Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: The Resistance Book Club by Ellie Curzon

Book Description

It might look perfectly ordinary. But below, you’ll find a cellar with tunnels leading into it from all across the town. Here in the dark days of war, chairs are arranged in a circle and candles are lit. Women gather at midnight, breaking the Nazi curfew. Their whispers mingle with the waves beyond as they discuss banned books, coded messages and their daring acts of resistance.

But the Germans are coming for them. And soon, at least one of these chairs will be empty.

For Lucy, running away to France was never part of the plan. Neither was finding her fiancé in bed with another woman. But now she has inherited her grandmother’s bookshop by the sea, and a mysterious letter hinting at a secret buried for more than eighty years.

***

Elise’s Thoughts

The Resistance Book Club by Ellie Curzon, the pen name for Catherine Curzon and Helen Barrell, is a gripping and heartbreaking wartime novel with family secrets in Cordeval, a village in France, along the Normandy coast. This is a fascinating dual-timeline historical fiction novel.

The past timeline takes readers back to Nazi occupied France. The French Resistance stood up to the cruelty through the secret actions of thousands of ordinary French citizens. Fast forward to the modern-day timeline, also set in Cordeval, but in 2025. Both storylines focus on books, female friendship, a charming town, and courageous people.

Margot is a widow, running a bookstore. She’s shocked by the Nazi’s implementation of a list of banned books, and she decides to take a stand against the barbaric policies and their equally horrific enforcement. Taking a quiet stand, she forms a book club of locals to read the banned books. The women gather at midnight, breaking the Nazi curfew. They discuss banned books, coded messages and their daring acts of resistance. The book club members also wrap the books in newsprint and secretly hide them in public places for others to find and read.

Margot’s friends include Esther, who is Jewish, and her baby daughter, Isabelle, Josephine and her young daughter, Beatrice, and a local professor, Theo, who is German. Esther asks Margot to take care of Isabelle if something should happen to her since the Nazis are rounding up Jews, to which Margot agrees.

The modern-day timeline features Margot’s great-granddaughter, Lucy, who is a high fashion magazine editor due to get a prestigious job that would be a stepping stone to her dream job of Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue. But before she starts the job Lucy travels to Cordeval to settle her grandmother’s estate, which includes her bookstore. Unfortunately, before she leaves, Lucy finds her fiancé in bed with another woman. At the bookstore, Lucy discovers her grandmother left a letter, revealing a mystery involving the bookstore that she wants Lucy to solve.

This storyline will have readers going through a gamut of emotions. Right from the beginning readers will be drawn into the lives of the characters and take the journey with them as they decide to use their love of books as an act of comfort and quiet rebellion during history’s darkest periods.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?

Ellie Curzon: We’d written the two orphan books, and we wanted to do something different. And I think we felt that if we could write something that was in occupied France there is more scope. We have written six books with the setting in England during World War II. And then with occupied France, there are high stakes. Literally there are uniforms patrolling the streets, which obviously doesn’t happen in Britain. Also, we wanted to go back to the concept we’d had in the first series of there being a village to sort of weave in the whole village.

EC: What was the role of the book club?

EllieC: It’s kind of the heart of the story. It’s the place where the women meet. It’s a place where the resistance starts and it’s a place that they start as a safe space, but rapidly it becomes quite a dangerous place. They could sort of perform small acts of resistance that get bigger. And, a book club seemed like an obvious way. We thought it was a nice idea of women meeting together in a way that wouldn’t be viewed as suspicious. There was nothing overtly political or any overtly resisting about it. And it’s almost like the sort of thing that people might go, ‘Oh, yeah, the girls are at the book club.’ And we just really like the idea of a place where women could come together with a shared passion. They’re deliberately reading the banned books as their own way of standing up to these people who’ve turned up and taken away their liberties. But it just seemed like something that might also grab people and that people could relate to: books as the basis for resistance and learning and community because the Nazis burned and censored books. And the book club for us is almost a community within the community of the village.

EC: How did you get the idea of tunnels?

EllieC (Helen): I came up with the tunnels. There are two things that the tunnels are based on. The first thing is that I grew up in a fishing village, on the coast, and there’s legend of there being tunnels under the village. I’ve never, ever met anyone who’s seen them, been in them, but that was partly where it came from. Then in the First World War, the army used tunnels. Those two sort of ideas merged. Because we were thinking, ‘how do they move around the village without anybody seeing them?’ The tunnels, really, just came together in my mind. So, that was where the tunnels came from. 

EC: How did you choose the books for the story?

EllieC: There was a list of books that were banned in France. It had books that were overtly political, but then it had books that were a lot less political. So, we wanted to go back and take books from that list, named after the German ambassador to France who was Otto Abetz. All the books on the list had to be taken off bookshelves and any copies that were taken or in existence were supposed to be destroyed. Otto’s list just grew and grew and grew, and other longer lists came out later. So, the books that we use in the story were on that banned list. These books were seen for whatever reason as dangerous, degenerate, undesirable. Under the occupation, they were forcibly removed from sale and from bookshelves, including books with Jewish authors and Jewish characters. It’s amazing when you think that Grand Hotel was banned, when it was made into a famous film. And yet it was banned because the author was Jewish. They didn’t want any mention of Jewish people anywhere. There were also lesser- known books that were on the list, but because they were only printed in quite small numbers, they are virtually impossible to get today because they’ve never been reprinted. So, these books on the list that are to all intents and purposes, virtually lost today. 

Helen: In Berlin, I visited their version of the National Library, and that was interesting because they had a display, and it included some books that had been banned in Germany. In Britain, we know that they rescued lots of books by hiding them, to protect them from the bombing. In this display, they had photographs of places in Germany where German librarians had taken their books out of their libraries and put them somewhere safe as well. 

EC: What about the book burnings?

EllieC: There were book burnings in Germany, very famous, but as far as we know there weren’t book burnings in France. So that was kind of artistic license. But it is a horrifying idea, burning books, isn’t it? 

EC:  Do you think the book club became the nanny club?

EllieC: That’s quite nice. Yeah, don’t disagree with that. We really like the idea of that with them sort of passing Isabelle around to keep her safe, and we thought as well that readers would like that because they out foxed the Nazis. The way they sort of bundle her around and hide her in things. 

Helen: I got the idea partly from when my niece was only two weeks old, and she kept being passed around the family because my brother lives with my mum, my stepdad. So, like, every time the baby cried, she was passed around. And there was this woman who, when it was time for the woman to have her appointment, she’d pass her baby to one of the other women. They just would do that very naturally, which is kind of what’s happening in the club. 

EC: How would you describe Margot, the book shop owner?

Helen: Margot is very brave. She’s very aware of the responsibility she has to her friends, and her village, and to Isabelle. She feels she has got to do something. After she witnesses something horrible, and tragic, it drives her to be brave.

EC: What about Lucy?

EllieC: She absolutely knows where she’s going. She’s laser focused at the very beginning. But then her life goes off track because everything suddenly goes upside down. She has this life, and that’s her aim, thinking, ‘Oh, I could be editor of Vogue one day, and, and have this fabulous townhouse, with champagne receptions and opening nights.’ And it all falls apart. Then suddenly, she’s inherited this bookshop, and suddenly, this whole other possible life opens to her. And she must decide, which path am I going to take? 

EC: What about the professor?

Catherine: The professor is not what he seems to be. He’s the quiet man. I really like heroes and heroines who have a sort of quietness to them and that they’re not someone you would expect to suddenly be saving the day. He’s not someone that you would look at and say, ‘oh, that man looks like a hero.’ He is not a drop dead, a gorgeous leading man. I liked the interplay between him and his brother and the completely different characters they’d become. And the way that these two boys who grew up together are probably, if not for the war, would probably never have seen one another again. They’re brothers, but they are complete strangers to one another. They are completely opposite sides of the same coin. The Professor is trying to live life quietly and his brother literally rolls into town and brings sort of hell with him into the village. The Professor is the one who’s more at home with his piano and his talks. And but for this war happening, would have been very happy with that quiet life. I really enjoyed writing him because he’s obviously not like the typical hero in any way.

EC:  His brother Felix, the Nazi?

Catherine: Felix is vicious, unthinking, uncaring, cruel, and intimidating. And he’s very good at the show stopping. He’s very focused on the immediate gratification. He arrives in town, he gets a mistress, he starts tearing the place up. He starts terrorizing people. But when it comes down to his ambition his eye for theatre is so great, and for the limelight, that he makes that massive mistake. He is someone who from childhood has been an absolute loose cannon in every way. He’s basically, I think, probably a psycho. Very, very ruthless, very ambitious, very cruel, the sort of person who would go very, very far in the Third Reich. But as with many of the sort of top brass of that regime, he lacked the sense of strategy to do anything meaningful beyond those bursts of cruelty. He’s basically a monster. And I wanted to show that because I didn’t want him to just feel like a caricatured, nasty, nasty character, you know. And I wanted it to show this is not just someone who was driven by ambition, but there is real genuine hatred. In the book there is a quite frightening moment when he enters the Jewish mother, Esther’s home, it’s violent and it’s brutal and it’s awful. He spits on her. He has deep seated and horrific hatred. And we wanted that moment to be really a visceral moment because to me, spitting on someone is just awful, and then he just steps over her and walks away.

EC: What was the role of Beatrice?

EllieC: She was a very youthful character because she could go places. And hear things and we all know that with kids, that people talk quite loosely sometimes around children. So, Beatrice hears things and sees things and can carry messages back and forth, but she’s also really important to show in the future that Beatrice’s generation won’t ever have to face anything like this again, but equally Beatrice is being raised with the right values and she’s being raised as a fierce woman who is going to sort of drive forward if you like. She’s not going to just sit at home and be rolled over. She’s going to keep this going, these resistance acts in whatever way she can.

EC: Next book?

EllieC: It will come out in the spring of next year and is set in the same village as this one. Instead of being in the bookshop there is this florist shop, and behind the florists, there’s a garden, full of vegetables that they’re growing for local people, and resistance members, and there might just be a British airmen hidden in the shed. But it’s a dual timeline story again and both timelines are tied together by a mysterious rose. It’s full of drama and romance and villains and hopefully characters readers want to cheer for. There will be returning characters. Obviously, it’s a new set of main characters. So, we’re in the same village with the same characters from the previous storyline. And in the modern storyline, it has new modern characters, but again, you will see the main modern characters from the previous book returning. So, you’re back in the world. A new reader can start from scratch with this one, and doesn’t need to read the last one. But if you have read the last one, it’s just building that sense of community and village.

THANK YOU!!

***

BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Feature Post and Book Review: Too Many Bridges by Bill Gormley

Book Description

An eyewitness to a murder calls the Pittsburgh police from one of the city’s 446 bridges, then disappears. To solve the case, the police must find the bridge. But where to start? Detective Branko Radic and Officer Kathleen Mulroy seek help from a nun, a professor, a mechanic, and a tattoo artist. They learn of a family feud, a business in trouble, some sketchy Harry Potter merchandise, and a missing young woman. If only they can find the right bridge, they might be able to put it all together.

But sometimes, a case is like a funhouse mirror at an amusement park. You have to adjust to the distortions in order to perceive the truth.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216662201-too-many-bridges?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=PPGGsf0MBc&rank=1

***

Version 1.0.0

My Book Review

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

TOO MANY BRIDGES (A Radic & Mulroy Mystery Book #1) by Bill Gormley is an intriguing murder mystery/police procedural with an intricate plot full of twists and misdirection while also introducing the reader to a cast of new characters and Pittsburgh, PA. This is the first book in this series.

The Pittsburgh Homicide Department receives an anonymous call from an eyewitness who claims to have witnessed a murder and will only give their location as under one of Pittsburgh’s 446 bridges. With no other information, or even a body, Homicide Detective Branko Radic is given a short timeline to investigate if this is valid information. He is given the assistance of Officer Kathleen Mulroy, who is relatively new to the force and has a social services background and is familiar with the city’s homeless population.

The initial investigation goes nowhere until a body is discovered. When the victim is identified, Radic and Mulroy suddenly have multiple persons of interest and lines of inquiry, but they cannot locate two of their major suspects. A cat and mouse game ensues over the greater Pittsburgh area with everyone seeming to be two steps behind until each discovered bit of evidence adds up to the killer and his motives.

This is an engaging and intricately plotted first book in the Radic & Mulroy mystery series. The author seamlessly pulled me into the investigation with realistic characters and dialogue that develop fully as the story progresses. These are characters that left me wanting to follow them into future books. The crime mystery plot is a strong step-by-step police procedural with dead ends and discoveries that are not always straight forward. The pacing is balanced and leads to many twists and an interesting conclusion. The city of Pittsburgh, the surrounding area, and the many bridges throughout adds authenticity and atmosphere to the story.

I highly recommend this first crime mystery/police procedural in the Radic & Mulroy series and am looking forward to reading many more in this series.

***

About the Author

Bill Gormley is a mystery writer, amateur jazz pianist, and retired educator. For 33 years, he was a Professor of Public Policy and Government at Georgetown University, where he wrote and taught about public policy, federalism, bureaucratic politics, and early childhood education. He also helped to found the university’s day care center, Hoya Kids.

Gormley’s non-fiction articles have appeared in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, the Public Administration Review, the American Journal of Political Science, Developmental Psychology, Science magazine, and elsewhere. His non-fiction books have been published by the Brookings Institution Press, the Princeton University Press, the Harvard University Press, and others.

Since retiring from Georgetown, Gormley has written two murder mysteries, both published by Level Best Books: Too Many Bridges (2024) and The Silent Trumpet (2025). His murder mysteries are police procedurals set in Pittsburgh, PA. A third mystery, Too Many Steps, will be published in 2026. Books may be ordered from the usual vendors.

In addition to his writing, Gormley produces a podcast, Profs on Cops, which is available through Spotify and Apple.

Social Media Links

Website: https://billgormley.com/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/too-many-bridges-a-radic-mulroy-mystery-by-bill-gormley

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Dead in Three Two One by Peter James

Elise’s Thoughts and Book Description

Dead in Three Two One by Peter James brings back beloved detective Roy Grace. All his stories have unexpected plot twists, sinister antagonists, and realistic plots. Most of this book takes place at the Royal Courteney Hotel. 

One sub-plot has Dritan Dervishi, the cold-blooded consigliere for Albanian mob boss Roel Albazi, arriving with a beautiful woman on his arm and a lethal secret in his suitcase as he checks into the hotel. He has specifically requested Room 321, a room with a perfect view of the sea, and a deadly proximity to a target he’s been dreaming of for years.

Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is already pushed to the limit, coordinating the city’s massive security operation amid whispers of a potential terrorist attack. But the threat is more personal than he could ever imagine. Back in a prison cell, his old nemesis Albazi is counting down the seconds to a revenge that will not just take Roy’s life, but erase his entire bloodline. Roy and his wife Cleo prepare for a night of celebration at the Royal Courteney, but they have no idea that they are stepping into a deadly trap.

The secondary storyline has a long-term resident of the hotel who claims her family wants to kill her. Her son and daughter are angry because they think they have been cut from the will and see their mother spending all their inheritance.

This is a police procedural where the investigations are of a potential terror threat, a murder, and a potential killing.  The hotel becomes a character in the book and readers learn about the goings on of a classy hotel. 

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Were you influenced for the story idea by Arthur Hailey’s novel, Hotel?

Peter James: I read Arthur Hailey’s novel Hotel in 1968. It was set in a grand old hotel in New Orleans, and the hotel was dilapidated and this elderly owner doesn’t want to spend any money on it. He’s got a young, ambitious manager and all the big hotel chains like Hilton are all circling like vultures. And it’s got all these characters in it. It’s got a career burglar who’s checked into a hotel, systematically robbing the rooms, and there’s an elderly aristocratic couple, who just killed somebody by a hit and run, and they’re hiding in the hotel. There is so much detail about the running of a hotel. After I’ve finished that book. I thought, so that is how a hotel works. And I was in awe and I thought, wow, you really must do a lot of research if you want to be a successful author. It always stuck in my head, and I decided one day I wanted to write a novel set in a hotel that had that kind of depth of research. So that was very much my starting point. 

EC: There is a reference to Margaret Thatcher in the story, why?

PJ: One subplot was influenced when in 1984, the IRA, the Irish Republican Army, tried to murder Margaret Thatcher, who was then prime minister. A month before the Conservative Party conference, they knew Margaret Thatcher would be staying in her suite. A guy called Patrick McGee checked in the Grand Hotel with a timer bomb set to go off at 1:30 in the morning. And he specifically requested the suite that Margaret Thatcher will be staying in four weeks’ time. He planted the bond behind the bathroom and what saved her life was that she was a workaholic, and hadn’t gone to bed at 1:30 in the morning because she’s still working. But the bomb tragically killed six people, and badly injured many others. 

I thought it’d be kind of fun to have somebody checking in the hotel. The book starts with describing this tall, handsome guy, in a smart suit, good haircut, a nice watch, and checked in at Brighton’s fabled Royal Courteney Hotel. He had his arm around a beautiful woman, a smile on his face, and a bomb in his suitcase. The reason this bomber is there is that he knows that Detective Roy Grace and his wife are going to be staying in the suite he wants to check into in exactly a week’s time. And he’s there acting on behalf of an Albanian gangster that Roy Grace put away who wants revenge on Roy.

EC: The other sub-plot?

PJ: I’ve always been fascinated by people who stay a long, long time in hotels who kind of make it their home. I asked three different hotel managers, ‘do you like having long stay residents?’ I figured they would. But they said no, they’re a bloody nuisance. And I said, ‘seriously, isn’t it good to have a steady income?’ They said, no. If you have a lot of those guests, then it means they can’t rent the whole hotel out to a company for a conference, which is very lucrative. They become a nuisance after a while, because what they do is they start to become priority proprietorial. And they’re quite disruptive. So, I thought it would be great fun to create a character, who is a long stay resident, whose husband died 15 years earlier, and she’s moved into the most expensive suite in the Royal Courteney Hotel, which is Brighton’s most fabulous seafront hotel. And we learn that she’s got a 50-year-old son, who’s had two failed businesses, and a daughter, who’s just gone through an acrimonious divorce and has not got very much money out of it. And they’re watching mummy burn through their inheritance. They enlist the help of a bent lawyer and a doctor to try to bring Mum’s death forward a few years. 

EC: How would you describe the de Bairde family?

PJ: The mom is clearly a selfish lady who is pretty much uncaring, rude, and demanding. I think the son is just an angry person. He’s got his crappy little office, opposite a Porsche dealership, and he stares out his window day after day, looking at all the Porsches, and he’s really angry how life worked out, with his business systems failed, which means he can’t buy one of those lovely things that are tempting him, and his mummy won’t lend him the money to help bail the business out. His sister, Alex, is a spoiled bitch, who can’t accept the fact she’s being dumped by her husband and that she suddenly hasn’t got a means to live in the style which she believes she should be accustomed to. So, there are two angry people watching their mother, holding court, living in this grand luxury hotel, spending what they believe is their money. 

EC: There is this book quote where Grace is upset about these criminals having juries declared not guilty as he investigates the murder done by the bomber. Can you explain?

PJ: You are referring to this quote, “While there were intelligent people on juries, there were occasionally some incredibly stupid ones too…Too often juries would be swayed, not by the facts, but by the defense-or-prosecution-counsel’s power of storytelling”. When I was on jury service, there was a case in which a father and son put up the marquis for a big motor show. And after they finished, they took all their workers out. They all got drunk. And then some got in a fight with one of the workers, punched someone in the face, broke his nose. blood everywhere. He’s now charged with causing assaults and bodily harm. The prosecuting council was laying out the case, and then we had a break, and we all went into the jury room. And one of the Tweety women on the jury said, ‘the man’s obviously guilty.’ I said, ‘excuse me, we haven’t even had the prosecution case fully laid out yet, and we haven’t heard from the defense. How can you say he’s guilty?’ 

EC: You like writing books about juries. One I really liked was titled Find Them Dead about a woman forced to convince other jurors for a not guilty plea. Care to comment?

PJ: A key gangster has his men target her and a couple of other jurors to convince them that they should not return a guilty verdict. 

EC:  As long as we are speaking of previous books my absolute favorite was Love You Dead.  The main antagonist, Jodie Bentley was devious.  Want to go down memory lane about this creepy book?

PJ: She was a black widow that used reptiles to poison and kill people. Jodie came about when I went to a prison. I am one of the charges of an ambassador of four for the reading agency. And we try to encourage people into reading and literacy generally. And I also do it for prisoners in English prisons, because the average reading age for 60% of the inmates is less than 11 years old. I was giving a talk in a women’s prison where all the inmates are lumped all together. So, you really don’t know if some of these are in there for a small offense or if they killed 10 people. Anyway, there’s this one woman in the audience. She’s about 55. And she keeps on interrupting me. She asked me smart questions about literature. She’s asked me about Dickens, Hemingway, and Fort. She’s got a very posh voice. And I’m wondering, trying to guess what she’s in for. Anyway, at the end, I get to mingle with the prisoners. So, I made a beeline for her. I said to her, ‘how much longer do you have to go?’ She responded, ‘Nine and a half more bloody years. And it’s just not fair. I asked, ‘What brought you in here?’ She replied, ‘I poisoned my mother-in-law, the old bag. The thing was, she went to the hospital to die. So, I cleaned out her bank account. And the bloody woman didn’t die? She came back home, so I realized she’s going to find out, so I thought I better poison her. And then I was afraid my husband would find out, so I thought I’d better poison him, too. And it’s just not fair. This woman did exactly what I did in London. She has only got six more years.’ Her husband was on life support for three months and he’s got permanent brain damage. And I thought you must be a character in a future book. And that is how Jodie came about.

EC: Is the Book Aid Ball charity for real?

PJ: It is one of Queen Camilla’s charges that she’s a patron of. So, I thought it’d be kind of fun that Cleo is giving a speech for that in the story. A quote by Camilla in the book, “Reading is exciting. There is nothing quite like the thrill of opening a book and being drawn into another world to meet new people and to discover their stories-It’s like making new friends.” Or enemies, like Jodie. 

EC: What about the antagonist of this story, Albazi?

PJ: He is a classic, completely immoral gangster. His background is that he was working for a Chinese triad group as a debt collector, and he defaulted. There are a lot of Albanian criminals in England. A lot of good Albanians too, but yeah, the Albanian crime fraternity has a particularly nasty way of operating, which is that, if someone is doing business with an Albanian criminal, like a drug deal and they don’t pay them their way of getting back will be to go to the grandmother back in Albania and kill her. They go for the family as their way of retribution. Albazi is an Albanian gangster, who has been living in England, and basically Roy Grace has put him away. And as a result, Albazi had several of his beloved close relatives in Albania murdered by a rival gang. He was angry, so he is out to get revenge. It was Roy’s estranged, and now dead wife, but that caused Albazi problems, and it was Roy that ultimately put him away.

EC: Next book?

PJ: I don’t know the title yet. We haven’t got it, but it’ll be out this time next year, and it’s all set on a cruise ship. I’ve done quite a lot of talks on cruise ships so I set this next book on one. Roy’s gone along for a holiday. I was on the Queen Mary some years back and I was on the bridge talking to the captain, and I said to him, ‘Have you ever had a murder on this ship?’ He said, ‘Not on this ship but 34 people a year disappear off cruise ships.’ I thought, ‘wow, that will make a good story. Nobody should sit on the balcony. Plop. Person overboard.’ 

THANK YOU!!

***

BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Book Review: Dragon Fires Everywhere by Hazel Beck

My Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

DRAGON FIRES EVERYWHERE (Witchlore Book #4) by Hazel Beck is the last book in this quartet of paranormal/magical romances and the final battle for control between the Riverwood Coven and the Joywood Coven of witches. The romance focuses on Coven Historian, Georgiana “Georgie” Pendell and Azrael the dragon shifter from her dreams. I have enjoyed all the books and I recommend that the series is best read in order of publication.

Historian of the Riverwood Coven, Georgie Pendell, has always played her part, but she is beginning to feel like an outsider in her own life and group of friends. When she discovers her boyfriend cheating on her return from a trip, Georgie finds herself dismissing love as a fairytale. Depressed and mad, she sits by the dragon carved newel post in her home, and she reads aloud from an enchanted storybook which frees the dragon shifter, Azrael.

Georgie finds herself drawn to the dragon in ways she didn’t think were even possible. With his fiery golden gaze and arrogance, he claims Georgie as his own. While Georgie believes in books and the knowledge they possess, she finds it difficult to believe in herself, Azrael tries to teach her how special she is, but he is keeping a secret that could change both their destinies. Can Georgie discover what knowledge the Joywood Coven has hidden from the Riverwood Coven and all the town’s magical creatures to defeat their black magic once and for all?

I really enjoyed this entire series, but this last book especially. The world building is very well done in all. The paranormal characters; witches, animal familiars, ghosts, and non-magical town population all come together to make an entertaining read. The dialogue and emotions can go from serious, as they fight for their lives, to humorous close friend chatter. Georgie and Azrael are great protagonists as they continually grow throughout the story. The final battle between good and evil is great and brings all the characters together to a satisfying conclusion.

I highly recommend this engaging paranormal/magical romantic suspense book and series!

***

About the Authors

Hazel Beck is the magical partnership of a river witch and an earth witch. Together they have collected two husbands, three familiars, two children, five degrees, and written 200+ books. As one, their books will delight with breathtaking magic, emotional romance, and stories of witches you won’t soon forget. Their four-book Witchlore series kicks off with SMALL TOWN, BIG MAGIC.

Social Media Links

Website: https://hazel-beck.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorHazelBeck

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hazelbeckauthor/?hl=en

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/dragon-fires-everywhere-by-hazel-beck

Book Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: The Lost Photograph by Archana Maniar

THE LOST PHOTOGRAPH

by Archana Maniar

October 12 – November 6, 2026 Virtual Book Tour

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE LOST PHOTOGRAPH by Archana Maniar on this Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour.

Below you will find a book description, my mini book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links, and a PICT giveaway. Enjoy and good luck!

***

Book Description

A forgotten photograph. A trailblazing ancestor. And a modern woman about to discover that her family’s past holds the key to her future.

When overworked surgeon Jaanvi Chowdhury finds a mysterious photograph and a small stack of letters hidden in her Boston attic, she uncovers the remarkable story of her great-aunt Kalyani Joshi–one of the first Indian women to study medicine in 1920s London.

As Jaanvi pieces together her ancestor’s life, she discovers Kalyani’s experience of colonial oppression, her role in India’s fight for independence, and her unlikely connection with a Scottish missionary’s son, Alexander. Drawn together by their passion for literature, Kalyani and Alexander will risk everything for a free India, putting their loyalty, love, and choices to the test.

Navigating between past and present, Jaanvi confronts her own struggles. Passed over for promotion, she has lost sight of why she became a doctor. But as she learns how fiercely Kalyani fought for each opportunity–and the price she paid–Jaanvi begins to question her own carefully constructed life. Can her great-aunt’s unprecedented story help her reclaim not just her purpose in medicine but her sense of who she truly is?

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/247591124-the-lost-photograph?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=IUI2WHipdx&rank=1#?ref=nav_comm

TheLost Photograph

Genre: Historical Fiction with Contemporary Themes
Published by: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: September 15, 2026
Number of Pages: 399
ISBN: 9781662528729 (ISBN10: 1662528728)

***

My Mini Book Review

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

THE LOST PHOTOGRAPH by Archana Maniar is an engaging dual timeline story set both in the present following a talented female Indian heritage surgeon, Jaanvi, and in the late 1920s in India following her ancestor, Kalyani, and Scottish immigrant, Alexander. This is a story that conveys a compelling narrative about two women in society, past and present, and their struggles in both. While this is a dual timeline book, the story is told in three POVs.

Both the descriptive writing and historical research bring both timelines to life. They are also intertwined perfectly. My slight problem while reading this, and while I realize it was probably necessary, was the use of so many Indian words throughout which took me out of the flow of the story at times. That said though, this is a story that is rich in Indian culture and history that is worth working through the vocabulary. The romantic subplot between Kalyani and Alexander added to the stakes and tension in the historical timeline.

I recommend this story of two women’s struggles and triumphs in the times and societies they inhabit.

***

Excerpt

Chapter 1 

Jaanvi 

Massachusetts, August 2019 

If there was one thing that Jaanvi Chowdhury couldn’t endure these days, it was stillness. She had taken the week off to rest. On Saturday, she’d managed to sleep in until 6.30 a.m.  On Sunday, she’d briefly reclined in a hammock with a novel. She had even gone for a massage  and manicure on Monday. But by Tuesday, she was climbing the walls of her old Massachusetts  colonial, desperate for something to do. Jaanvi took in a whiff of fumes from her so-called VOC free paint and sighed. Clearly, the concept of a staycation was lost on her. 

Instead of relaxing, she had painted the whole house this week—Pewter Gray, Retro  Mint, Secret Cove, and even the more risqué Berry Frappe. But as she glanced around the living  room on Friday night, she realized that neither the new colors that graced her walls nor the smell  of fresh paint that permeated her house evoked the sense of renewal that she had hoped for. 

She’d planned the time off back in May, after a rough patch at work. As a general surgeon  at a local community hospital, she had seen her patient load explode after a nearby hospital was  shuttered. In her mid-career, she’d borne the brunt of the work—experienced enough to handle a  variety of complex cases that her younger colleagues might shy away from, energetic enough to  keep up with the demands of the operating room that older colleagues had grown weary of. But  the workload left little spare time. Each day was an exercise in triage and damage control. Most  of the time, she loved the adrenaline rush of handling surgical emergencies but increasingly, she  felt as though something in her life was off. What it was she could not name. At one point, after a  particularly grueling week dealing with gangrenous gall bladders and perforated colons, her 

husband, Gautam, had suggested she take a week off. Take some time for yourself, he’d said. At  that point, the staycation had seemed like a good idea. 

Now, as she surveyed the room strewn as it was with canvas furniture covers, empty paint  cans, varying sizes of excess baseboard, wads of used painter’s tape, and misshapen, half-dried  paint trays, she wondered if it actually was. If anything, she’d be working later into the night  tidying up after her painting misadventure than if she had just gone to work. She shook her head.  What on Earth was she thinking? 

She gathered several unwieldy pieces of extra baseboard and unsteadily made her way up  the stairs to stow them in the attic. The floorboards creaked with familiarity under her feet,  flooding her with memories of countless trips up into the cavernous storage space. Jaanvi had  grown up in the very same house, here in Worcester, Massachusetts. She and Gautam had moved  into the colonial with their twin sons, Akash and Varun, when her parents had relocated to a  nearby retirement community. She loved the house, from its exacting symmetries and quaint  dormer windows to its Shaker cabinets and ornate crown molding, to the ample backyard perfect  for their golden retrievers, Mirchu and Meetu. 

Still, as she made her way up the time-worn steps to the attic, she took pause. Long ago,  during his Ouija board days, her brother Rakesh had been curious about the dusty place,  convinced he’d make a fortune discovering some old treasure from the Revolutionary War days,  perhaps with the help of a long-dead resident. Jaanvi, on the other hand, was certain he’d  awakened phantasms bent on vengeance that continued to lurk among the rafters. 

She balanced the baseboard in one hand and opened the diminutive attic door. Greeted to  a burst of stale air, she ducked to enter. She switched on the hanging lightbulb, taking a quick  look around the disheveled, crowded space, rife with creatures with more than four legs and God 

only knew what else. Boxes were strewn in every direction, some stacked together in a seeming  attempt at organization, others solitary and uncategorized. Making sure that the baseboard  cleared the door, Jaanvi veered slightly to the right and navigated her way to the far side of the  attic where she laid the material against the wall. She’d hardly been there for a few minutes, and  the place was giving her the creeps. Eager to make an exit, she didn’t notice the stack of  precariously perched boxes behind her, colliding squarely into them and losing her balance. As  she tried to right herself, three boxes promptly slid off one another and crashed on to the floor.  All manner of photographs, knick-knacks, baubles and trinkets came spilling out. 

“Damned ataxia!” she muttered, cursing everything from her utter lack of coordination to  her half-baked idea to paint the house to the unkempt nature of her attic, and then chiding herself  for breaking her ten-day expletive-free streak. 

She shook her head, surveying the mess. This would take forever to clean up. She had  planned to have a full, home-cooked dinner ready for Gautam and the boys when they got home  from Varun’s basketball game; instead, as usual, she’d barely have a pot of water boiling before  they arrived. Some mother she was. 

She crouched down and began to shove the wayward whatnots back into the boxes, still  scolding herself. Initially, she gathered the photos from the floor without paying much mind to  their provenance. Turning one of the images over so it was right side up, she realized she was  holding a black-and-white photograph. It had to be old—very old—judging by its creased,  yellowed edges. In the snapshot were three women, two white and one Indian. Their arms were  locked around one another and they wore generous smiles, as if the image had been captured  right after one of them had cracked a private joke. Jaanvi couldn’t help but smile as well. The  friendship between them seemed to jump off the vintage photo paper.

She dropped to the floor into a seated position, dust bunnies scurrying from under her,  painting project and dinner entirely forgotten, as she studied the Indian woman more closely.  Jaanvi felt like she was looking at a replica of herself; the only distinguishing difference was that  the woman in the photograph wore a diminutive golden ring in her nose and a bindi on her  forehead. In the background Jaanvi noticed a bricks-and-mortar building bearing a sign that read  “London School of Medicine for Women”. She looked at the back of the image and noted a  scrawled inscription: “Kalyani, Emma and Elizabeth. London 1928”. 

Jaanvi turned the photo over and stared again at her doppelgänger. 

Kalyani? Could this be the same Kalyani she’d heard mentioned a few times over family  get-togethers—the long-lost aunt that nobody in the family seemed to know much about? What  was she doing posing in front of the London School of Medicine for Women? 

Jaanvi shook her head. Honestly, she never paid much mind to the old Joshi family lore.  She wasn’t sure how much of the stories to believe, and unlike the other laboriously detailed  Joshi yarns, this one was rarely discussed and exceptionally vague. Jaanvi scratched her head.  Was it possible that Kalyani had attended medical school in London back in 1928? Jaanvi would  have assumed that women, especially Indian women, wouldn’t have been allowed to in those  days, but here was photographic evidence of an entire school dedicated to women in pursuit of  just that line of study. 

She scrutinized the image again. There was something about the aesthetic, something  about the vitality memorialized in the exposure that mesmerized her. She thought about the skill  of the photographer who’d taken the snap. They’d not only considered the lighting, symmetry,  and spacing but read the very mood of the moment. Then again, perhaps it was just a matter of  luck. In the vacuous hush of the attic, a wave of nostalgia swept over Jaanvi. One of her 

photography professors in college used to say just that. The most memorable photographs are  usually a matter of serendipity. 

That was a lifetime ago. 

Brushing off her reminiscences, she glanced at the snapshot and then out of the dormer  window. The summer sun was descending languidly, as if it were willing to give her the luxury  of time for more discoveries. But Jaanvi had lost track of the hour. Mirchu and Meetu still  needed to be fed, and then she had to get some semblance of dinner ready for the family. 

She considered the remaining items lying spilled out across the floor and began placing  them back into their boxes, her discovery encouraging her to handle the rest with more care.  Standing up, she took stock of the mess of boxes around her, slid the photo into the oversized  pocket of her flannel shirt, and made her way out of the attic. Apparently, there was more to the  room than dust bunnies, six-legged creatures, and phantasms bent on revenge. Maybe tomorrow  she’d ditch the dirty paint brushes and rollers and come back to explore the eerie alcove instead. Relief washed over Jaanvi. Finally, she had something else to do with her time off.

***

Author Bio

Born near Chicago to immigrants from India, Archana Maniar relocated with her parents to Mumbai at age four. After the culture shock abated, she fell in love with her parents’ homeland until chance brought the family to California. During vacations and family occasions, Mumbai was a frequent destination. She attended college at University of California, Los Angeles where she studied political theory and biology before attending medical school at the University of California, Davis. As a professor of medicine and practicing infectious diseases physician, she was a frontline healthcare worker from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and was deeply involved in health system pandemic preparedness. Always a writer in the margins of her day, storytelling became an obsession during her medical career, a way to process her observations about human nature during health, stress, and sickness. With a stubborn case of wanderlust, when she is not working or writing, she is usually traveling somewhere with her family. The Lost Photograph is her second novel.

Social Media Links

www.ArchanaManiarBooks.com
Instagram – @archanamaniar
Facebook – @Archana Maniar

Purchae Links

###

PICT GIVEAWAY

https://pictbooks.review/GE7ZPOXo

***

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: A Christmas Guide to Family and Murder by Dianne Freeman

Book Description

Frances and George are looking forward to a Christmas season enlivened by all the diversions London can provide. But family comes first, and George’s sister Fiona and her husband persuade everyone to gather at their Norfolk estate for the holiday. The weather will be chilly, but the prospect of snow delights the youngsters. And with blazing fires and invigorating country walks in store, Frances envisions a peaceful, jolly Christmas.

Instead of a picturesque snowfall, however, Norfolk is hit by pounding rainfall and high winds. In the aftermath of the storm, Frances, Fiona, and the children make an unpleasant discovery in a nearby field—the body of their neighbor, dead in suspicious circumstances. Joshua Penhollow was the local doctor, though not a well-respected one. Indeed, most viewed him as a quack, and even his own stepdaughter held a grudge against him.

With the menfolk gone to help clear a blocked road, the investigation falls to Frances and Fiona, who must also curb the young people’s excitement at encountering a real-life murder. Combing through a village full of colorful characters and more than a few suspects, Frances feels any hope of a quiet Christmas slipping away. But more pressing is the need to stop a killer whose heart is as cold as the season . . .

***

Elise’s Thoughts

A Christmas Guide to Family and Murder by Dianne Freeman is an entertaining story about a murder investigated by the main character Frances, her sister-in-law, Fiona and their three children.

The story begins with George’s sister Fiona and her husband, Robert, persuading the Hazelton clan to gather at their Norfolk estate for the holiday. The weather will be chilly, but the prospect of snow delights the youngsters.

Instead of a picturesque snowfall, however, Norfolk is hit by pounding rainfall and high winds. In the aftermath of the storm, Frances, Fiona, and the children make an unpleasant discovery in a nearby field: the body of their neighbor, dead in suspicious circumstances. The victim, Joshua Penhollow was the local doctor, though not well-respected or liked.

All the men of the family are called out of town to help with villages damaged by the storm. This leaves the investigation falling to Frances and Fiona, who must also curb the young children’s excitement at encountering a real-life murder.

The children, Rose, nine years old and her cousins, Grace and Gregory, nine and ten were assigned to write a Christmas story based on Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. The children were resolute in writing a murder mystery. In their story, Scrooge is the victim and the two detectives assigned to the case, named Frank and Georgianna, obviously inspired by George and Frances, solve the crime. They title it “A Christmas Murder” and are excited about the presence of the body in the house realizing they can help with the murder investigation. Frances is dismayed by the children’s enthusiasm for crime-solving at first, but realizes they have some good insight, especially since the village is full of an overabundance of suspects. 

Intertwining the children’s writing of the story with the actual investigation makes for entertaining interludes. This Christmas story has plenty of family, secrets, and investigation. Readers wanting A Christmas Carol turned on its head involving a murder mystery will like this read.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?

Diane Freeman: It was kind of a roundabout way. This was the third book in the series. I’d known for a couple of years that I was going to be writing a Christmas story. And in my mind, I had an image of George and Frances, my main characters, out looking for Christmas greenery and stumbling over a body buried in the snow. But when it came down to writing it, I kind of ran into a problem with weather. 

EC: What was the problem?

DF: At that point, we were in December of 1900, and it was the warmest December on record for the UK. And it was snowing, nowhere. Sometimes, it’s little facts like that that just trip you up. And hopefully you find them while you’re still in the planning phase, like I did. I just kept reading the weather reports and found on New Year’s Eve that year, there was a gale that hit the east coast of England and did a lot of damage. They ended up going out to the countryside in the county of Norfolk, and they were hit by the gale. And everything kind of followed from there. I just moved the gale up by ten days.

EC:  How would you describe Frances?

DF: I think Frances is kind of an amalgam of all the heiresses, because I feel like they really had to be. She’s an American, and her family was new money. They came into money when Frances was about 10 years old. And they moved to New York, where she was raised not really learning how to do any practical things. Her mother raised her to eventually become a countess or a duchess or something of that nature, so she had art, music, and languages, and she knew the events of the day, and could carry on a good conversation. But she didn’t know how to make a cup of tea, or boil an egg or anything of that nature. So, when she became a widow, she was thrust into a whole new situation, especially since her husband has spent all the money. She is gutsy, adventurous, willing to give it a try, with her biggest character trait courage.

EC:  George, her second husband, was hardly in it?

DF: The men were called away because streets were blocked by trees that were felled from the storm, gas works were broken, houses were flooded with the Norfolk coast itself kind of notorious for erosion. It’s been kind of weaning away, and houses do occasionally have to be moved back, because the coastline recedes. It made sense, that the men would have to leave, and I wanted a case where Frances would have to be on her own, because even the police were gone. Frances is my sleuth. And though she and George work together, I occasionally want readers to see that she’s grown. And I thought this was a good situation for that, even though the family and the kids helped her.

EC:  The children did play a role in solving the mystery?

DF: The children wrote the Scrooge story centered around the murder. Only because if Scrooge had been murdered, really, would anybody miss him? And that was kind of the case with Dr. Penhallow. Nobody really liked him. Nobody. But nobody was crying over him. Nobody was really missing him. His wife, to some degree.

Frances would not have wanted them completely involved in the murder, and that was another reason. I had George and her brother-in-law Robert had to leave, because I didn’t want them taking the place of what things that the kids could be doing. They would be really excited to see what happened in a real investigation. So that was really the kind of reason for having them write that story, to get them involved. My initial first draft, I just kept pushing the kids aside, making them do something else. And I thought, ‘This isn’t working. This is a Christmas guide to family and murder. They must be involved in this.’ So, I scrapped that and started over. And the idea of having them write their own story and wanting to do some research worked well.

EC: How would you describe the children?

DF: I have no children, so they’re kind of how I remember being as a kid. Christmas is certainly exciting, but once they had a project that they are involved in, I think that kind of takes over everything. They’re inquisitive, they’re fun, and in the case of Gregory, kind of a little smart aleck. I just think they’re typical 9- and 10-year-olds from my past. In the book there is a quote, “Children think everything is a negotiation and a democracy.” I am pretty sure this is relevant to any parent. 

EC:  What was the role of Christmas?

DH: I wanted this to feel like a family book. To me, holidays are all about family, so even though there are some of them called away, and even though there’s a murder dropped in the middle of it, they kind of carry on.

EC: Is this a cozy mystery?

DF: I always think of it as a traditional mystery, but I think it follows some of the cozy rules. Most of anything gruesome is off the page. There’s no sex, no violence, nothing of that nature. And that tends to be a thing with cozies, which kind of puts a whole other definition to the word cozy, that the victim and the killer usually know each other. Sometimes it can be too cozy.

EC: Why the Victorian era?

DF: I read a book called To Mary a British Lord, and then I saw “Downton Abbey,” and I thought of Cora Crowley. I just thought it was fiction. And then when I realized this really happened. There was a quarterly publication called “Titled Americans,” that you could buy at a newsstand, kind of like online dating, but it would say, what titled gentlemen were available, what titles they held, what land they held, and if they had any money. So that the American family could figure out how to fill this Lord’s need, and then make a deal. Basically, trading money for titles was a big deal. The real heiress Consuelo Yznaga, The Duchess of Manchester, made money, helping other heiresses find their feet once they got into England. This just fascinated me, and I thought to myself, what would this be like 10 years after the wedding? She was quite an amazing woman. 

EC: How would you describe Frances’ sister-in-law, Fiona?

DF: Fiona is the perfect best friend. I wish she were my best friend. She’s fun loving. If you saw her from the outside, you would think she was frivolous. But she really is clever, and she somehow manages to be the person people confide in. So, she tends to know people’s secrets, but she doesn’t tend to divulge them. She’s a very loyal, good friend, and like I said, I wish she was mine.

EC: Next book?

DF: It takes place in March 1901 right after Queen Victoria’s death. The title is A Royal Guide to Secrets and Murder. It’s going to be a fall book of 2027.

THANK YOU!!

***

BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.