Tropical Delusions……

It’s prom night in Denton, Pennsylvania, and Josie Quinn and her team are gearing up for the usual post-prom exploits to start. But before the shenanigans can even begin, the body of a teen aged girl, dressed for prom, is found dead in the back of the high school. As Josie, Noah and the team secure the scene and question the prom-goers, no one knows who the girl is – and no one who bought tickets for entry is missing. 

When the medical examiner gets her on the table, she discovers a single stab wound to the girl’s inner thigh, which severed the femoral artery.  She also finds a lock of hair missing and some superficial incisions, but nothing to indicate who the teen is or why she appeared at the prom when she did. No surrounding schools have a missing prom attendee either…yet Josie is sure the girl looks familiar, somehow. They finally identify her – she had been reported missing 4 months ago. 

Chief Chitwood is unusually terse through the beginning stages of the investigation. Shortly after they identify the teen, he pulls Josie aside, insisting she come with him, but saying little more. When they arrive at his home, he tells Josie the story of his sister, Kelsey – who disappeared in similar circumstances only to be found dead – over 25 years ago. The case has haunted him for all this time, and this new death has opened the old wounds of losing Kelsey – and there are similarities that can’t be ignored – the girls were all found dead on their 16^th birthday.  

Josie takes this new information back to the team with the suspicion that whoever they’re looking for has possibly been killing for a very long time. A visit with Chitwood’s father, a corrupt cop back in the day, yields little information, but his old partner is able to add some insight into the old investigation, although he had his own difficulties under Chitwood Sr’s command.  

Josie and her team rush to put the pieces together, both past and present, as another missing teen’s birthday looms near…but can they find the key to break this case wide open before another teen turns up dead? 

I’ve said it before – and I’ll say it again, and again I’m sure – I just cannot get enough of Josie Quinn!!  I was riveted from the start, devoured the book in one sitting, and now anxiously await the next adventure! And just as importantly – if you read as voraciously as I do – Lisa Regan gets these books out in record time! I never have too long a wait for a new novel to appear.  Love, love, LOVE this series!!  

Available from your favorite bookseller on April 12th!

I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley & Bookouture in exchange for an objective review.  Do you love to read?? Visit netgalley.com and start reviewing books today!!

FBI Special Agent Shannon Ames has just transferred to the NY Office of the FBI, along with her most trusted colleagues, Charles Bufort & Jenna Reese. Shortly after team introductions are made, she is summoned to ADIC Tyler’s office, where they’re handed a priority case. A congressional aide to a NY State Senator has gone missing, after never making it home to DC from NY City. 

Kristie Fain was walking from her boyfriend’s apartment to Penn station when she is grabbed by two men and tossed into a van. The only evidence that something is amiss is a text she sent to her roommate about being followed.  As they start their investigation, a visit to the apartment she shares with her boyfriend Mateo, leaves them with more questions than answers, as he’s claiming to have just been assaulted by someone claiming to be police.  

As they re-trace her schedule, they learn that she was involved in a big dollar fundraiser for the senator prior to her disappearance. A visit to the hotel where the event, took place creates a more perplexing problem as they learn that the business has suffered a ransomware attack, and all the video from that night is encrypted and inaccessible.  Did something happen that night to provoke her kidnapping? 

A visit to the Senator’s office yields little. The fundraiser was touted as a success, with nothing out of the ordinary happening. Likewise, her roommate in DC, Rachel, has nothing significant to add, other than the fact that Kristie was planning to break up with Mateo. Attempts to ping her phone show it’s last position, where it was presumably discarded. Camera footage from NYPD, and a bystander give them their first glimpse of Kristie’s kidnappers – and a renewed sense of dread for Shannon and her team. 

As Shannon and her team frantically search for the identity of Kristie’s captors, the Senator has his own secret – one that might destroy his career – and Kristie’s life hangs in the balance…

This is my second Shannon Ames novel, and it will not be my last! She’s a strong, gutsy likeable character – and this is a thrilling who-dun-it that keeps you guessing, with an interesting look into the (fictional) gritty political world and its machinations, and the lengths some are willing to go, just to secure a vote. 

I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley & Inkubator Books in exchange for an objective review.  Do you love to read?? Visit netgalley.com and start reviewing books today!!

T

his was my first ever novel by Sally Hepworth – and boy, oh boy, can I say that it will not be my last!!

Stephen Aston, a renowned and revered surgeon, meets the love of his life in young Heather Wisher, a woman half his age, and has decided it’s time for her to meet his adult daughters Rachel and Tully.  Still reeling over their father’s new love interest, especially with their mother, Pamela, recently placed in memory care due to dementia, the last thing Rachel or Tully want to do is meet Heather for lunch. Over their meal, the three women meet and attempt to engage in small talk, trying to find some common ground, before Stephen startles his girls with an announcement. 

As Rachel and Tully attempt to accept Heather into their lives, they find that it enriches their own relationship as well, having grown apart as adults. Each with their own lives and secrets that they’ve held for so long, the sisters find common ground as they struggle with these changes to their family. Heather, too, has a past she would rather forget, even as it influences her perceptions of things in the present.  And Pamela, despite her dementia, appears to have some secrets of her own, which exhibit themselves in short outbursts, jumbled memories – and an unexpected find hidden in an old water bottle – but what was it meant for? As Rachel, Tully & Heather begin to form a friendship, and the wedding grows closer, the reader will find themselves asking – is Stephen the doting husband and father that he seems to be? Or is he something else altogether? 

Told from the varying perspectives of Rachel, Tully & Heather, this book is impossible to put down, left me feeling a bit unsettled as I turned the last page – and continues to resonate even now…

I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley & St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an objective review.  Do you love to read?? Visit netgalley.com and start reviewing books today!!

It’s an early April evening when Annabel & Jennifer, friends since childhood, are leaving a pub and walking to their car for the ride home.  Out of the blue, a vehicle comes flying down the road, striking Jennifer. As Annabel looks on in horror and tries to call for help, she is grabbed from behind and shoved into the truck of the car, her last vision of Jennifer, bloodied and still, lying in the street. 

Detective Inspector Gina Harte and her colleague Jacob Driscoll are just wrapping things up for the night, when he mentions that he can’t in touch with his girlfriend Jennifer. As he’s making some coffee, Gina gets a phone call from another colleague, reporting the accident – and the victim’s identity to her – as well as the apparent disappearance of Jen’s friend Annabel. As Jacob heads to the hospital, Gina heads to the scene. 

As the police canvas the area, it becomes readily apparent that Annabel is nowhere to be found. A visit to her home finds Annabel’s father babysitting Cally, her daughter. There Gina learns of an unraveling marriage, due to a husband’s affair and drug use. With a possible suspect in mind, Gina and her team search for Annabel’s husband. A neighborhood canvas brings similar information, along with the possibility that someone has been watching Annabel. Young Cally also is convinced she’s seen a ghost at night in the garden.

As the team searches diligently for Annabel’s husband, his young lover, and potential clues to her whereabouts, Jennifer lies comatose in the hospital, having undergone emergency surgery for head trauma. Remembering their arguments about paint colors for their new home, Jacob is despondent as he helplessly watches her fight for survival…

Told from the perspectives of Gina, Annabel, and the young, infatuated Omar, this is a fast paced, edge-of-your-seat, page-turner that kept me up well into the night. I love Gina’s character, and her flaws, and I am hopeful that perhaps she and Briggs still have a chance at love. I cannot wait for the next book in this series!!  Great as a stand-alone as well as in series sequence! 

I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley & Bookouture in exchange for an objective review.  Do you love to read?? Visit netgalley.com and start reviewing books today!!