Donato chased his trade-laundering brother Phil to Mexico, only to be lost at sea and presumed dead. Six and a half years later, he emerges from a dissociative fugue state to find he’s been living in Oaxaca as artist Carlos Dominguez, widower and father of two sons, with his sister-in-law Natalya Hayes, a retired professional surfer, helping to keep his life afloat. But his fiancée, Aimee Tierney, the love of his life, has moved on. She’s married and has a child of her own.

Devastated, James and his sons return to California. But Phil is scheduled for release from prison, and he’s determined to find James, who witnessed something in Mexico that could land Phil back in confinement. Under mounting family pressure, James flees with his sons to Kauai, seeking refuge with Natalya. As James begins to unravel the mystery of his fractured identity, danger is never far behind, and Natalya may be the only person he can trust.

(This book is the sequel to Everything We Keep.)

Ope’s Opinion:  Since I read Everything We Keep almost a year ago, it took me a little while into this book to remember what I had read and who was who.  If you can read the first and second one right after each other, I think you will enjoy them more.

This one starts slows, but I think that is partly so we can catch up to where the first one left off. It moved faster as you read along.  I did enjoy seeing the characters again and the story line seemed true to the fist book. It ( the story line ) went in a different direction then I expected ( no spoilers ), but I enjoyed it.

The ending answered a lot of questions and gave me satisfaction.

This Just In….

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Publication Date:  September 12, 2017
Publisher:  Penguin Press

Goodreads:  In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned – from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.
Enter Mia Warren – an enigmatic artist and single mother – who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.
When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town–and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

Thank you Penguin Press!

Published: June 1, 2017
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Goodreads:  Ella Broden is living a double life.

By day, Ella works as a buttoned-up attorney on some of the city’s most grueling cases. By night, she pursues her passion for singing in the darkest clubs of Manhattan.

No one knows her secret, not even Charlotte, the younger sister she practically raised. But it seems she’s not the only one in the family with something to hide. When Charlotte announces she’s sold her first novel, Ella couldn’t be more thrilled…until she gets a call that her sister’s gone missing.

Ella starts investigating with the help of Detective Gabriel Velasquez, an old flame in the NYPD, and what she finds is shocking. If art imitates life, then her sister’s novel may contain details of her real-life affairs. And any one of her lovers could be involved in her disappearance.

Desperate to bring Charlotte home, Ella works through her list of suspects, matching fictitious characters with flesh-and-blood men. But will it be too late to save the sister she only thought she knew?

Thank you Thomas & Mercer for this book.

Everything We Keep is the first of this series.  It was published August 1, 2016.
Everything We Left Behind will be published:  July 4, 2017
Publisher:  Lake Union Publishing

Goodreads:  From the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Everything We Keep comes the highly anticipated sequel. Told from one man’s two perspectives, Everything We Left Behind effortlessly blends suspense, mystery, and romance in an exploration of loss, resilience, and the compelling need to protect the ones we love at all cost.

Two months before his wedding, financial executive James Donato chased his trade-laundering brother Phil to Mexico, only to be lost at sea and presumed dead. Six and a half years later, he emerges from a dissociative fugue state to find he’s been living in Oaxaca as artist Carlos Dominguez, widower and father of two sons, with his sister-in-law Natalya Hayes, a retired professional surfer, helping to keep his life afloat. But his fiancée, Aimee Tierney, the love of his life, has moved on. She’s married and has a child of her own.

Devastated, James and his sons return to California. But Phil is scheduled for release from prison, and he’s determined to find James, who witnessed something in Mexico that could land Phil back in confinement. Under mounting family pressure, James flees with his sons to Kauai, seeking refuge with Natalya. As James begins to unravel the mystery of his fractured identity, danger is never far behind, and Natalya may be the only person he can trust.

Thank you Ashley for passing this book on to me.  Looks awesome!

 

This Just In….

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From MIRA

Published:  December 29, 2016
Publisher: MIRA

Goodreads:  She’s watching you, but who’s watching her?

Lily Gullick lives with her husband Aiden in a new-build flat opposite an estate which has been marked for demolition. A keen birdwatcher, she can’t help spying on her neighbours.

Until one day Lily sees something suspicious through her binoculars and soon her elderly neighbour Jean is found dead. Lily, intrigued by the social divide in her local area as it becomes increasingly gentrified, knows that she has to act. But her interference is not going unnoticed, and as she starts to get close to the truth, her own life comes under threat.

But can Lily really trust everything she sees?

Also In….

Published:  April 11, 2017
Publisher: St. Martin Press

Goodreads:  On paper, Chris Brennan looks perfect. He’s applying for a job as a high school government teacher, he’s ready to step in as an assistant baseball coach, and his references are impeccable.

But everything about Chris Brennan is a lie.

Susan Sematov is proud of her son Raz, a high school pitcher so athletically talented that he’s being recruited for a full-ride scholarship to a Division I college, with a future in major-league baseball. But Raz’s father died only a few months ago, leaving her son in a vulnerable place where any new father figure might influence him for good, or evil.

Heather Larkin is a struggling single mother who lives for her son Justin’s baseball games. But Justin is shy, and Heather fears he is being lured down a dark path by one of his teammates, a young man from an affluent family whose fun-loving manner might possibly conceal his violent plans.

Mindy Kostis succumbs to the pressure of being a surgeon’s wife by filling her days with social events and too many gin and tonics. But she doesn’t know that her husband and her son, Evan, are keeping secrets from her – secrets that might destroy all of them.

At the center of all of them is Chris Brennan. Why is he there? What does he want? And what is he willing to do to get it?

Enthralling and suspenseful, One Perfect Lie is an emotional thriller and a suburban crime story that will have readers riveted up to the shocking end, with killer twists and characters you won’t soon forget.

MORE GREAT BOOKS TO READ!

No Darker Place

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Author: Debra Webb
Publisher: Mira Books
Genre: Mystery
Source:  Won From Shelf Awareness

 

 

Goodreads:  They want revenge. They need each other.

Detective Bobbie Gentry has one objective: to stop the serial killer who robbed her of her husband, her child and her life. Nick Shade understands Bobbie’s painand her desire for vengeance. He’s on a mission of his own, and the murderer known as the Storyteller is next on his list. Nick knows that the best way to find his target is to stick close to Bobbie. But as she becomes more and more reckless in her attempts to lure the Storyteller out of hiding, he has to make a choice. Will he protect her from herself even if it means passing up the chance to take out one more monster? As for Bobbie, she’s forced to decide just how much she can trust this stranger who knows so much about her. And both of them are about to learn whether or not two broken people can save each other.

Ope’s Opinion:  I think for most mystery readers this may be a 4 or 5 chair.  I am more of a who-done-it reader, so this had a bit more graphic details of what happened at the murder scene to the victims then I prefer.  The intensity was there through the whole book, the story felt realistic and the characters were ones you really cared about.

The beginning was a little hard to understand – I felt like I walked into a part two of a series, but this was part one -( I should have read the prequel ).  From page one the relationships were already developed and it was written as if I already knew the relationships between people.  After a couple of chapters I understood who was who.

Although this is a series, I felt it ended well and wrapped things up for this book.  Some of the relationships were left open, but I felt satisfied with the ending.

Doing It Over

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Author: Catherine Bybee
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: BEA 2016

Goodreads:  Voted Most Likely to Succeed, Melanie Bartlett ended up anything but. The down-on-her-luck single mom wants a complete do-over—is that too much to ask? With her family long gone from River Bend, strong, independent Mel is as surprised as anyone to end up in the quaint small town she once called home. But with her friends, Jo and Zoe, by her side, and a comfortable room at Miss Gina’s quirky bed-and-breakfast, she just might have turned the corner on a new life.

Wyatt Gibson never liked the big city. River Bend suits the ruggedly handsome builder just fine. Wyatt knows he’s home, even if that means being charmed by the appearance of Melanie and her spunky, adorable daughter. Is Wyatt’s calm devotion—even amid a coming storm—enough to convince Mel she may have found a home to call her own, a family that never leaves, and a true love to last a lifetime?

Ope’s Opinion: This book falls under the romance genre – it will not disappoint those who are truly looking for a romance ( there are some steamy parts ), but this book is so much more!  It is a great story, some family drama, friendship and a little mystery.  So if any or all of those fall into the genre you enjoy reading, this book is for you. 

Also, this is the first of a series.  This book is about Melanie, the next one is about her friend Zoe.  It will be coming out January 24th, so we don’t have to wait too long!  

5c675-4chairs