Mailbox Monday

Click on title for synopsis via GoodReads.

Monday: (08/09/21)

We Are The Brennans by Tracey Lange~ TPB from Margaret Yelton via Novels N Latte Christmas In July swap
The Trapped Wife by Samantha Hayes ~ Kindle from Bookouture via NetGalley

Wednesday: (08/11/21)

Silent Island by Dana Perry~ Kindle from Bookouture via NetGalley

From the USA Today bestselling author of Little Deadly Secrets comes a gripping story about the frailty of family and a battle of wills between a wife and a sister-in-law, bent on revenge.

She stole my husband. So I’d steal her life.

The Wife
Lane won Candace’s heart over chocolate martinis and karaoke. But weeks into their whirlwind marriage, Candace realized Lane came with burdensome baggage in the form of his possessive live-in sister and her eerily watchful six-year-old son. Lane had a secret that seemed to hold him hostage, and Candace would do anything to uncover it.

The Sister-in-Law
Harper was the kind of woman who cooked homemade meals and dusted under the furniture. It was the least she could do for her brother after her husband’s mysterious death, and Lane took her and her kids in. Then Candace showed up like a tornado passing through, threatening and destructive. But Harper had other plans for her new “sister,” plans Lane could never find out about.

The Husband
All Lane had ever wanted was a white-picket-fence life. The wife. The two-point-five kids. The happy little family. Everything seemed to be falling into place with Candace … until Harper’s jealous streak got in the way, again. But choosing between his sister and wife would be costly … and knowing Harper, the price would be blood.

After I read Little Deadly Secrets, Ms. Crane was instantly added to my “authors to read” list. I just knew that her books would be the perfect match for me and I was right!!!!

The narrative alternates between Candace, Lane’s wife, Lane, and Lane’s sister Harper.

I was hooked on page one and this book had a vice grip on me until the final word. If it wasn’t for adulting, it would have been read in no more than 2 sittings.

When reading suspense thrillers, I always try to figure out the plot but after a few chapters, I threw that idea to the wind because there was so much happening with twists, turns, murder(s), red herrings, lies, secrets, and betrayals that I was afraid I would miss something. So I just went with it and enjoyed the ride. And it was one heck of a ride!!!!

The cast was three-dimensional and believable. With each new chapter and the character’s account of their POV, my suspicion would be with that person. After multiple chapters going back and forth, my head was spinning. I didn’t know who to believe, who to trust, and who to be fearful of.

The crafting of the profound plot and the descriptive writing style made this book exceptional!!

What’s next? I need to get my hands on her next book, Little Does She Know!!!!

Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Barnes & Noble 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗

I received a complimentary copy from William Morrow Books via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Synopsis:

An edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller that brings a unique mix of psychotherapy and sign language and Coda culture. Just when you think you have it figured out, think again!

Dr. Alicia Reese takes on a new patient. Lucas Ferro suffers with crippling anxiety, and as sessions progress, he begins to share the reasons why he’s struggling. As Ferro’s narrative becomes more menacing, Reese finds herself wedged between the cold hard frame of professional ethics and the integrity of personal truth. And, finally, when Ferro reveals his secrets, Reese learns how far she’s willing to go, willing to risk and willing to lose to do the right thing.

The Ninth Session Audiobook Details:

Genre: Suspense Thriller
Published by: TouchPoint Press
Publication Date: September 26th 2019
Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
Purchase Links: Amazon | Audible | Goodreads

Visit Audible to listen to a sample!

Author Bio:

Deborah Serani, Psy.D. is psychologist in practice 30 years. She is also a senior professor at Adelphi University and has been published in academic journals on the subjects of depression and trauma. Dr. Serani is a go-to expert for psychological issues. Her interviews can be found at ABC News, CNN, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Forbes, Reader’s Digest, The Washington Post and USA Today, and affiliate radio station programs at CBS and NPR, just to name a few. She is also a TEDx speaker and has lectured nationally and internationally. Dr. Serani has worked as a technical advisor for the NBC television show, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – where a recurring character, Judge D. Serani, was named for her. Dr. Serani is an award-winning author, writing about psychological topics in many genres.

Catch Up With Deborah:
www.DrDeborahSerani.com
Goodreads
BookBub
Twitter – @DeborahSerani
Facebook – @Dr. Deborah Serani

& Find out what’s new on Instagram – #deborahserani

Tour Participants:

Visit these other great hosts on this tour for more great reviews!

Enter Below to WIN The Ninth Session:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Deborah Serani. There will be ONE winner who will receive (1) Audible promo code for The Ninth Session (U.S. addresses only). The giveaway runs from August 9 through August 30, 2021. Void where prohibited.

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Synopsis:

Jasmine Frank is missing.

It’s a humid summer morning in Santa Ana, California, and her twin brother Jordan abruptly finds himself on a desperate search—fearing the worst. The party last night got way out of hand, and his brain is still chemically fried. But this is Jasmine’s story. She’s awakened far from home to her own mystery: She’s unwittingly stolen something from the most dangerous person she’s ever known. Tommy Strafe. And now Tommy is raging through the sunbaked streets, gathering illicit forces to seek brutal retribution. But all Jasmine really wants is to get out of Orange County, escape her past, and find a measure of redemption.

Loser Baby is a propulsive blast through the streets of the SoCal melting pot, a breakneck dark-comic neo-noir populated by misfits and malefactors, criminals and innocents, down-and-outers and spun-out dreamers. Prepare yourself for an adrenaline rush of rat-a-tat he-said-she-said narrative twists—all in service of a giddily slam-bang shock ending.

Book Praise:

“Jason Bovberg’s Loser Baby is a beautiful noir novel for the 21st century! It’s a wild, frantic ride through shady Southern California, a desperate drug-fueled search for a girl who only wants to escape a sordid life.”
—Scott Phillips, author of THE ICE HARVEST and THAT LEFT TURN AT ALBUQUERQUE

“Loser Babyis the real deal for hardcore crime fiction fans. This one grinds with the engine over the red line all the way. Hang on tight!”
—Eric Beetner, author of ALL THE WAY DOWN

“Loser Baby is one cool book! Bovberg writes characters who get into your head and under your skin. You won’t shake this one easily: It’ll stay with you long after you read it!”
—Terrill Lee Lankford, author of SHOOTERS and ANGRY MOON

“Jason Bovberg’s Loser Baby is a high-octane thriller that moves like greased lightning! The beauty of this book is its motley collection of despicable characters whom you come to love by the end. Loser Baby is Bovberg’s greatest book and one of the best of the year.
—Gary Phillips, author of BLOOD AND ASPHALT and BIRDS OF FIRE

Book Details:

Genre: Suspense
Published by: Dark Highway Press
Publication Date: August 2nd 2021
Number of Pages: 322
ISBN: 9780966262988
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Read an excerpt:

Author Bio:

Jason Bovberg is the author of the Blood trilogy—Blood Red, Draw Blood, and Blood Dawn—as well as The Naked Dame, a throwback pulp noir novel. His forthcoming books include Tessa Goes Down, a border noir, and A Small Poisonous Act, a suburban crime novel. He is editor/publisher of Dark Highway Press, which published the controversial, erotic fairy tale Santa Steps Out and the weird western anthology Skull Full of Spurs.

He lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with his wife Barb, his daughters Harper and Sophie, and his canines Rocky and Rango. You can find him online at www.jasonbovberg.com.

What was the inspiration for LOSER BABY?

I grew up in Southern California in the ’70s and ’80s, from Garden Grove to Santa Ana to Orange to Irvine, and one thing I loved about the area—even back then—was the sprawling, multicultural, car-obsessed, beach-sweat vibe of it all. Music in the air all the time, the wet heat, the swaying palms … it made for a great childhood, especially the summers, body-surfing in the morning, scarfing drive-through burgers for lunch, listening to music while wandering the wide streets. There’s always been a yummy idyllic quality to SoCal, for sure, but there’s also always been a scuzzy underbelly of crime and drugs and lower-class ennui, and that’s what I wanted to explore in LOSER BABY, that dichotomy.

I’ve also always loved vintage pulp fiction, so my primary inspiration was to combine that sense of noir with the sunniness of Orange County’s lowest-brow city, Santa Ana. In essence, contrast the dark with the light.

What has been the biggest challenge in your writing career?

The beginning of it! I was sidelined early thanks to a bout of Hodgkin’s Disease (a type of lymphoma) when I was 19. Man, that really put a dent in my trajectory, and it took a long while to recover. It’s probably for that reason that I feel as if I only started writing seriously late in life. (In fact, a big part of my writing output in my forties was to tackle my feelings about my “cancer period” in my horror trilogy Blood Red, Draw Blood, and Blood Dawn, a collective study of a blood anomaly that threatens existence.)

I’ll occasionally read success stories about writers getting their big break out of college, and that just ain’t me. Maybe I never really had anything exciting to write about back then, or I didn’t know the right people, but only now—past 50—do I feel like I have some really good, fun stuff to share. Now I’m facing a new challenge: finding an audience. And in the end, that may be the biggest challenge of all.

What do you absolutely need while writing?

Music! And I don’t mean songs with lyrics. Lyrics get all jumbled up with the words flowing out of my head. What I require are instrumental pieces, and my favorites of those are soundtracks. While writing LOSER BABY, I kept going back to propulsive film scores like Ennio Morricone’s The Untouchables and John Williams’ Raiders of the Lost Ark. I also love putting on some instrumental jazz, my favorites being by people like Sidney Bechet.

Do you adhere to a strict routine when writing or write when the ideas are flowing?

When I have a book in progress, I stick to a routine of a thousand words per day. Sometimes those thousand words pour out in a couple hours, and sometimes I have to exhaustively yank them out one lousy letter at a time, and it takes all day. But I don’t give myself a break if it’s tough. Gotta get those words out! By doing that, I train the mind to get the work done, and over time it has become easier.

I think regular word flow is important, however a writer can manage it. If you have an irregular pace, and you’re taking long breaks between sessions, that’s going to inevitably affect the flow of the narrative, the characterizations, the structure …. You lose momentum. You forget stuff! I wrote LOSER BABY relentlessly, nearly a hundred thousand words, written in a hundred days, and I think that shows in the finished product.

Who is your favorite character from LOSER BABY and why?

I gotta say, the character that has stuck with me the most is a little girl named Sarah, who gets one chapter from her perspective in the middle of the book, and it may be the book’s strongest emotional punch. She’s really the book’s only true innocent, and I admit to getting a little choked up writing about her problems in the midst of everything else that went down.

Tell us why we should read LOSER BABY.

LOSER BABY is a timely look at the upcoming generation as much as it calls back to the pulpy traditions of dime-store paperbacks. You might say this is the book I came up with after my daughters went through high school. I got a close look at what these kids are like, mostly the friends they hung out with, and although I saw a lot of flippant, foul-mouthed, social-media influenced narcissism and entitlement—which you’ll see in LOSER BABY—I also saw a lot of opinionated smarts, and powerful interest in justice, and hope for the future. (I wanted my book to touch on those notes, too.) So think of LOSER BABY as both a crime-fiction thrill ride AND a gut-punch of a timely social commentary!

Give us an interesting fun fact or a few about LOSER BABY.

One of the more interesting aspects of LOSER BABY for me is the use of multiple, perhaps unreliable narrators. I wanted to explore a single event—over the course of a single day—from the points of view of many characters. Call it Rashomon meets Jim Thompson! As I drove a pounding, straight-ahead narrative, I also wanted to give all those characters back stories, to flesh them out, and to show how their idiosyncratic histories have affected key plot events from moment to moment, and how they have ultimately impacted the resolution of the story. I know some readers (including my wife!) don’t really like multiple narrators, but I feel strongly that when it’s done RIGHT, a novel told from multiple perspectives can be the very opposite of disorienting. Perspective switching can be strategic, seamless, and even thrilling in and of itself. I think LOSER BABY achieves that.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

There’s recently been a nostalgic renaissance of pulp fiction. I’m talking about those classic, vintage crime paperbacks with the lurid covers. Those books are FANTASTIC (I have a prized collection of them), but what I’m trying to do is use those books as inspiration for a new, more relevant kind of pulp fiction. With LOSER BABY and another book I have in the pipeline, I’m trying to write pulpy page-turners that are pertinent to the day. I want to tackle today’s world but use a retro style.

Tell us a little about yourself and your background.

I’m originally from southern California, where LOSER BABY takes place, but I moved to northern Colorado in the early ’90s because I’m more of a mountain person than a beach person. I also prefer the pace of Colorado.

I fell in love with Fort Collins way back then, everything about it this groovy college town. The place is so idyllic that I wrote a trilogy of apocalyptic horror novels, the BLOOD trilogy, in which I laid waste to it. Around the turn of the millennium, I found work as a writer/editor for a tech publication, where I tinkered with language for fifteen years. When print magazines died, I went freelance for several tech companies, and that’s what I’m still doing. I’ve raised two daughters who are about to enter the world as adults, and I just celebrated twenty-five years married to an awesome lady. Life is good.

What’s next that we can look forward to?

I have two more crime novels on the horizon, actually. The first is TESSA GOES DOWN, what you might call a “border noir” crossed with a “Midnight Run” chase narrative crossed with a race-tinged “One False Move” showdown thriller. For this book, I’ve combined that noir style with the atmosphere of politicized rage and hate out there today. It deals with post-pandemic attitudes, and the bewildering rise of bad guys over the past five years, and how optimism can die if you don’t nurture it on a big scale.

The other book is called A SMALL POISONOUS ACT, and this is my epic suburban crime story. Like LOSER BABY, it plays with multiple points of view, looking at a neighborhood from disparate perspectives. A little girl, an old man, a cheerleader type, a corrupt local businessman. And what happens when a small crime on a tiny suburban cul-de-sac can escalate into something deadly.

Catch Up With Our Author:
JasonBovberg.com
Goodreads
BookBub
Instagram – @jasonbovbergauthor
Twitter – @JasonBovberg
Facebook – @CriminalVintage

Tour Participants:

Visit these other great hosts on this tour for more great reviews, interviews, guest posts, and giveaways!

Join In:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Jason Bovberg. There will be 1 winner of one (1) Amazon.com Gift Card (U.S. ONLY). The giveaway runs August 1st through September 2, 2021. Void where prohibited.

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Betrayal was just the beginning…

Melanie Hale is a devoted mother to her two children, a diligent caregiver to her ailing mother-in-law and a trusted neighbor in their wealthy Louisiana community. Above all, she’s a loving partner to her wonderful husband, Collin.

Then there are the parts of herself that Mel keeps hidden. She’s exhausted, worried and unfulfilled. So much so that one night, after a writers’ group meeting, Mel begins an affair with a successful local author named Luke. Suddenly she’s transformed into a role she doesn’t recognize—a woman who deceives with unseemly ease. A woman who might be capable of just about anything.

When Mel finds Luke’s dead body in his lavish rented house, she realizes just how high the stakes have become. Not only does she have to keep her affair a secret in order to preserve her marriage, but she desperately needs to avoid being implicated in Luke’s death. But who would want to kill him? Who else in her life is keeping secrets? And most terrifying of all, how far will they—and she—go to keep those secrets hidden?

This is the first book I have read by this author.

The synopsis intrigued me especially since I have been reading nothing but psychological thrillers. The Prologue had me hooked, but then it felt like it was a slow burn for quite a few chapters. However, the author’s writing style captivated me. I felt that I could actually feel the fear and panic of the main character, Melanie. This technique had me turning the pages as fast as I could read them.

Even though I figured out the plot and who the killer was, and it being a bit slow, I would read more books by this author because it was an enjoyable and entertaining read.

Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Barnes & Noble 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗

Mailbox Monday

Click on title for synopsis via GoodReads.

Monday: (08/02/21)

No One Will Miss Her by Kat Rosenfield~ Kindle from William Morrow/Scene Of The Crime via NetGalley
All Our Darkest Secrets by Martyn Ford ~ Kindle from Amazon Prime

Saturday: (08/07/21)

My Darling Husband by Kimberly Belle~ ARC from Park Row Books

The Cold Creek Highway stretches close to five hundred miles through British Columbia’s rugged wilderness to the west coast. Isolated and vast, it has become a prime hunting ground for predators. For decades, young women traveling the road have gone missing. Motorists and hitchhikers, those passing through or living in one of the small towns scattered along the region, have fallen prey time and again. And no killer or abductor who has stalked the highway has ever been brought to justice.

Hailey McBride calls Cold Creek home. Her father taught her to respect nature, how to live and survive off the land, and to never travel the highway alone. Now he’s gone, leaving her a teenage orphan in the care of her aunt whose police officer husband uses his badge as a means to bully and control Hailey. Overwhelmed by grief and forbidden to work, socialize, or date, Hailey vanishes into the mountainous terrain, hoping everyone will believe she’s left town. Rumors spread that she was taken by the highway killer—who’s claimed another victim over the summer.

One year later, Beth Chevalier arrives in Cold Creek, where her sister Amber lived—and where she was murdered. Estranged from her parents and seeking closure, Beth takes a waitressing job at the local diner, just as Amber did, desperate to understand what happened to her and why. But Beth’s search for answers puts a target on her back—and threatens to reveal the truth behind Hailey’s disappearance

There is someone who is killing young girls on the Colf Creek Highway. The book has three subdivisions.

Hailey: A 17 year old who lost her mother at an early age and was super close to her dad, who was a wilderness guide. Then tragedy strikes again when her father is killed in a motor vehicle accident. Being a minor, she ends up living with her maternal aunt, her aunt’s husband Vaughn, and their son Cash. Vaughn is the Sherriff of the RCMP and is quite controlling. But even worse, Hailey finds something quite disturbing about him that she runs away into the woods, in hopes that her family thinks she was one of the victims of the serial killer.

Beth: A year ago, her sister was a victim of the highway killer and has not been able to move forward from it. She leaves the life she knows and travels to Cold Creek in hopes of finding answers about her sister.

Hailey and Beth: The 2 girls team up to unmask the killer.

The storyline kept my interest. The suspense and action were palpable.

Even though I enjoyed this read, there were 2 issues, at least for me, that took away from the story and the reason for my rating.

The settings in the first 2 parts were mainly in the woods and were quite in-depth about surviving there. Not being a camping person, I found myself skimming over a lot of it because it was so detailed that at times, it just took away from the story for me. The other issue was that it was obvious from the beginning as to who had involvement in the killings. And because of those 2 reasons, and the fact that I had a mindset of setting the bar so high because of her previous books, that I was just a bit disappointed.

Would I recommend it? Yes! Just because this wasn’t a read that I didn’t 100% enjoy, I’m sure many will. And now, I wait patiently for her next book. I just hope that I don’t have to wait as long as I did for this one.

Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Barnes & Noble 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗

Mailbox Monday

Click on title for synopsis via GoodReads.

Monday: (07/26/21)

The Last House On The Street by Diane Chamberlain~ Kindle from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley
Woman In Shadow by Carrie Stuart Parks ~ ARC swap from Margaret Yelton

Tuesday: (07/27/21)

The Golden Couple by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen ~ Kindle from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley
Black Label by James L’Etoile ~ ARC from book swap from Quiet Fury Books
An Ambush Of Windows by Jeff Abbott ~ ARC from book swap from Quiet Fury Books

Friday: (07/30/21)

The Unheard by Nicci French ~ ARC from Harper Collins
The Lying Club by Annie Ward~ eBook from Harlequin Books