A man is dead, shot three times in his home office. But his computer has been shot twelve times, and when the cops arrive, his pregnant wife is holding the gun.

D.D. Warren arrives on the scene and recognizes the woman–Evie Carter–from a case many years back. Evie’s father was killed in a shooting that was ruled an accident. But for D.D., two coincidental murders is too many.

Flora Dane sees the murder of Conrad Carter on the TV news and immediately knows his face. She remembers a night when she was still a victim–a hostage–and her captor knew this man. Overcome with guilt that she never tracked him down, Flora is now determined to learn the truth of Conrad’s murder.

But D.D. and Flora are about to discover that in this case the truth is a devilishly elusive thing. As layer by layer they peel away the half-truths and outright lies, they wonder: How many secrets can one family have?

I haven’t read a book by Lisa Gardner in years and after reading NEVER TELL I’m asking myself why?

Does lightning strike twice? Sixteen years ago Evie Carter accidentally shot her father and she now finds her husband Conrad dead, with three gunshots, in his office and then fires the weapon 12 times into his computer because of what she sees on the screen.

D.D. Warren was on the case 16 years ago and recognizes Evie when she arrives on the current scene.

Flora Dane, six years ago was rescued after being held captive and tortured for 472 days by Jacob Ness. To this day she has never told the whole story about her abduction but when she sees a picture Evie’s husband on the T.V. as the victim of this recent crime, she instantly recognizes him from when she was held captive. Who really is Conrad?

She is now a confidential informant to D.D., a vigilante and supporter of other victims.

What do these 3 women have in common? Is Evie really the killer? What’s the connection between Conrad Carter and the kidnapper Jacob Ness? And why were they both involved in “the dark web”?

A multi-faceted case spanning 16 years. I was glued to each word trying to figure out the puzzle but never did. I kept switching to each character as to who was the suspect but not even close. The action was non stop. The suspense never ending. A riveting read that had this reader on the edge of my seat!

Highly recommend!

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

Giveaway:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by CMash Reads for Penguin Dutton. There will be 1 winner of a HC of NEVER TELL by Lisa Gardner. The giveaway begins on February 19th and runs through March 2, 2019.

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Mailbox Monday

Wednesday:
TELL NO ONE by Barbara Taylor Sissel ~ eBook from Author via NetGalley
BECAUSE YOU’RE MINE by Rea Frey ~ eBook from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley
THE CUTTING ROOM by Ashley Dyer ~ eBook from Harper Collins via Edelweiss
THE PERFECT NEIGHBORHOOD by Jo Crow ~ eBook from from Author via BookSprout

The New York Times bestselling author of The House Girl explores the lives of four siblings in this ambitious and absorbing novel in the vein of Commonwealth and The Interestings.

“The greatest works of poetry, what makes each of us a poet, are the stories we tell about ourselves. We create them out of family and blood and friends and love and hate and what we’ve read and watched and witnessed. Longing and regret, illness, broken bones, broken hearts, achievements, money won and lost, palm readings and visions. We tell these stories until we believe them.”

When the renowned poet Fiona Skinner is asked about the inspiration behind her iconic work, The Love Poem, she tells her audience a story about her family and a betrayal that reverberates through time.

It begins in a big yellow house with a funeral, an iron poker, and a brief variation forever known as the Pause: a free and feral summer in a middle-class Connecticut town. Caught between the predictable life they once led and an uncertain future that stretches before them, the Skinner siblings—fierce Renee, sensitive Caroline, golden boy Joe and watchful Fiona—emerge from the Pause staunchly loyal and deeply connected. Two decades later, the siblings find themselves once again confronted with a family crisis that tests the strength of these bonds and forces them to question the life choices they’ve made and ask what, exactly, they will do for love.

A sweeping yet intimate epic about one American family, The Last Romantics is an unforgettable exploration of the ties that bind us together, the responsibilities we embrace and the duties we resent, and how we can lose—and sometimes rescue—the ones we love. A novel that pierces the heart and lingers in the mind, it is also a beautiful meditation on the power of stories—how they navigate us through difficult times, help us understand the past, and point the way toward our future.

I apologize upfront that this is a very vague review because I do not want to spoil anyone’s experience in reading this 5 star novel.

As an avid reader, and reading for SO many years, once a book is read I will admit that down the road I may not remember it and have to read my review about it to refresh my memory. I can honestly tell you, that is not the case with this book. It will stay with me for many years to come!

It’s 2079 and the youngest of the Skinner siblings, Fiona, at the age of 102 is attending a Q&A for her book of poetry, now a major best seller. The Love Poem being the one that does describe her family throughout the years.

The Skinner siblings, Renee, Caroline, Joe, and Fiona, lives changed when their father passed away unexpectedly at a very young age. Not only did they lose their father, but in a way their mother too. For 3 years Renee at the age of 11 cared for her siblings due to a deep depression, or as they called it “The Pause”, that their mother emotionally retreated.

The siblings always spoke of “The Pause” but really never deeply discussed it. Fiona felt that The Pause meant “failures in life”. It affected all the siblings from their tender ages to the time of their deaths.

How well does one know the depths of their family members? Or does one want to see only the good traits and dismiss the flaws?

An extraordinary read that as emotional, poignant, and gripping. A book that I read in a 24 hour time frame because I just couldn’t put it down. The author’s descriptive writing was fluid and allowed this reader, not only to create vivid imagery but be able to feel and witness emotions.

If you enjoy reading about family dynamics that span years, then you need to read this book.

Compelling!!

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

Rotten Peaches

by Lisa de Nikolits

on Tour February 1-28, 2019

Synopsis:

Rotten Peaches is a gripping epic filled with disturbing and unforgettable insights into the human condition. Love, lust, race and greed. How far will you go? Two women. Two men. One happy ending. It takes place in Canada, the U.S. and South Africa. Nature or nurture. South Africa, racism and old prejudices — these are hardly old topics but what happens when biological half-siblings meet with insidious intentions? Can their moral corruption be blamed on genetics — were they born rotten to begin with? And what happens when they meet up with more of their ilk? What further havoc can be wreaked, with devastating familial consequences?

“Wow. Just wow. Lisa de Nikolits’ Rotten Peaches blew me away. A dark, compulsive, and addictive story in which the characters’ secrets and needs conflict with each other and fold back in on themselves in an ever-tightening noose, Rotten Peaches will keep readers gripped until the very last page. Highly recommended!” —Karen Dionne, internationally bestselling author of The Marsh King’s Daughter

Book Details:

Genre: Noir Suspense Thriller
Published by: Inanna Poetry & Fiction Series
Publication Date: September 20th 2018
Number of Pages: 300
ISBN: 1771335297 (ISBN13: 9781771335294)
Purchase Links: Amazon | Inanna | Goodreads

Rotten Peaches Trailer:

Read an excerpt:

Bonus Content!

In addition to Lisa’s amazing new thriller, she’s also released a new cookbook. To celebrate she’s sharing the recipe for one of the South African desserts mentioned in Rotten Peaches!

Download your copy today & start baking your way to a nourished body and spirit!

Click Here to Download Your Copy of Melk Tert Recipe

Author Bio:

Originally from South Africa, Lisa de Nikolits has lived in Canada since 2000. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Philosophy and has lived in the U.S.A., Australia and Britain. Her seventh novel, No Fury Like That will be published in Italian, under the title Una furia dell’altro mondo, in 2019. Previous works include The Hungry Mirror, West of Wawa, A Glittering Chaos, Witchdoctor’s Bones; Between The Cracks She Fell and The Nearly Girl. Lisa lives and writes in Toronto and her very new book, Rotten Peaches is hot off the press to reader and literary acclaim. Lisa a member of the Sisters in Crime, Toronto Chapter, Sisters in Crime, Mesdames of Mayhem, The International Thriller Writers.

Which of your characters do you dislike the most and why?
That’s like asking a mother which of her children she dislikes the most! I love them all. A lot of them are pretty weird and they behave in self-destructive and morally reprehensible ways but that’s what makes them so interesting! One day, in the afterlife, I’d love to hold a banquet and invite every character I’ve ever written! All of them! Or maybe we’d rent out a resort in the Bahamas for a month and get to know each other!

Which of your character is the hardest to write and why? Leonie who was hard to write and she definitely took the most work. I think it’s because I thought she was perfectly formed in her first draft and it took the persistent nudging of a good friend to say hey, who is this gal? Once I started fleshing her out, I just loved working with her!

What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned through writing?
That you can work as hard as you like, be the hardest worker in the world and still, you may not be able to make your dreams comes true. Hard work doesn’t guarantee success and not even success guarantees success. I know a lot of really talented writer friends who’ve had bestselling novels and they’re struggling to find homes for their more recent books. It’s one of life’s assumptions that if you reach a certain point, that there will be no downhill from there but that’s so untrue! Which is why I love watching documentaries about movie stars or writers or musicians who peaked and then fell and then rose again and it was even sweeter the second time around. Also, you get to see how extremely hard those artists work, they practice every day, write every day, and they’re relentless in their comittment to their craft even when you’d think they’d be ready to sit on their laurels and enjoy doing not much of anything in the sunshine!

What has been your biggest challenge to your writing career
The biggest challenge is that I don’t write a straightforward, genre type of novel. Readers, booksellers, agents and publishers like books that neatly fit a slot and mine don’t do that! And if you mention the word ‘cross-genre’, people get suspicious. And the question, ‘who do you write like, or so what are your books about, or, tell me a book that’s similar to yours

What inspired you to write your first book?
I’ve tirelessly written books for the past thirty years! However, in the beginning, I didn’t actually realize what it meant, to write a book. I didn’t know anything about plot arcs or character development or strong dialogue or setting as character. I studied English Literature (with the goal of wanting to become a writer) but back in the day, we didn’t have creative writing courses. So I wrote long manuscripts that were awful streams of consciousness – terrible things!

The very first book I wrote was called Single Girls Go Mad Sooner and it was supposed to be a collaborative effort with an illustrator friend of mine. I would write anecdotes about dating (pre-Internet!) and she would illustrate these tales of disaster! This was in my early twenties. Then she bailed on me and I went ahead and wrote it anyway. It was, truly, one of the most poorly written collection of short stories to ever see the light of day but at least I tried! I always tell myself that, to not be disparaging of my early efforts because they all showed passion and commitment and the desire to do that which I really felt was my calling. Thankfully, there are no copies of Single Girls Go Mad Sooner out there and at one point I thought of rewriting it and I read it and shuddered! There wasn’t anything at all to salvage from it!

So really, the first book I sat down to really write in a proper way, was The Witchdoctor’s Bones, which was twelve years ago. By that time, I had attended conferences and workshops, I had read books on writing by the stack, I studied books in a different way, I dissected books to see how they had been written. I left my day job (madness!) and sat down and wrote The Witchdoctor’s Bones.

And one more note, clearly I hadn’t done my homework well enough because I wrote the book at 220 000 words! The average book length should be between 70-85 000 words! This resulted in many rejection letters and a lot of rewriting but the The Witchdoctor’s Bones made it into the world in 2014 and I was just delighted! I still love this book so very much

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
I’d like to say, please give Rotten Peaches a try! I know some readers are more used to my more serio-comedic books, like The Nearly Girl and No Fury Like That but Rotten Peaches will give you a good read! It has a unique setting and story line and it’s a good, entertaining read! When I read a book, the thing I want most, is to escape into that world and I offer readers an escape!

Fun Questions:
Which actor/actress would you like to see playing the lead character from your most recent book?
I can see Charlize Theron as Bernice and Sandra Bullock as Leonie. Both are very strong women and would bring such power to the roles! And I’d love to see Sandra Bullock as the really nasty sociopathic, amoral Leonie.

Give us an interesting fun fact or a few about your book or series:
I tried to turn one aspect of Rotten Peaches into reality! In Rotten Peaches, Bernice is the author of self-help cookbooks and I thought this would be a hit in real life! So I got together with a wonderful therapist, Marilyn Riesz, and an extremely talented food editor, Gilean Watts, and we came up with Bake Your Way to Happiness. You can find it on Amazon (link below). Unfortunately this book did not fly in the way that I truly believed it would (and should!) but you never know, it’s day might still come – it really is a wonderful book and it got great reviews! https://amzn.to/2FhJjxe

Favorite foods?
My husband, Brad, made slow-cooked scalloped potatos with aged cheddar, garlic and parmesan cheese! That is definitely my most favourite thing in the world right now! Followed by birthday cake! Give me those two things in one meal and I’d be ecstatic!

Favorite activities?
Having a nap is definitely on the top of my charts! Talking to my cat, having a few good reads on the go at the same time, finding a fabulous new series to binge watch! I love finding a series with about eight episodes because that way you’re not going to lose your entire life for months but just a few hours! I’d love to watch Sons of Anarchy but with seven seasons and ten episodes (and actually I think there are more!), that’s 70 hours! Which is, I guess, two work weeks, so if I ever have a two week vacation and don’t know what to do with myself, I’ll do that! I love going for bike rides in summer and I also love exploring abandoned places! If there’s a hole in the fence, I’m in! Travel is high on my list too. If I won the lottery, Brad and I would travel the world, with the cat of course!

Catch Up With Lisa On:
lisadenikolitswriter.com, Goodreads, Twitter, & Facebook!

Lisa de Nikolits picture credit Richard Picton

Tour Participants:

Don’t Miss Your Chance to WIN!

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Lisa de Nikolits. There will be 5 giveaway winners. There will be 1 Grand Prize winner of one (1) Amazon.com Gift Card. There will be 1 2nd Prize winner of one (1) Print Edition of Rotten Peaches (US & Canadian Mailing Addresses only). There will be 3 additional winners of one (1) eBook Edition of Rotten Peaches. The giveaway begins on February 1, 2019 and runs through March 1, 2019. Void where prohibited.

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Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours

Mailbox Monday

Monday:
THE WOMAN I WAS BEFORE by Kerry Fisher ~ eBook from Bookouture via NetGalley
THE GIRL ACROSS THE STREET by Vicki Pattis ~ eBook from Bookouture via NetGalley
LOST YOU by Haylen Beck ~ eBook from Crown Publishing via NetGalley
DIAPERS< DRAMA, AND DECEIT by Erina Bridget Ring ~ Signed PB from Author
BEFORE SHE KNEW HIM by Peter Swanson ~ ARC TPB from Harper Collins
Tuesday:
I’LL NEVER TELL by Catherine McKenzie ~ eBook from Lake Union Publishing via NetGalley
Thursday:
SWANN’S DOWN by Charles Salzberg ~ ARC TPB from Author
Saturday:
BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS Kristi Belcamino ~ eBook via BookFunnel

This year, one of the Challenges I signed up for is Blog All About It, hosted by The Herd Presents. The guideline is basically a blogging prompt challenge. Each month there’s a different prompt that you can interpret as you’d like then create a blog post around it. The 2019 list of prompts can be seen here on my Challenge Page. I will be posting for this Challenge on the 2nd Saturday of each month.

Pink was never a favorite color of mine. When it came to makeup, I don’t think I ever wore pink lipstick or nail polish. I always tended to gravitate to a warmer palette.

Even when it came to decorating our house, we went with a Colonial decor look also using warmer colors. We recently remodeled our kitchen and I was surprised, that both my husband and I, agreed very quickly on the color scheme and the granite.

However, when it comes to flowers, my favorite is a pink Star Gazer Lily. The scent is amazing but the blooming period is very short. At one time, Yankee Candle even sold the scent but has since discontinued it.

But on Oct 7th, 2 years ago, our world exploded with pink when we welcomed our granddaughter into the world. Having 2 sons, pink was never a color I had to deal with. But now, I love the color pink because of her.

We are currently on baby watch for our 2nd grandchild, not knowing the gender until he/she makes the grand entrance, we are waiting patiently to see if pink will become a nuclear bomb in our family!!!!

This is the month of romance, flowers, and candy. But we all know, being book lovers, we would probably want books too. So in case your honey didn’t get you any, here’s a chance for you to receive not 1, but 14!!

I’m teaming up with Book Trib to spread the word about their giveaway!!!!!!

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, BookTrib is spreading the love with a huge giveaway. One winner will have the chance to win 14 different romantic reads from a variety of fantastic authors like Jill Shalvis, Eva Leigh, Jennifer Ryan, Sally Thorne and more!
 

Mailbox Monday

Monday:
DON’T WAKE UP by Liz Lawler ~ TPB from Harper Collins
THE GIRLS AT 17 SWANN STREET by Yara Zgheib ~ HC from MacMillan via AARP
Wednesday:
SCARE ME by Richard Jay Parker ~ eBook from Endeavour Press
Thursday:
DEAR WIFE by Kimberly Belle ~ eBook from Harlequin via NetGalley
Friday:
AND EVERY WORD IS TRUE by Gary McAvoy ~ eBook from Author
Saturday:
SAVING MEGHAN by D.J. Palmer ~ ARC TPB from St. Martin’s Press