Avery Sunshine might not have a soul mate of her own, but she still believes in happily ever after—for her clients. Making dreams come true is her business at Sunshine Bridal, which she runs with her two sisters. When her best friend announces her engagement, Avery is thrilled to take charge of the giddy bride-to-be’s big day. Less thrilling? Her best friend’s arrogant and demanding brother, who just so happens to be the man of honor.
Carter Ross’s first instinct: call 911. He promised to always take care of his impulsive little sister, and he honors that vow. Even if it means taking over her wedding, where he is sure Avery will fail. At best, Avery is unpredictable. At worst, if she’s anything like the spitfire of a college girl he remembers, the main event could run wild.
With Avery and Carter wrestling for control, tempers heat up. So does the spark of attraction they’re fighting with every kiss. As the wedding draws near, it’s time to reconcile a rocky past and make a decision that could change everyone’s lives. Because what they’re rebelling against looks a lot like love.
LOVE ON BEACH AVENUE (The Sunshine Sisters Book #1) by Jennifer Probst is the first contemporary romance in a trilogy featuring the Sunshine sisters who own and run the top Jersey Shore bridal planning business located in Cape May. This first book is an enemies-to-lovers romance with the eldest workaholic Avery always believing her forever love is out there somewhere. An emotional, fun, and sexy start to the trilogy.
Avery Sunshine is excited when her college BFF, Ally, calls with the news she is getting married and she and her fiancée hope Avery can fit them in with little notice for her dream beach wedding. Avery is constantly busy, but she is determined to give Ally the wedding of her dreams. What she does not plan on is Ally’s staid older brother being her man of honor.
Carter Ross has been Ally’s guardian since the death of their parents. He has always put her first and wants her to have the best wedding ever, but he believes hiring Avery is a mistake. Avery and Carter butted heads during her and Ally’s college years and he still sees her as an impulsive and unpredictable influence.
As Avery and Carter battle over every decision and control of the wedding, sparks begin to fly and they discover they want more than just Ally’s happiness.
This is a wonderful introduction to the very different Sunshine sisters. Avery steers the company with an optimistic personality, but her life has become more work than play. Carter knows just how to get her ire up and he becomes just what she needs, for a while, but he has an emotional wall that is difficult to bring down. It is a great back and forth over Ally’s wedding and all the emotional baggage in-between. The secondary characters are funny, supportive, and are a bit of a peek into what I hope are the future sister matchups. I absolutely adored Lucy, Carter’s pampered dog. The dialogue, especially the intense banter between Avery and Carter, is great. The sex scenes are explicit and smokin’ hot while believable to the romance.
I really enjoyed this enemies-to-lovers romance and am looking forward to following the other Sunshine sisters to their HEAs.
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About the Author
Jennifer Probst wrote her first book at twelve years old. She bound it in a folder, read it to her classmates, and hasn’t stopped writing since. She holds a masters in English Literature and lives in the beautiful Hudson Valley in upstate New York. Her family keeps her active, stressed, joyous, and sad her house will never be truly clean. Her passions include horse racing, Scrabble, rescue dogs, Italian food, and wine—not necessarily in that order.
She is the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of contemporary romance fiction. She was thrilled her book, The Marriage Bargain, spent 26 weeks on the New York Times. Her work has been translated in over a dozen countries, sold over a million copies, and was dubbed a “romance phenom” by Kirkus Reviews. She has over fifty books published.
Retired secret service agent Ron Eldon hunts his daughter’s killer, taking on the role of detective in a case that everyone says is suicide. Aided by his ex-colleague Yolanda Reddy, they are confronted by official obstructions, plagued by red herrings, confounded by false information, and tricked by a Russian spy who has history with Eldon from the Cold War. Leaving behind him a trail of bodies and a minefield of revelations, Eldon is beaten and captured before escaping to continue his crusade across London, Bristol, Cornwall, and Yorkshire. Ending with a shocking twist that reframes the story in a new and defining light, this spy thriller delves into Britain’scolonial past, present-day slavery, and Russia’s dirty tricks, uncovering truths that dare not speak their names.
JOVE: A Novel by Jack Davies is an engrossing British espionage/crime thriller mash-up that gives the reader an exciting, action-packed story of a retired secret service father seeking justice for his daughter, Jove, the deception and double cross of British and Russian spies, and a far-right criminal conspiracy.
Retired secret service agent Ron Eldon is sent to identify the body of a young women who is believed to have committed suicide by jumping off the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. The young woman is his daughter, Jove, who is currently a secret service asset who followed her father into service. With the help of an ex-colleague, Eldon searches for information, but with official obstructions, kidnapping, murders, and a Russian spy from his past, Eldon will have to use all his experience to discover the truth and survive.
This novel is written with such intimacy and intrigue it is difficult to put down. As we meet and follow our protagonist, retired secret service Ron Eldon you feel as though he could walk right off the page. Eldon is not a super spy caricature, but a very human man. As you follow him throughout the story, the plot contains many red herrings, twists, and surprises that continue through the end of the book. Being a novel of spies, deception, and misinformation, I was continually guessing if what I was reading and being led to believe was true. The tie-in of the historical subplot of Bristol’s part in England’s slave trade is interesting and added to the questions and suspicions around Jove’s investigations into historical slave holders’ compensation, BLM, and right-wing extremists.
I highly recommend this smart and surprising British espionage/crime thriller mash-up!
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About the Author
Jack Davies is an award-winning writer/director/producer based in London. Writer of published short stories, film scripts and poetry, he was shortlisted for the York Poetry Prize in 2020. He lives in London, UK.
In 1929, twenty daredevil women take to the skies in the most dangerous race of their lives.
Florence “Pancho” Barnes—heiress, rebel, and the most colorful pilot in America—can outfly, outswear, and outdrive any man. When Hollywood tries to turn the first-ever cross-country National Women’s Air Derby into a publicity stunt with movie starlets and their male “mechanics” doing the real flying, Pancho rallies the greatest female aviators of the era to fight back.
Alongside aviation legends Amelia Earhart, Louise Thaden, and Marvel Crosson, these fearless women demand the right to fly solo across 2,800 miles of treacherous terrain in primitive, fragile aircraft held together by glue and prayers. But as the race begins, sabotage strikes. Someone wants these women to fail—or worse.
As increasingly serious incidents mount, the pilots realize they’re not just racing for glory. They’re fighting for their lives and the future of women in aviation. United in their determination to finish the derby, they refuse to back down, watching each other’s backs as they barrel across the country in a white-knuckle race that will determine once and for all whether women belong in the skies.
From high-speed car chases to emergency landings, speakeasy showdowns to courtroom battles, Where the Sky Begins is a thrilling ride through one of aviation’s most dramatic chapters—a story of courage, sisterhood, and the unbreakable spirit of women who refused to be grounded.
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Elise’s Thoughts
Where The Sky Begins by Cindy Dees and Mary Wine will take readers on a thrilling ride emphasizing how women aviators displayed courage, sisterhood, and the unbreakable spirit of those who refused to be grounded. It is a reminder of how these women pilots in the late 1920s had to overcome insults, injustices, and obstacles simply because they were women.
The story is based on the National Women’s Air Derby which took place in 1929. The derby was a race of 20 daredevil women flying from San Bernardino to Cleveland, although the authors concentrated on four: Florence “Pancho” Barnes, Amelia Earhart, Louise Thaden, and Marvel Crosson, But, as the race begins, sabotage strikes. Someone wants these women to fail, or worse die. As increasingly serious incidents mount, the pilots realize they’re not just racing for glory but fighting for their lives and the future of women in aviation. They band together in their determination to finish the derby. Undeterred by the dangerous obstacles thrown at them, they refuse to back down and watch each other’s backs.
This exciting and extraordinary story was brought to the forefront in the novel by Dees and Wine. Readers will turn the pages to discover what could possibly happen next. The afterword is a bonus, explaining which parts are fictionalized and which are true.
***
Author Interviews
Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for this story?
Mary Wine: This is our third collaboration. I was in what’s called WHAM, which is an air museum in the Pacific Northwest. I was walking along in there with its hangars of old airplanes and vehicles and all kinds of bits of history. I enjoy prowling through old dinosaur bones of history. It’s something I really enjoy. I wandered around, and I found this ancient newspaper, and it had a headline that said, ‘Women are naturally handicapped by their dependence on men, and shouldn’t be in the cockpit.’ This was a headline that ran in one of the local papers. I knew I needed to dig deeper. I must know what dinosaur bone this is and when I got the whole idea, I ended up reaching out to Cindy.
EC: What was the writing process?
Cindy Dees: We sat down together and talked out the plot. I am a story structure geek, and Mary has massive experience in the TV and film industry and knows that story structure very well. And, of course, she has written dozens of historical novels and some contemporary stuff. We hammered out the plot. And the plot was kind of written for us by history. But because Mary has a lot of experience writing historical novels, she’s one of those historical writers that gets the historical facts correct. This is unusual, particularly in the romance industry. A lot of the facts are wildly wrong. But she is really gifted at saying, here are the facts. Where is the really good story among those facts? And so, she really, truly found the story. She told me, ‘I think these are the main characters whose points of view are really important,’ and I was like, ‘yep, I totally agree.’ And then we came up with kind of the skeleton of how we were going to cover the race.
EC: How did you narrow down the cast of characters?
Cindy Dees: There were multiple FBI agents and police officers involved in investigating the various acts of sabotage, but we don’t want a cast of a thousand. Let’s create one fictitious kind of amalgam FBI character for that. We also needed some race officials that are acting in bad faith. Let’s just create one.
EC: What was true?
Cindy Dees: We don’t have names of actual race officials that were doing some of the shenanigans but the shenanigans were absolutely happening including the arguments over trying to get the women to land at fields that they were going to crash on because the fields were too short. The argument of how close they were flying to the Mexican border. Those were real arguments. There was clearly bribery happening. I couldn’t tell you who bribed who but it was very clear there was bribery, buyoffs, and payoffs happening for the route of the race. Cities, industries, betters, and all kinds of people were paying to get the race to come through their town. So, Mary did a ton of that research and then we kind of talked through how to amalgamate a lot of that research.
Mary Wine: There was a fair bit of discussion about how to open the book. It took us a bit to find openings and we tried a couple of different openings. We wrote three separate openings to the book. Both of us wanted this to be a filmable opening. An opening sequence that you see when you go to the movies that makes you sit your tail down and stop checking your text messages. I guided the opening to a nice big action scene, and wrote that scene.
EC: Why the four pilots?
MW: We decided because there were so many pilots in this race, over 20 of them, to narrow it down to the story happening between basically four of them.
EC: How would you describe the four pilots? First, Pancho?
CD and MW: They were similar in that they were all passionate about flying, and they were all certainly quite frustrated with the strictures being put on women as pilots. They were four of the strong voices as we did our historical research on the race that spoke out for organizing the women, pushing back against the things that were unsafe, sticking together, refusing to stop the race, and were four of the most dynamic, but that is where all the similarities end. Pancho Barnes was an heiress, big personality, bold personality, and a rebel at heart. Pancho was one of the race organizers. And it’s why she could threaten the boycott that the pilots did. And she was the mouthpiece. She organized all the pilots, and they all agreed to the boycott to make sure only experienced pilots raced. She had that clout, because she was on the organizing committee. She has this big, loud personality. A lot of money and takes no guff.
EC: What about the famous Amelia Earhart?
CD and MW: She was a celebrated pilot, but ‘Lady Lindy’ didn’t fly in that flight over the ocean, that they gave her a ticket tape parade. And believe it or not, Amelia Earhart had a big problem with that. She was the one who called herself a sack of potatoes. She wanted to be in this race because she was going to be at the controls of the aircraft. It was very important to her. This derby was the moment that she got to be an aviator. She was 100% passenger on that famous flight. Amelia was really embarrassed and humiliated by that. The reality is, Amelia at that time was not a particularly experienced pilot. She had crashed a couple of airplanes. She was not considered to be one of the premier aviators of the day, although they all really respected her celebrity and they really appreciated the attention she was bringing to women pilots. They held her no ill will. But they all knew she wasn’t much of a pilot. This was her opportunity to really come out and step into her shoes as a real aviator. She had something to prove. She has a big chip on her shoulder, a big case of imposter syndrome, and then a big tragedy as the race begins, losing her longtime dear friend and mechanic, who died the night the race started in a plane crash.
EC: What about Louise Thaden?
CD and MW: She was by far the most accomplished aviator of all of them at that point. She was the best pilot, and all the women expected her to win the race going in. She was already doing some test flying. She had the first commercial pilot’s license. She was the consummate professional, poised, and self-contained.
EC: Then there was the pilot of who died, Marvel Crosson?
CD and MW: Marvel was young, adorably cute, charismatic, and charming. She was America’s sweetheart material. Even though everybody called Amelia Earhart, America’s sweetheart, because of the Atlantic flight that had already happened, Marvel was setting a lot of records at that time. She was doing altitude records. She recently had set the world altitude record before that race. She was a bush pilot in Alaska, which was known to be exceedingly dangerous. She was kind of the mascot of the race where everybody took her under their wing. Even though Pancho Barnes was only five years older than Marvel, she thought of her as a little sister, and protected her, looked out for her. Everybody felt very protective toward Marvel, even though Marvel was a hot stick pilot.
EC: What role did Blanche Noyes play in the story?
CD and MW: Blanche Noyes, a pilot and an actress was very important in teaching all the women how to be in front of the cameras, and how to give a good interview. Because of her indirectly the name “Powder Puff Derby” came about. The women pilots were getting ready for some press, and they all had brown and black sort of greasy mess all over their faces, sweaty, and then they would take their goggles off and they would have these white eyes staring at you, looking like a racoon. She taught them how to powder around their eyes, to even out their skin tone, so they didn’t look like freaks on camera. After the first race, they were all lined up on a stage and Blanche said ‘everybody, pull out your compacts and powder around your eyes.’ Will Rogers saw them doing it and he called it the ‘Powder Puff Derby.’ It stuck and infuriated the women because it was a derogatory term. It was like calling them petticoat pilots. It was another way of saying arm candy.
EC: Why didn’t the women talk about the sabotage?
CD and MW: They had a pact. They were going to be ladies and they were not going to whine because everybody was waiting for them to whine so they could print horrible headlines about, ‘oh, these poor little women just can’t take it. See, we told you.’ They had a pact that lasted until their dying breath. They never talked about the sabotage. The only time they ever voiced it was during the inquiry meetings. They formed a sisterhood. A scene in the book where Amelia Earhart, busted her propeller. They all waited for her new propeller instead of taking off as they were supposed to get a leg up and winning because she was grounded. They said, ‘We’re here to fly against each other. We are going to wait till you fix your plane, and then we’ll go again.’
EC: What do you want readers to get out of the story?
CD and MW: How to face a challenge. I want people to understand that nothing feels like achievement. I think another really, important theme of the story is what is possible when you work together and you come together as colleagues, respect each other, and bring friendship with hard work. Never refuse to quit, because great things can be accomplished. And this race single-handedly opened the door for women pilots to follow. So, they were really breaking gender walls.
EC: Cindy, did being a former Air Force pilot influence you?
CD: Maybe I would never be a pilot if not for these women. I look at this and I think to myself, these women are amazing. They’re amazing just as they are. And I wanted to write them in full color. I wanted it to be more than a history book. I wanted to bring it out and say, ‘There’s big personalities here.’ These women plowed the road. I see doors where these women were met with walls.I wrote about the flying stuff.
EC: Next book?
CD: The next book on my horizon, will probably be the third Helen Warwick. It’s already sold for television, but that doesn’t mean anything, since I don’t control the timetable or money, all of that is way out of my control.
MW: I am writing a psychological thriller but there is no release date.
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.
Retired librarian Neeti Shah was hoping for a restful life with her chai-loving friends, but when the body of a neighbor, a childhood friend of Neeti’s, turns up dead and the killer’s MO is similar to that of Neeti’s most recent book club read, things start to get out of control.
When Neeti hears a commotion at a neighbor’s house, she finds Rohit’s body sprawled across the bottom of the staircase with Agatha Christie’s Dumb Witness nearby. Blackmailing his neighbors, threatening them with lawsuits, and calling them by nasty nicknames were only some of the hateful things that made him so disliked. But were they angry enough to kill?
Neeti is indebted to her old friend, and she’s determined to find his killer. But she can’t do it alone, so she enlists her mystery-loving friends, the Masala Chai Mystery Club, to get to the bottom of the murder.
But Neeti and her club members need to be careful. As more bodies turn up and more suspects start to appear, they’ll need to find the killer before they end up in hot water!
THE MASALA CHAI MYSTERY CLUB by MJ Soni is an engaging debut cozy amateur sleuths murder mystery which features a cast of multi-cultural characters who come together to solve a murder in their HOA community with the added bonus of descriptions of mouth-watering food from around the world. This is a standalone cozy mystery, but I am hoping it will return as a series with the MCMC (Masala Chai Mystery Club) solving many more cases together into the future.
Neeti Shah has loved reading and books her entire life. She was the head librarian at her local library until she was forced into early retirement. While she feels rudderless without her job, and becoming a widow a few years ago, she does have her niece, Myra and nephew, Ved living with her and wonderful neighbors in her multi-cultural HOA.
As she sits on her porch with her best friend, they hear a terrible scream from across the street and rush over to see what is happening. Rohit, a friend from her childhood in India, lies dead at the bottom of his staircase with his wife nearby. Rohit was not well liked in their community and could be quite mean to his neighbors, but while everyone else feels it is an accident, Neeti feels the scene is not quite what it appears.
Neeti and her mystery loving neighbors form the Masala Chai Mystery Club and with the help of a local police officer begin to gather evidence to prove Rohit was murdered. Will they catch the killer before they strike again much closer to home?
I loved Neeti and her love of reading and books, “real” chai, and how she shared it and many flavorful dishes with her neighbors. As is common with a new cozy mystery cast of characters, especially in a community setting, it takes a bit to get names and descriptions untangled, but it is worth it for the rich cultural mixing pot in this neighborhood. This is a well written debut mystery plot full of red herrings and surprises that kept me guessing and changing my mind on the identity of the killer multiple times. I also enjoyed the homage to Agatha Christie’s The Dumb Witness.
This is an enjoyable cozy mystery read with a great new cast of characters and wonderful food and recipes to try and share.
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About the Author
MJ Soni’s heartwarming debut, the Masala Chai Mystery Club, is to be released in July 2026.
It’s a murder mystery about badass diverse women, featuring a saree-wearing amateur sleuth, warm communities, and a dash of humor, and draws upon her love of the culture and cuisine of her diverse Indian, African, and American background.
She is also the author of DEFYING APARTHEID, her part-memoir about being a doctor activist in apartheid South Africa.
Winter, 1987. Detective Jamie Day arrives in London determined to prove himself. After years policing a quiet seaside town, his promotion to the Metropolitan Police feels like the opportunity he has been waiting for.
But the capital is a very different world.
On his first day in plain clothes, Jamie makes a grim discovery: the dismembered body of a young man, left in a dark corner of the city. What should have been a routine first shift quickly becomes the beginning of a major murder investigation.
Then another victim is found.
As winter deepens, young men are being killed late at night across London, their bodies discovered in eerily similar circumstances. The detectives soon realise they may be hunting a serial killer.
Working alongside a tough and experienced team, Jamie must prove he belongs while navigating the pressures of a high-profile investigation. But as the case grows darker, the killer’s pattern begins to emerge. And if they don’t stop him soon, another body will be waiting in the shadows.
THE QUIET KILL (Detective Jamie Day Book #1) by Robert Bryndzna is the beginning of a new murder mystery series set in 1987 London and featuring a newly minted detective from a small English seaside town thrown into a big city murder investigation with an already cohesive group of seasoned detectives. I was excited to dive into this chilling criminal murder investigation set in the 1980s with a new group of characters from one of my favorite authors and I was not disappointed.
Detective Jamie Day is on his way to his new position as a plain clothes detective in London when he is detoured to go to the location of a discovered dismembered body. Immediately thrown into a major murder investigation, Jamie knows he must prove himself, but he is having trouble fitting into the already tight group of murder detectives. DCI Harry Dean takes him under his wing and helps him navigate his new position, colleagues, and the big city.
Dismembered bodies of young gay men continue to be discovered, and the detectives soon realize they have a serial killer in London. Can Jamie help find the killer and prove he belongs in his new job to his colleagues?
This is a fast-paced, intense introduction to a new group of characters from Mr. Bryndza that kept me engrossed in not only the gritty murder mystery, but also the differences in investigation techniques and technologies from the 1980s. It does not seem that long ago to me, but the differences in criminal investigations and technology have been immense in the last 40 to 50 years. While the killer is known in this story, the chase to catch him is what pulls you in. It is an intense, dark story that highlights the fear and ignorance of AIDS and the immergence of a more open gay culture in 1980s London. The investigative plot is realistic and leads to a satisfying conclusion. I am looking forward to seeing how these characters progress in future books in the series.
I highly recommend this suspenseful start to a new murder mystery series!
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About the Author
Robert Bryndza is an international bestselling author, best known for his page-turning crime and thriller novels, which have sold over five million copies.
His crime debut, The Girl in the Ice was released in February 2016, introducing Detective Chief Inspector Erika Foster. Within five months it sold one million copies, reaching number one in the Amazon UK, USA and Australian charts. To date, The Girl in the Ice has sold over 1.5 million copies in the English language and has been sold into translation in 29 countries. It was nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Mystery & Thriller (2016), the Grand prix des lectrices de Elle in France (2018), and it won two reader voted awards, The Thrillzone Awards best debut thriller in The Netherlands (2018) and The Dead Good Papercut Award for best page turner at the Harrogate Crime Festival (2016).
Robert has released a further five novels in the Erika Foster series, The Night Stalker, Dark Water, Last Breath, Cold Blood and Deadly Secrets, all of which have been global bestsellers, and in 2017 Last Breath was a Goodreads Choice Award nominee for Mystery and Thriller. Fatal Witness, the seventh Erika Foster novel, has just been published.
Most recently, Robert created a new crime thriller series based around the central character Kate Marshall, a police officer turned private detective. The first book, Nine Elms, was an Amazon USA #1 bestseller and an Amazon UK top five bestseller, and the series has been sold into translation in 18 countries. The second book in the series is the global bestselling, Shadow Sands and the third book, Darkness Falls.
Robert was born in Lowestoft, on the east coast of England. He studied at Aberystwyth University, and the Guildford School of Acting, and was an actor for several years, but didn’t find success until he took a play he’d written to the Edinburgh Festival. This led to the decision to change career and start writing. He self-published a bestselling series of romantic comedy novels, before switching to writing crime. Robert lives with his husband in Slovakia, and is lucky enough to write full-time.
Converting the old Beacon Point lighthouse into a bakery is as adventurous as Lindsey cares to get. Her mother, Ellie, a former 80s fashion model, likes her creature comforts even more—until she sees a business opportunity for her Beacon Harbor fashion boutique when she’s invited by the Mitten Kittens Glamping Club on a woodsy getaway.
Far from roughing it, the ladies will be warm and cozy in chic vintage campers. Ellie insists Lindsey come along to win the campfire cookout contest. Campfire cooking has come a long way from bacon and beans. Soon Lindsey is making pizza, berry cobbler, and gooey Carmelita camping bars.
But the festive spirit is soon dampened when a body is found in Ellie’s camper. It seems like an accidental death until everyone’s tires are slashed and it’s clear the glampsite has become a crime scene. With no cell service to call for help, it’s up to Lindsey to smoke out the killer around the campfire . . .
Because no one is out of the woods yet.
***
Elise’s Thoughts
Murder At the CampfireCookout by Darci Hannah will be the last in this series, kind of, because there will be a spinoff. This series is ending, but the characters readers have come to love will be back in a spinoff, still set in Beacon Harbor.
The author had the characters step out of their comfort zones, away from the bakery. Lindsey left her boyfriend Rory at home but also Welly, her Newfoundland dog. Lindsey, her friends Kennedy and Colleen, Lindsey’s Mom Ellie, and Ellie’s friend Betty all go glamping. Far from roughing it, the ladies will be warm and cozy in chic vintage campers and Lindsey was chosen to participate in the campfire cooking contest. The campground is way off the grid. Not long after they arrive, bad things begin to happen. Their cars are vandalized and they are stuck there with no phones or internet. Then one of the campers is found dead and soon everyone realizes it was not an accident.
One of the fellow glampers ends up dead from a sabotaged oven. Lindsey and her friends are determined to put the pieces together so they can escape the horror show unfolding at the glamping site and get home. The women realize they need to find who among them could have done this horrible act. They are also worrying about their own safety since a series of suspicious acts also occurs, adding to the tension.
Readers will get the feeling of a locked room mystery with the claustrophobia atmosphere of the isolated campground, a suspicious death, tires slashed, no phone service, and surrounded by trees and a lake in the woods. Everyone quickly realizes they are stranded in the woods with a killer and before others get hurt or killed, they need to find the murderer, with Lindsey knowing she must ‘smoke out the killer.’
As with the previous books, the ending has a twist, but unlike the others, the tension slowly ratchets up over the course of the story. Since this is a cozy mystery, the tone is lighter than a typical suspense, thriller, or mystery. There are funny moments, but the story also will have readers getting edgy with the feeling of those telling ghost stories around a campfire.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the story?
Darci Hannah: I thought it would be fun to take the girls away on their special trip, and travel to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, which is a very beautiful area. I went to school up there. It’s very remote. I’ve been camping up there when I was younger. And it’s just pristine and gorgeous and very isolated. There’s still some dense wilderness up there. So, I thought I wanted to take them camping.
EC: Why glamping?
DH: I used to work at our library, near my town, gosh, years ago. This woman came in, and she had this old historic license plate, but it had never been registered to a car. It was from 1976. And she asked if we could register it. She said, ‘Well, I’m in a glamping club, and I have a glamper, and I want to put it on that.’ What they would do is get these old Airstreams very cheaply or campers, and they would gut them. She was showing me all these pictures of her camper, that she had renovated. And then they would rebuild them by themselves, or maybe with their husband’s help, and just make them almost like she sheds. I thought I would like to write about this someday. And this was probably in 2018.
EC: What is a She Shed?
DH: A she shed is often converted from a garden shed. These spaces serve as cozy areas for relaxation, creativity, or hobbies, providing a sanctuary away from daily responsibilities, specifically for women. It was just a very feminine space. And so that’s what these things are.
EC: How did you incorporate glamping into the story?
DH: I figure that my characters are kind of fancy girls especially, Lindsay’s mother, Ellie. She’s not the type of person who would ever go camping, but glamping would work. And so, I thought it would just kind of be fun to have them go on this isolated trip, to just get away and work on some new ideas for a line of clothing.
EC: Kennedy, the best friend, also went on the trip, but seemed out of place?
DH: She is one of those city gals who is overconfident, a diva, overwhelmed where she is right now. High maintenance, likes to be the center of attention, impatient, obstinate, foolhardy, and brazen. And she’s also a loyal friend. She is just so loyal to Lindsey. That’s why their friendship works, because she’s opposite of Lindsey. And in this story, she can’t deal with their situation.
EC: What about the stalker?
DH: They are the motivation behind everything that’s going on. They have a driving need to connect with the person they target. wanting to be a part of their lives through manipulation and controls. It’s a one-sided attraction. But a stalker doesn’t believe it, because they’re delusional.
EC: How does the setting play a role?
DH: I want the reader to be submersed in this beautiful, almost pristine environment. It’s almost like a closed room murder, with a finite number of people, and then, there could be somebody out there. So that’s always a danger in the woods. You don’t know who’s out there. You don’t know what’s out there. You don’t know what animals are around us who’ve been in that area.
EC: Why didn’t you have Wellington, the dog, go with them on the trip?
DH: If I brought Welly, he would sniff out the murder right away. Dogs know things. They have senses and so I didn’t want to cheat. I had to make it tough for the characters. and uncomfortable so they would push themselves to these limits.
EC: Is this the last in the series?
DH: Yes, because the publisher decided it, probably when I started this book. These books came out in mass market but bookstores do not want to carry mass market. And it’s very heartbreaking, because the reason this series ended was strictly because of the format. They told me if I wrote another one, that the bookstores would not carry it, and if the bookstores aren’t going to carry your book, there would be a loss of sales.
EC: So, what about the next book?
DH: It will be a spinoff of this series: same character, same setting, and they didn’t give me much to go on. They wanted what I’m writing, but they wanted it with just a new hook, so they could remark it and repackage it. And so, finally, one day, I thought the next logical step would be just branching Lindsey into catering. There will be a little bit of a break before the next book. It’s going to be the same type with just a little different spin. I hope it works. It’ll be a trade paperback.
THANK YOU!!
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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.
