Panther's Gap Book Tour

Welcome to my stop on the PANTHER GAP Book Tour!  

Special thanks to the awesome folks at Flatiron Books for an arc and book tour invitation.  I'll say upfront that this is my favorite book of 2023 thus far!  You can read my full review, meet the author and learn more about this book below.

In this great big reading world, I consider myself lucky to come across a book that holds me captive from start to finish. One that I quickly become totally immersed in to a point of becoming one with the characters and story. These elusive books are rarer than hen's teeth and yet, I finished Panther Gap satisfied in the knowledge I held one in my hands. Panther Gap is a larger than life story that defies genre and boundaries. One laden with a complex, multifaceted plot line and atypical characters refusing to be locked in a box. One that delivers a stunning message to humans residing on planet earth.  (Reviewer Sandra Hoover - Full review available below).

Review published in Mystery & Suspense Magazine

Available April 4, 2023!

Order Links: Amazon * Barnes & Noble

Praise for PANTHER GAP:

"This impressive crime novel from Edgar winner McLaughlin (Bearskin) centers on the unexpected consequences of a bequest... Fans of Breaking Bad will be satisfied"

—Publishers Weekly

“I marvel at the research and sheer passion McLaughlin brought to bear on his latest novel, Panther Gap. It is chock-full of adventure, runs the gamut on the human experience, and bestows on the fortunate reader a treasure trove of marvelous insights about the animal world, and nature in general. And, it’s just one hell of a good yarn.” 

—David Baldacci

“Panther Gap has rattlesnakes, shoot-outs, drug cartels, and international intrigue, as well as a riveting plot and characters who will stay with you long after you finish. On top of all that, there’s flat-out amazing prose and some of the best nature writing you’ll find anywhere. Panther Gap is a modern classic of the American West.” 

—David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Anthony and Thriller Award-winning author of Winter Counts

"James McLaughlin has done it again, created a multi-layered thriller filled not only with relentless, heart-pounding suspense, but achingly beautiful writing about our deep, sometimes mystical relationship to nature and each other. You’ll definitely want to clear your calendar for this one." 

—Angie Kim, Edgar Award-winning author of Miracle Creek

“With Panther Gap, McLaughlin has surpassed his award-winning debut and offered up a complex and brutal installment in the rural thriller wheelhouse. If picture perfect settings, plotting as skilled as McCarthy, and prose reminiscent of Larry Brown, is what you’re looking for, McLaughlin is your huckleberry. He’s one of the finest storytellers out there today.” 

—Brian Panowich, author of Bull Mountain, Hard Cash Valley, and Nails

"An exciting, action-packed suspense novel that's also a book about many other things—about the natural world and its demise, about family fortunes and misfortunes, about the responsibilities we all have to one another, about crime and betrayal and greed and heroism. A remarkable book." 

—Chris Pavone, bestselling author of Two Nights in Lisbon

“With nods to William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy, Panther Gap is that rare combination of heart-pumping action and raw beauty, a vividly rendered story of inheritance—in all its forms—set in the stunning American West. The twists arrive like switchbacks on a mountain pass, and I found myself ripping through the final pages, beholding new revelations at every turn.” 

—Adam White, author of The Midcoast

"Set in the Colorado mountains and the desolate scrub of the Mexican border, Panther Gap is steeped in the soul of the West. It’s also a high-stakes thriller that pits shadowy cartels and brutal prison gangs against a family that must depend on the complicated, fractured love that binds them to survive. The narrative tension is so gripping that I couldn't turn the pages quickly enough. An ambitious, exquisitely crafted novel." 

—Heather Young, author of The Distant Dead

5 Star Review:

In this great big reading world, I consider myself lucky to come across a book that holds me captive from start to finish. One that I quickly become totally immersed in to a point of becoming one with the characters and story. These elusive books are rarer than hen's teeth and yet, I finished Panther Gap satisfied in the knowledge I held one in my hands.  Panther Gap is a larger than life story that defies genre and boundaries. One laden with a complex, multifaceted plot line and atypical characters refusing to be locked in a box.  One that delivers a stunning message to humans residing on planet earth.

Panther Gap is a mesmerizing story featuring siblings Bowman and Summer whose early years are spent running wild and free on their father's secluded, off-the-map ranch, hidden away from public eyes in a remote location rich in the history of the "Others" with ancient hidden subterranean passages forming a honeycomb in the Colorado canyon walls. Since losing his wife, their radical environmentalist father appears to be slipping away in fits of paranoia, experiencing psychotic episodes in losing battles with ghosts from his past while guarding dark secrets with his life.  His irrational warnings of unknown danger frighten his children, but even so both siblings absorb his lessons in survival skills and love for nature like a sponge as they grow into misfit teenagers. 

Bowman is especially psychic when it comes to the wildlife living in the natural habitat surrounding their refuge, often venturing off for extended periods of time to live among the animals as one. At times, he becomes dangerously close to losing touch with reality as he often transcends space in a hallucinatory state during which time the fragile lines between his human form and animal counterpart merge. Much of the story, especially anything pertaining to Bowman, is engulfed in a surreal, phantasmal state.  During these times, Summer fears she may lose her brother to the same apparent madness that drives her father.

Bowman and Summer eventually become estranged when he leaves the security of the ranch to pursue the elusive panthers in Central America, with hopes of discovering his own true identity and place in the universe, and she is left to take over the running of the family ranch which is bordering on financial disaster. It's only in later years when their father's warnings prove to be sound and the much maligned inheritance from their late grandfather comes into play that they reunite to battle the crime and mafia drug forces threatening them and their way of life. The story that ensues is a dark, gritty, raw, sometimes heartbreaking thriller that this reader could not put down.

Panther Gap is a beautifully written, action packed thriller that swept me away. I love a story that integrates the surrounding environment into the plot line as an extra character as McLaughlin does in this one. Add a cast of nonconformist characters pushed over their physical and mental limits, and I'm one happy reader.  Top that with a family drama - estranged, eccentric family members forced back together in the battle of their lives against bad guys coming at them from every direction in a multifaceted plot line, and I'm in book heaven.  Panther Gap is rendered through the points of view of Bowman and Summer in riveting past/presence chapters. This allows readers to understand the radical upbringing that shaped them into the adults they've become in this place and time with an appreciation for the environment as well as the source of the deep sorrow they bear in the knowledge that many of the earth's resources and species are being depleted and destroyed by climate change in the name of progress.  When it's all said and done, will they be able to say they made a difference? Can you?

Panther Gap has all the best of an old timey, shoot 'em up western - rugged setting, conflicted family, dirty money and a slew of bad guys gunning to claim a legacy. The action is swift, the characters damaged and the outcome in question until the final page.  I was hopelessly and totally captured by the brilliance of McLaughlin's writing as he wove this tale of a family in crisis, of a man and woman searching for their identities as individuals - one that "fit" . . . or at the very least, one they can live with.  I like that the ending is a bit open, not all wrapped up in a box with a bow.  Yes, there's much needed closure and yet one is left to wonder, what if?   

In reality, I haven't come close to conveying the magnitude and magnificence of Panther Gap in this review so I'll just say I highly recommend this entertaining book to fans of suspense thrillers, crime fiction and anyone who loves to get lost in a fantastic story that doesn't let you go until the end. 

Synopsis: 

Siblings Bowman and Summer were raised by their father and two uncles on a remote Colorado ranch. They react differently to his radical teachings and the confusions of adolescence. As young adults, they become estranged but are brought back together in their thirties by the prospect of an illegal and potentially dangerous inheritance from their grandfather. They must ultimately reconcile with each other and their past in order to defeat ruthless criminal forces trying to extort the inheritance.

Set in the rugged American West and populated by drug cartels, shadowy domestic terrorists, and nefarious business interests, Panther Gap shows James McLaughlin’s talents on full display: gorgeous environmental writing, a white-knuckle thriller plot, and characters dealing with legacy, identity, and their own place in the world.

Meet the Author:

James A. McLaughlin is the acclaimed author of Bearskin, winner of the Edgar Award. A native of Virginia, he now lives in Utah, at the base of the Wasatch Mountains, with his wife.

James A. McLaughlin: For the past 15 years or so, I've worked as a lawyer for a land conservation business I founded with a good friend in Virginia. But my passion has always been writing. My earliest memories of literature are from my family's summer camp in the mountains—I'm eight years old, and a counselor is reading Flannery O'Connor or Mark Twain or J.R.R. Tolkien out loud as it's getting dark, with bullfrogs and crickets and whip-poor-wills as sonic backdrop. That kind of thing alters your DNA. I was deeply affected by story, maybe more so than other kids, and it seemed natural to want to make stories myself. So at a pretty early age, I decided I would be a writer, the kind who spends a lot of time outdoors, has amazing adventures, and writes books. My notion of what it is to be a writer has been evolving ever since!

The Eden Test Review

Author: Adam Sternberg

Genre: Domestic Thriller

Publisher: Flatiron, MacMillan Audio

Narrator: Carlotta Brendan

Release Date: April 25, 2023

Order Link: Amazon

4.5 Hitchcockian Hearts

Review published in Mystery & Suspense Magazine

From Edgar Award-finalist Adam Sternbergh, an electrifying domestic suspense novel for fans of The Perfect Marriage and Rock Paper Scissors, about a couple who are forced to the ultimate extremes to save their marriage—and themselves.

Adam Sternbergh brings his wit, originality, and a Hitchcockian sense of dread to this chilling, surprising, and wholly entertaining portrait of a marriage on the brink.

Review:

Since the beginning of time, man's been tempted by forbidden fruit - afforded a choice between right and wrong.  Choose right and enjoy the fruits of your labor . . . choose wrong and suffer the consequences. In Adam Sternbergh's The Eden Test, a couple confronts a crisis.  Should they forsake all others and fight for their marriage 'till death do they part?  Or give in to temptation with another bite of forbidden fruit, dooming their marriage and souls forever?  Daisy and Craig each made bad choices in the past.  The Eden Test Retreat is their chance to make the right choice . . . if they survive.

Daisy's an actress who shuns the spotlight, careful to keep her face off social media for reasons unknown to all but her. A desperate woman and wife harboring deadly secrets, she has to know if she can trust her serial cheater husband Craig when the going gets perilous.  What'll he do if faced with an "or else" ultimatum? Will he fight for her?  Daisy needs answers and after coming across an advertisement for a couples' marital retreat called The Eden Test, she jumps at the opportunity to sign them up.  The Edenic Foundation guarantees results if couples follow their plan. Seven days alone in a remote upstate New York cabin. Seven questions that force couples to reflect on their flawed marriage and reconnect with their inner feelings.  Forever changed.

Craig is fuming when he comes home from work to find Daisy's note directing him to drive to a remote cabin - an anniversary surprise she says.  Daisy doesn't know Craig's prepared to tell her their marriage is over, after which he'll board a plane for Caro with his hot, young mistress. Daisy's waiting at the cabin . . . and tomorrow, Lilith will be waiting at the airport. What's a man to do? Craig figures after three years of marriage, he owes Daisy a face to face kiss off so he reluctantly makes the harrowing drive to the cabin.  Upon arrival, Craig finds it harder than expected to deliver his rehearsed breakup speech, and the longer he postpones confessing to Daisy, the more he second guesses his decision to leave.  Maybe he'll stay a day or so and see what happens.  What Craig doesn't yet understand is Daisy has secrets of her own - ones that fuel the chaos erupting around them when bizarre things begin occurring.  Strange noises in the woods, dead animals left as calling cards, threats intensifying from volatile locals . . . and their own lies and secrets oozing out. Suddenly, their peaceful retreat turns into their worst nightmare.

A week in paradise quickly mutates into a fight for their lives with all the creepy vibes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.  I swear I could hear the Hitchcock opening theme music, Funeral March of a Marionette, sounding warnings in my head as its ill-boding strain resonates throughout the last half of The Eden Test.   A malicious undertone permeates every page as the action accelerates until what starts as a fight for their marriage turns into a battle for their lives.  Sternbergh's delivery is razor sharp and precise with descriptive imagery that brings a beautiful location to life before it morphs into a somber, menacing setting they may not survive. As this couples' situation turns dire, the action swells and I burned through pages seeking answers. 

I highly recommend the audio version of The Eden Test rendered by Carlotta Brendan as it's the perfect way to become fully immersed in this story.  Her voice breathes life into the characters, enhancing the sense of urgency as events snowball out of control.  Dual points of view allow readers in both characters' minds, revealing critical backstory as well as the hidden intentions of Craig and Daisy. They can lie to each other . . . but not to readers.

The Eden Test is smart, witty and highly entertaining from cover to cover.  Sternbergh brilliantly delivers a propulsive, unique, tension laden thriller that this reader couldn't put down.  Highly recommended to fans of domestic suspense and suspense thrillers. The Eden Test is one of my 2023 favorites.

Synopsis:

Seven Days. Seven Questions. Forever Changed.

Daisy and Craig’s marriage is in serious trouble. That’s why Daisy has signed up for The Eden Test, a week-long getaway for couples in need of a fresh start. Yet even as she’s struggling to salvage her marriage, it seems Craig has plans to leave her for another woman. In fact, his bags are already packed—long before he arrives to meet Daisy in this remote cabin in the woods of upstate New York.

At first, their week away is marked by solitude, connection, and natural beauty—and only a few hostile locals. But what Craig doesn’t know is that Daisy, a slyly talented actress, has her own secrets, including a burner phone she’s been using for mysterious texts. Not to mention the Eden Test itself, which poses a searing new question to the couple every day, each more explosive than the last. Their marriage was never perfect, but now the lies and revelations are piling up, as the week becomes much more than they bargained for…How far are they willing to go?

Adam Sternbergh brings his wit, originality, and a Hitchcockian sense of dread to this chilling, surprising, and wholly entertaining portrait of a marriage on the brink.

Without Saying Goodbye Review & Interview

 

Author: Laura Jarratt

Genre: Domestic Thriller

Publisher: Sourcebooks

Release Date: May 2, 2023

Order Link: Amazon

Special thanks to the publisher and author for an arc and interview

Review & Interview published in Mystery & Suspense Magazine

Scroll down for Author Interview

A deeply emotional and complex thriller that explores motherhood, love and the desperate need to protect it... at any cost.

Review:

Without Saying Goodbye is the story of two women incognito who meet under highly unusual circumstances.  After coming to a wordless understanding that discussions about their past is off limits, they form a tentative bond and makeshift family of sorts.  Both women are running from something or someone.  Both are at the end of their rope.  Both would rather die than return to their former lives.  Both have secrets they will not share.  As the story unfolds, readers come to know these women, to understand their pain, motivation and fear of being forced back to the insufferable life they fled.

Cerys is battling depression as a result of empty nest syndrome.  She gave up her dreams of a career to be a stay at home wife and mother, and now all these years later she's left with nothing to fill her idle time or mind - nothing to look forward to, nothing to live for.  She doesn't know who she is anymore or what role she plays to an indifferent family that no longer needs or sees her often enough to recognize the signs of deepening depression threatening to break her.  Over a period of time, as the darkness claims Cerys, she makes an irreversible decision culminating in one dark night on an empty highway, a fiery crash and a no longer tethered woman on the run.

Lily is a young, naive, abused mother with a helpless four year old child.  Her husband has repeatedly beaten her down both mentally and physically until her confidence in her own ability as a mother, wife and human being is nonexistent.  However, it's not fear for her own life that motivates her, but rather love for the child depending on her.  There's one thing this monster can't beat out of her - her maternal instinct to protect her child at all costs, and so on a dark, foggy night after months of silent preparation, Lily slips out of the house and vanishes with her child.

One fateful afternoon, far away from their respective former homes, Cerys' and Lily's paths cross.  Both recognize a bit of themselves in the other and without revealing backgrounds, they form a tentative, temporary arrangement to live together - no questions asked.  Things improve until the day an emergency ends their anonymity, and someone figures out who they are. It's only a matter of time until danger arrives on their doorstep.  

Without Saying Goodbye is a propulsive, emotional domestic thriller that explores the many stages of motherhood, the overwhelming need to protect and the need to be needed no matter ones' age.  Jarratt does a beautiful job of characterization, of building empathy for both women who are decades apart in age.  Readers are drawn into both women's lives, coming to understand what drove them to run - to leave their families without a word of goodbye, and how in their own way, they're each searching for their own identity.  The plot line unfolds in a steadily rising pace with tension increasing over concerns of being discovered and forced to go back which keeps both women wary and always looking over their shoulder.  Will they ever truly be free of the past that haunts them?

For this reader, the most beautiful part of Without Saying Goodbye is the gradual transformation of both women from darkness to light as they learn to trust again - both their own instincts and others.  Through picturesque prose, Jarratt renders this story with beauty and grace even as she delivers a commentary on social issues like mental and physical abuse, empty nest syndrome and a mother's internal instinct to protect - to do whatever it takes to ensure the safety of her children.  How far would you go to protect your child?  I know I'd do whatever it takes.  

Without Saying Goodbye is a powerful, highly readable, heart touching domestic thriller.  It's especially suited to women of all ages who've ever felt invisible or less than without really understanding why.  I highly recommend it to fans of character driven domestic crimes and light suspense thrillers.

Synopsis:

Cerys leaves her life behind in a fiery wreck. Lily slips away from hers early one morning, silent as a shadow. Both are mothers. And both are desperate.

When the two women are thrown into each other's paths, they strike a tentative bond. Cerys is a mother with no children to care for anymore, and Lily is doing all she can to take care of a four-year-old on her own. But each keep secrets from the beginning—the scars, the loneliness, and, most importantly, who they actually are. They need to work together to survive, but how can they trust each other? Because everybody knows: the longer a secret is kept, the worse its consequences will be when the truth comes out.

As the past catches up with them in the form of a deranged father with a shotgun, Lily especially finds herself backed into a corner. But mothers will do what they must to protect their children, no matter who else gets hurt along the way.

Author Interview:

Q. Where did the inspiration for this story come from?  Did you draw any part of it from real life experiences?

Laura: The inspiration actually came from two missing persons searches that were in the newspapers at the same time. One was a young mother who had gone into hiding with her child and the other was a man who had left his family and driven his car into the Welsh hills and killed himself. Those two stories sparked the idea for the book, and while I changed the gender of the suicide victim, I immediately knew Cerys’s story as soon as I thought of her. She arrived as a complete character with her storyline absolutely decided. Lily evolved in a similar way but a little more slowly.

I was going through perimenopause while writing the book but it was based more on the experiences of others than my own. It was a complete coincidence that as the book came out in the UK, the subject of menopause had really started to be talked about more openly. I also have friends who are going through that experience of children leaving home for university and all the emotional turmoil that brings. There probably is a little of me in Cerys’s daughter’s story as I still remember how glad I was to leave home at 19 to go to university and how frustrated I felt at my mother being so sad about it. When I look back on that now as a mother myself, I wish I’d behaved differently.

Q. Lily and Cerys are both desperate mothers running from something or someone.  While they’re decades apart in age and at different stages of their life as mothers, they form a tentative bond.  What makes each mother special?  Why were they your choice of characters through which to render this story?

Laura: Cerys was a revelation – as I’ve said, she arrived fully formed. As soon as I thought of two storylines of mothers who had disappeared from their families and what would happen if they met, she came into being. I think what makes her special is that she’s that perfectly normal mother who goes through a really rough patch. Nothing that happens in her life is anything that most of us couldn’t relate to on some level and many women really struggle with this phase of life. If her menopause hadn’t intersected with her own bereavement and then empty nest, she would not have got to that point of despair, but as it all comes at once, it became too much. I’m quite interested in the idea that everyone has a breaking point. Life has, I think, taught me that. I don’t accept that some people are so strong that it never happens to them. I really believe that breaking down can happen to anyone in the wrong circumstances. Most of us are fortunately lucky but there has been a rhetoric that makes us better or stronger people. I don’t subscribe to that; it makes us more fortunate, but no more. I work with a lot of different people in many different circumstances in my day job and while we can learn coping techniques and some manage some stresses better than others, nobody is immune. In my experience, breaking points come when too many adverse factors occur at once and this is what happens to Cerys. She reaches her dark night of the soul at the start of the book, and then she battles back. I once read a phrase from somebody who had had a breakdown, and he said ‘Breakdown equals Breakthrough, if you let it.’ That has stayed with me and that’s what the reader will see Cerys experience. She needed change in her life and she made that happen.

The character of Lily comes a lot from my previous work with troubled children. There is a real need in her to be loved and to be worthy but she has no self-belief. Children who have experienced trauma, especially rejection, often carry that imprint and their battle is to overcome it. It doesn’t leave them but they can find a way to understand it and move on with the right support around them. I wanted to show this being possible for Lily while still keeping it real. Cerys gives her what she has never had but also she finds it hard to trust because she’s been let down and that’s a typical feature of her upbringing. What I love about her is that she also understands the need to protect her own child from that. She’s a very strong young woman, even though she doesn’t know it. The others see that in her.

Q. Without Saying Goodbye tackles some weighty issues including the many trials and tribulations of motherhood, spousal abuse, empty nest syndrome and extreme depression.  Why did you choose to highlight these issues in this book?  Do they have any special significance in your life?

Laura: For me, issues always come from the characters. In this case the inspiration behind Lily’s story came from some press speculation around a real-life disappearance. I have friends who have experienced coercive abuse in their relationships and seen the impact it has had on them. The physical response Lily has around her fear of her husband is based on that.

The absolute need to protect your child is something that is very real for me personally. I’ve written about it before but I think it’s such a huge part of being a mother for so many women and it’s something mothers have sometimes been shy in acknowledging to each other, as if they’re almost ashamed of that terrible fear you carry from the moment they are born that something will happen to them. There’s a lovely meme floating about that illustrate this for me: it’s a dad throwing a young toddler in the air, and the dad sees it as a few inches, the child as a bit more, and to the mother, he’s thrown her several feet into the air. It made me laugh because I recognise that in myself. That need to look after my child dictates my whole life and has done since conception. It fascinates me how much we change when we have children. That’s why I love writing about it now. Before I was a mother, I wrote teen fiction and loved doing that but the dynamics of mother/daughter relationships are so interesting to write about.

I’ve never personally experienced extreme depression. I’ve had low moments with PMT but nothing like Cerys experiences. However my husband has suffered with a very serious and rare autoimmune condition that affects his brain, and that can present in the early stages as depression. This has been really tough for him and all of us in the family. That will have influenced, of course, how I feel about depression and recovery. It’s important to always have hope and I wanted the book to bring that.

Q. The setting for Without Saying Goodbye is Wales.  Why did you choose this setting?  What makes it work for this story?

Laura: Initially, it was because one of the inspirations for the story came from the sad death of a man who drove into the Welsh hills, abandoned his car and killed himself. The idea of it being in Wales came from that. I have Welsh family by marriage and we have often holidayed and been on day trips in the locations used in the book. Anglesey is somewhere we have a great affection for and I felt instinctively that it would become their safe space to find each other and grow. It’s on the edge of Britain and was the retreat of the Druids in Roman times and so has been a place of safety before. We live in the Welsh border so it was good to be able to travel over to research locations in more depth. It’s such a great spot that the locations and landscape having a key role in the book became a natural thing.

Cerys’s sense of healing surrounded by nature is definitely something I experience. I was born in a city but escaped as soon as I could. I should have been born on a farm, I think, and Cerys finds herself again in that environment. Because she went back to her childhood hills to die, I knew that it would be part of her healing process to be back in that world again. The character of Dilys came from that need. Dilys wasn’t a planned part of the book at all. She appeared one third into the writing process and refused to take a back seat, which is very much her!

Q. Several of your books appear to be domestic thrillers as in stories featuring family members – mothers/children, spouses, siblings, etc.  Is it fair to say this is a reoccurring theme for you?  If so, why?  What is it that draws you to these type characters?

Laura: Yes, absolutely, it is a reoccurring theme. They say you should write the book you want to read and this is what I have realised I do. Characters and dynamics fascinate me. I’m a people watcher, so I love creating families and their interactions. But books need a plot or it becomes too introspective and boring for me so I like to throw challenge at them and see how they react. I am more interested by ordinary people than those on the extremes so the type of characters I meet every day are who I write about when I’m writing for adults. For children, which I only write for fun at present to amuse my daughter, I do like to throw in some more dramatic types. Children’s books bring tremendous fun and I wish I had more time to write them.

It’s always really awkward when an editor queries, ‘Would x really do this?’ because my plot comes from the characters. But several books in, I’ve realised the answer is ‘Yes, they would…but I’ve obviously not shown their motivation well enough,’ so that editorial input is really valuable.

 

Q. Talk to us about what’s next for you. Are you working on something you can share with readers?

Laura: I’m writing two at once at present but I’ve had a big hiatus as my husband has been very ill over the last two years so I’ve been proceeding slower than normal.

I’m really excited by my adult novel, which is another domestic thriller, exploring the relationships between a granddaughter, mother and grandmother and a decades-old killing. Their dynamics are pretty toxic to all of them and it’s a journey of growth. I’ve wanted to write this one for ages and didn’t quite have the sequencing of the plot worked out until now as it crosses decades and interweaves different characters’ backstory with the present. That’s technically quite difficult to get right so it needs time to percolate in my brain.

I had started writing a different book, which is another reason for my slow pace, but I abandoned it as I felt it was too dark for me to write at this point, and possibly too challenging for my audience. I’ve no regrets with that now. Sometimes it happens like that and it’s just not the right concept for me or for its time. The one I have switched to instead has been bugging me as an idea for a long time and I feel in my happy place writing that.

And I’m writing a children’s book series for my daughter. I haven’t shown it to anyone but her yet. This is purely for pleasure but it may have some legs for publication. I absolutely love it and I would have adored this at her age. It’s a fantasy crossover with a warrior princess and ponies. Little girl heaven!

 

How I'll Kill You Review

Author: Ren DeStefano

Genre: Suspense Thriller

Publisher: Berkley

Release Date: March 21, 2023

Order Link: Amazon

Special thanks to Berkley for an arc.

Your next stay-up-all-night thriller, about identical triplets who have a nasty habit of killing their boyfriends, and what happens when the youngest commits their worst crime yet: falling in love with her mark.

Review:

Author Ren DeStefano has rendered a unique psychological thriller featuring twenty-five year old serial killer triplets in How I'll Kill You.  The two older siblings have murdered their lovers with Sissy/Jade stepping in to clean up the scene, making sure no evidence remains.  Iris and Moody think it's time for Jade to make her first kill, and she knows she needs to step up to the plate.  The first order of business is to choose a mark, seduce him and over about six months time make him fall in love with her.  Jade chooses Ellison, a young, vulnerable widow with a stepdaughter who still hangs around.  Jade does all the right things to draw him in even as she fantasizes over ways to kill him.  Their chemistry is insane and before you know it, Ellison is in love.  Perfect!  Problem is so is Jade.  That's a big no/no - never ever fall for your mark.  Jade knows her sisters won't let her back out of the kill.  She'll have to finish the deadly deed even as it breaks her heart.  There's no way she can choose Ellison over her sisters.  The least she can do is find a way to kill him as painless as possible and bury him in a peaceful, beautiful place.

How I'll Kill You is an intense, improbable, insane story that I couldn't put down!  DeStefano has created characters that jump off the page, grab you by the throat and draw you into the middle of their madness.  While identical in appearance, each sister is an individual with totally different personalities although all are charlatans with the ability to assume different identities.  Like sirens, they possess the competence to attract their marks and completely hypnotize them into being complacent before they strike.  Through backstory, the triplets dark, sad past in the foster system is revealed and readers learn about a series of tragic events that molded two of them into killers with the other called in for cleanup.  Once reunited, they swore to never part ways again and to always have each others' back.  Now Jade is faced with an impossible decision - her sisters or only man she's ever loved.  And she's carrying another secret - one she'll protect with her life.

DeStefano has brilliantly crafted a psychological masterpiece in How I'll Kill You.  I read this story mostly in one sitting because I couldn't imagine how she'd tie the twisted plot lines together by the end.  Any ending I imagined wasn't good - someone was going to lose, someone was going to die.  Who would it be?  Read this one if you love edge of your seat suspense, a challenge figuring things out, and/or a unique outside of the box, character driven thriller.  

Synopsis:

Make him want you.
Make him love you.
Make him dead.

Sissy has an...interesting family. Always the careful one, always the cautious one, she has handled the cleanup while her serial killer sisters have carved a path of carnage across the U.S. Now, as they arrive in the Arizona heat, Sissy must step up and embrace the family pastime of making a man fall in love and then murdering him. Her first target? A young widower named Edison--and their mutual attraction is instant. While their relationship progresses, and most couples would be thinking about picking out china patterns and moving in together, Sissy's family is reminding her to think about picking out burial sites and moving on.

But then something happens that Sissy never anticipated: She begins to feel protective of Edison, and then, before she can help it, she's fallen in love. But the clock is ticking, and her sisters are growing restless. It becomes clear that the gravesite she chooses will hide a body no matter what happens; but if she betrays her family, will it be hers?

Die Around Sundown Review

Author: Mark Pryor

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Release Date: Aug. 16, 2022

3.5 Hearts

Many thanks to Minotaur for an arc.

Mark Pryor's Die Around Sundown is the first entry in an exciting mystery series set in Paris during World War II, where a detective is forced to solve a murder while protecting his own secrets.

Review:

French Police Detective Henri Lefort of the Robbery Division, was instrumental in nabbing a robbery suspect in the home of Mimi Bonaparte, a distant relative of Napoleon.  Having caught the eye of higher ups, he's now been recruited by the Nazis to solve the high level murder of a German major without access to the scene of the crime - only given a list of five suspects and a warning - solve the case in five days or else!  His career and life are on the line. 

Die Around Sundown is a multifaceted story starring an eccentric character with several unique quirks.  Detective Henri LeFort is a sharp, street savvy robbery detective.  Unfortunately, everyday loud sounds set him on edge seemingly stemming from his service during WWI?  Mimi Bonaparte, who trained under Sigmund Freud, is determined to solve this mystery by convincing Henri to undergo psychoanalysis during sessions with her.  Their sessions are the manner Henri's backstory is introduced to readers.  Lefort is an unique character - witty and clever with a strange connection to his assistant, Nicola, and it's her knowledge of art that helps him crack the case so he can live another day.

There're a couple of mysteries going on at once in Die Around Sundown and as the story plays out, readers are charged with solving them.  Pryor does an excellent job with characterization, especially Henry with his many quirks and complex nature.  While I found the pacing a bit of a mixed bag, a bit up and down, the intensity builds as clues and foreshadowing fall into place.  Fans of historical fiction, especially centering around WWII, will enjoy this one as will amateur sleuths who enjoy whodunit crime novels.

Synopsis:

Summer 1940: In German-occupied Paris, Inspector Henri Lefort has been given just five days to solve the murder of a German major that took place in the Louvre Musuem. Blocked from the crime scene but given a list of suspects, Henri encounters a group of artists, including Pablo Picasso, who know more than they're willing to share.

With the clock ticking, Henri must uncover a web of lies while overcoming impossible odds to save his own life and prove his loyalty to his country. Will he rise to the task or become another tragic story of a tragic time?

Five days. One murder. A masterpiece of a mystery.