Lucas Page's wife Erin loses a friend, a gifted plastic surgeon, to suicide and Lucas begins to realize how many people Erin knew that have died in the past year, in freak accidents and now suicide. Intrigued despite himself, Page begins digging through obituaries and realizes that there's a pattern―a bad one. These deaths don't make sense unless the doctors are being murdered, the target of a particularly clever killer. This time, the FBI wants as little to do with Lucas as he does with them so he's left with only one option―ignore it and go back to his normal life. But then, the pattern reveals that the next victim is likely to be...Erin herself.
Wednesday, August 10, 2022
Do No Harm Review
Lucas Page's wife Erin loses a friend, a gifted plastic surgeon, to suicide and Lucas begins to realize how many people Erin knew that have died in the past year, in freak accidents and now suicide. Intrigued despite himself, Page begins digging through obituaries and realizes that there's a pattern―a bad one. These deaths don't make sense unless the doctors are being murdered, the target of a particularly clever killer. This time, the FBI wants as little to do with Lucas as he does with them so he's left with only one option―ignore it and go back to his normal life. But then, the pattern reveals that the next victim is likely to be...Erin herself.
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
Waiting On Forever Blog Tour & Review
Reserve your copy today!
Amazon: https://amzn.to/39W3lhJ
Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/
Apple Books: https://apple.co/3Os7OaO
Nook: https://bit.ly/BNWaitonforever
Kobo: https://bit.ly/koboWOF
Add to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3OzWwBA
Waiting on Forever, an all-new standalone romance full of steam and angst in The Walker Brothers Series from New York Times bestselling author Claudia Connor is available now!
Together, Dallas and Maggie might
have a shot at happily ever after. But only if they can let go of the past and
hold on to each other when it matters most.
She heard the rustling of an animal scurrying away
then the sound of leaves crunching and twigs breaking behind her and to her
left. She swung around, gun raised.
“Jesus!”
“Nope, just me.”
Dallas stood just a few yards away, stock still, chest
bare, in a dark shade of boxer briefs and his hands up in surrender.
“That’s a good way to get shot.” She lowered the
weapon. “Sorry.”
He took a step forward toward the faint light she
stood in. “I thought you were getting shot. What the hell are you doing?”
“Scaring away whatever was snooping around the chicken
coop. Raccoon maybe, or a fox.”
“I guess you know how to use that?”
“I do.” Her lips twitched. “I have a permit and
everything, officer.” She lifted the butt a few inches off the ground.
Still looking distressed, he rubbed the heel of his
hand up his forehead and into his hair.
“I’m sorry if I scared you. And woke you up.”
Obviously, because again, he was standing there in his boxers and…yeah. Just
boxers.
“You didn’t wake me. I was outside. With my popcorn.”
“Do you always come outside in your underwear to eat
popcorn?”
“I burned it.”
“Ahh.” She grimaced. “That’s a bad smell. Guess you
weren’t kidding when you said you couldn’t cook.”
“Mmm. Is this a usual thing?” he asked with a nod to
the gun, closing the distance between them even more. “Scaring away predators?”
“Oh. Every now and then. I lost one last year.” She
kept talking, kept looking at the man. Her gaze skimmed over a muscled chest,
sculpted arms, over a tattoo on his upper right bicep that she couldn’t make
out.
“Holly’s not much of a guard dog,” she went on. “But
her hearing’s still good, so when her ears perk up I know something’s amiss.
Were you coming to save me?”
“I didn’t know what I was coming to do, but I heard
gunshots and—”
“And you came bounding over. I hope you didn’t
um…scratch anything.”
Dallas glanced down, winced, then looked back up.
“Nah. I’m good.”
Uh, huh. Well. She forced her attention up to his face
and not on the dark boxers that hugged his thighs…annnnd… she was staring. How
could she not?
But when her eyes finally met his she saw he was
staring too. And it dawned on her that she was also barefooted and in her
underwear. She tugged the tank top she slept in, stretching it until it covered
the juncture between her thighs.
“Well, I…uh…”
A cool breeze rippled over her and she shivered. Or
maybe that was the man now just a couple of feet away giving her chills. What
had she been about to say?
And when had he gotten so close? Or had she? Just an
arm’s length apart now and she found herself imagining all kinds of things.
Like what would she do if he moved closer? If he touched her?
The feeling changed like a coin flipping from heads to
tails and even with the cool wind she felt hot. It was uncomfortable and also
layered with a ripple of nervous excitement. Standing in her backyard at night
with a man—this man. And both of them barely dressed.
When Holly barked from inside the back door, she
glanced toward the house. When she looked back, the moment was gone. “Guess I
should go back in. Holly’s probably worried.”
She shifted the gun hanging at her side.
“Probably so,” he said. “I’ll get myself back. Finish
airing out the house.”
“Yeah. Maybe try another bag. Listen for the popping.
More than a second between pops and it’s done.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
He still wasn’t moving and she swallowed hard. Had a
ludicrous thought of asking him in. To make popcorn. To watch Downton Abbey?
He nodded toward her house. “I’ll wait until you’re
inside.”
“Oh. Right. Thank you.” She turned, went inside, locking the door behind her. It’d been a long time since she’d been in the position for someone to care about her getting safely inside. She had to admit it didn’t totally suck.
About Claudia
Claudia Connor is an award winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Contemporary Romance, including the beloved McKinney Brothers series. Claudia writes, warm, heartfelt romances with a bit of steam, a lot of family and always a happily ever after.
Claudia attended Auburn University, where she received her undergraduate and masters degrees in early childhood education, and completed her studies in Sawbridgeworth, England. When she's not writing, she enjoys movies, reading, and travel, with a heavy dose of daydreaming during all three. Claudia lives near Memphis, Tennessee, with her husband and three daughters.Connect with Claudia
Facebook: https://bit.ly/3yEgB4a
Instagram: https://bit.ly/3P3TCox
Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3nSf2cJ
Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3I8WON8
Website: https://www.claudiaconnor.com/
Sunday, August 7, 2022
Still Missing Review
Saturday, August 6, 2022
Stay Awake Review
Two years ago, Liv was living with her best friend, dating a new man, and thriving as a successful writer for a trendy magazine. Now, she’s lost and disoriented in a New York City that looks nothing like what she remembers. Catching a glimpse of the local news, she’s horrified to see reports of a crime scene where the victim’s blood has been used to scrawl a message across a window, the same message that’s inked on her hands. What did she do last night? And why does she remember nothing from the past two years? Liv finds herself on the run for a crime she doesn’t remember committing as she tries to piece together the fragments of her life. But there’s someone who does know exactly what she did, and they’ll do anything to make her forget―permanently.
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
Dirt Creek Book Tour Spotlight
Dirt Creek available NOW from Flatiron Books! Grab your copy today!
Who's lying about
what happened at Dirt Creek?
“Blends a taut psychological thriller with a
suspenseful police procedural…Fans of Liane Moriarty and Jane Harper won’t want
to miss this page-turner.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A novel of sharp-edged tempers, accidents
waiting to happen and dark inheritances.” —New York Times Book Review
When twelve-year-old Esther disappears on the way
home from school in a small town in rural Australia, the community is thrown
into a maelstrom of suspicion and grief. As Detective Sergeant Sarah Michaels
arrives in town during the hottest spring in decades and begins her
investigation, Esther’s tenacious best friend, Ronnie, is determined to find
Esther and bring her home.
When schoolfriend Lewis tells Ronnie that he saw
Esther with a strange man at the creek the afternoon she went missing, Ronnie
feels she is one step closer to finding her. But why is Lewis refusing to speak
to the police? And who else is lying about how much they know about what has
happened to Esther?
Punctuated by a Greek chorus, which gives voice to
the remaining children of the small, dying town, this novel explores the ties
that bind, what we try and leave behind us, and what we can never outrun, while
never losing sight of the question of what happened to Esther, and what her
loss does to a whole town.
In Hayley Scrivenor's Dirt Creek, a small-town debut mystery described as The Dry meets Everything I Never Told You, a girl goes missing and a community falls apart
and comes together.
Hayley Scrivenor's "stunning debut" (starred Publishers Weekly) DIRT CREEK "blends a taut psychological thriller with a suspenseful police procedural" (starred PW) to create "a beautifully written character study of small town Australia and what happens to it as the town is torn apart by a vanished child" (Deadly Pleasures).
Monday, August 1, 2022
Quarter To Midnight Book Tour, Review & Excerpt
After completing her tours with the Marines in Iraq, Molly Sutton knew she could take down any bad guy she met. But when her law enforcement agency in North Carolina turned against her, she joined up with her former CO Burke Broussard, who left New Orleans PD to set up a private investigative service for people who couldn't find justice elsewhere.
Gabe Hebert saw the toll that working for the NOPD took on his dad and decided instead to make a name for himself as one of the best young chefs in the French Quarter. But when his father's death is ruled a suicide after a deliberately botched investigation by his former captain, Gabe knows his dad stumbled onto a truth that someone wants silenced.
Gabe goes to his father's best friend, Burke, for help. Burke assigns the toughest member of his team, Molly, to the case. Molly can't believe she's being asked to work with the smoking hot chef whose chocolate cake is not the only thing that makes her mouth water. Sparks fly as they follow the leads Gabe's dad left them, unraveling a web of crimes, corruption, and murder that runs all the way to the top.
www.karenrosebooks.com
Internationally bestselling, RITA-award winning, author Karen Rose was born and raised in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. She met her husband, Martin, on a blind date when they were seventeen and after they both graduated from the University of Maryland, (Karen with a degree in Chemical Engineering) they moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. Karen worked as an engineer for a large consumer goods company, earning two patents, but as Karen says, “scenes were roiling in my head and I couldn't concentrate on my job so I started writing them down. I started out writing for fun, and soon found I was hooked.”
Her debut suspense novel, DON'T TELL, was released in July, 2003. Since then, she has published fifteen more novels and two novellas. Her seventeenth novel, ALONE IN THE DARK, will be released in 2016.
Karen's books have appeared on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, USA Today, London's Sunday Times, and Germany's der Spiegel (#1), and the Irish Times, as well as lists in South Africa (#1) and Australia!
Her novels, I'M WATCHING YOU and SILENT SCREAM, received the Romance Writers of America's RITA award for Best Romantic Suspense for 2005 and 2011. Five of her other books have been RITA finalists. To date, her books have been translated into twenty-four languages.
A former high school teacher of chemistry and physics, Karen lives in Florida with her husband of more than twenty years, her two daughters, two dogs, and a cat.
QUARTER TO
MIDNIGHT by Karen Rose
Berkley
Hardcover | On Sale August 2, 2022
Excerpt
Molly looked up to find her boss standing in his office
doorway. Burke Broussard was in his midforties and, other than a few silver
hairs at his temples, hadn't changed a bit since he'd been her CO in the
Marines a decade before. "Morning, Burke. I brought you coffee, too."
She held up the cup.
"Thank the good Lord for that," he said
fervently. "I've been here since six."
Molly shuddered in mostly mock horror. "Why?"
She'd left rising with the sun behind when she'd finished her final tour with
the Marine Corps. Burke, however, had a love-hate relationship with mornings.
He said he hated them, but he continued coming in earlier and earlier. The man
was a fool.
He was also smart as hell, driven to succeed,
compassionate, and generous to a fault. But a morning fool.
"Come into my office," he said. "I have a
new client you should meet."
Joy's eyes widened further, and she maneuvered her
wheelchair so that she could unabashedly watch Molly walk into Burke's office.
And Molly immediately understood why.
Sitting in the chair at Burke's conference table was none
other than Gabriel Hebert, Choux chef extraordinaire. He looked tired and tense
and very unhappy.
She wondered if he'd been so unhappy the night before. He
had looked tired, but not this unhappy. Of course, he might be one of those
people who could put on the face they wished the world to see.
"Molly, this is Mr. Hebert. Gabe, this is Miss Sutton.
I'm going to assign her to your case."
Molly's brows shot up. What?
Gabe's brows shot up as well, then crunched together in a
disgruntled frown. "What? You're handing me off?" He came to his feet.
"What the hell, Burke?"
The two men faced off, and they couldn't have appeared more
physically different. Burke's skin was olive toned, his deep tan a testament to
all the road biking he did in his spare time. Gabe was so lightly tanned that
she might still call him pale. And, like a lot of redheads, he had a smattering
of freckles across his nose.
She'd always wanted to trace those freckles with her
fingertips. She'd wondered where else he had them.
Both men were tall, but Burke's body was bulky where Gabe's
was lean. Molly loved to watch Gabe move. When he was cooking in his
restaurant's kitchen, it was like watching a choreographed dance.
Only their accents were similar-both speaking with that
smooth New Orleans drawl that sounded like hot summer nights with jazz music
thick in the air. Except that Gabe's voice made her shiver, when Burke's never
had.
She probably shouldn't have shivered at all, considering
how angry he seemed, but her body couldn't help how it reacted. Sue me.
Burke waved at him to be seated. "I'm too close, Gabe.
Your father . . . he was important to me, too. He was my partner. I had his
back, and he had mine. Whatever else went down when I was on the force, I knew
your father would stand by me, and he did. I don't know that I'd be able to
keep an open mind."
Gabe did not sit down, his frown deepening to something
almost dangerous. "Open to what?" he asked, each word dripping with
anger and warning.
"The truth," Burke said simply. "Whatever it
might be. Molly's my right hand. She will not let you down. Now, please, have a
seat. If, after you've talked with her, you want someone else, we'll figure it
out. Don't worry. You can depend on her discretion, no matter who you choose to
work your case."
Gabe released a harsh breath. "Okay." He sat,
then shifted his gaze to Molly, who still stood in the doorway, having not
moved a muscle. He did a double take. "Do I know . . ." He trailed
off. "Right. Last night. Happy birthday, Miss Sutton."
Burke looked between them, his expression suddenly unhappy.
"You two know each other?"
"No," Gabe said.
"No," Molly said at the same time. "I've
been to his restaurant a few times, that's all. The girls took me there last
night for my birthday. I brought you some cake," she added lamely.
"It's in the fridge in the break room."
"Thank you, Molly." Clearly relieved, Burke
gestured to one of the empty chairs at the table. "Join us. As I'm sure
you've figured out, this case requires extreme discretion."
Molly nodded. "I understand. Mr. Hebert, if you decide
I'm not the best fit, there will be no hard feelings. But should you choose to
work with me, I'll do my very best."
Gabe's shoulders slumped, his exhaustion clear to see.
"I appreciate that." He swallowed hard. "I need to find out who
killed my father."
Molly glanced at Burke. "Are the police
involved?"
Gabe's laugh was bitter. "Most likely, yes."
Burke sighed. "What he means is, someone in law
enforcement might be complicit. Or responsible."
Molly sat back, wishing she was surprised. "All right,
then. Let me have it."
Friday, July 29, 2022
Things We Do In The Dark Review
Things We Do In The Dark is a multilayered, complex thriller delivered through
multiple points of view in a past/present story line. Per Hillier's now
signature style, characters are deeply complex and plot lines are
convoluted. At least three story lines appear to run concurrent through
much of the story before finally being woven together with some major
revelations by the end.
This story opens with an intense scene that quickly grabs readers' attention when Paris Peralta awakens on the floor of her upscale bathroom holding a bloody straight razor and staring at an armed police officer yelling at her to drop the weapon. Paris is confused and disoriented, but there's no denying the horrific fact that her celebrity husband Jimmy is dead in the bloody bathtub. What happened? As bad as it looks, Paris fears it'll get worse when the devastating news and pictures hit the national tabloids and newspapers. If someone from her past recognizes her, the carefully constructed facade she's been living for twenty-five years will be blown. She can't afford for her past to catch up with her.
The story continues with the introduction of Ruby Reyes aka the Ice Queen who’s being released from prison after serving 25 years for the murder of a man. She’s fully aware of Paris's real identity and is using the information to threaten and blackmail Paris. The clock's ticking down to a full blown confrontation when Paris's location hits the news. And finally, we have Drew Malcolm - a journalist with a wildly popular podcast called Things We Do In The Dark. He's fully aware of how cruel and evil Ruby Reyes is and doesn't believe for a minute that she's been rehabilitated. Drew is determined to expose her for the villain he knows her to be at all costs. Maybe if he can do that, he'll be able to silence his own demons and finally lay the past to rest.
All the elements of a perfect storm are present in Hillier's Things We Do In The Dark. Readers are quickly sucked into the opening and through past/present chapters, they learn the backstory of each main player and the events that tie them together. They listen to each character's voice and are charged with deciding whose version of the story is authentic. As the story progresses, the author does a great job weaving in a missing person case, building suspense while rehashing the events of one tragic night twenty five years ago. In doing so, she's set up her game board with all the players including their secrets and motivations. However, there comes a point where the backstory begins to overshadow the present and the repetitiveness slows the story to a crawl, and in this reader's opinion, the end result comes dangerously close to disclosing information better left for readers to discover on their own. It's at this point that I had an Aha moment with the realization of exactly where this story was headed which proved to be true, serving to diminish the mystery and suspense there on out for me. As the story continues, the pace picks back up and readers will enjoy some typical Hillier twists before the final reveal.
Hillier's characters are always dimensional, well-developed, dark and deeply troubled and the same holds true in Things We Do In The Dark. She brilliantly manipulates these characters through dark, convoluted plot lines in settings that add to the dark, ominous tone. While Things We Do In The Dark won't go down as my favorite work of Hillier's, she continues to be one of my favorite, extremely talented authors, and I look forward to more of her work. I'm recommending this book to fans of dark, suspense thrillers.
Synopsis:
Twenty-five years earlier, Ruby Reyes, known as the Ice Queen, was convicted of a similar murder in a trial that riveted Canada in the early nineties. Reyes knows who Paris really is, and when she's unexpectedly released from prison, she threatens to expose all of Paris's secrets. Left with no other choice, Paris must finally confront the dark past she escaped, once and for all.
Because the only thing worse than a murder charge are two murder charges.