Huge-hearted Abby loves dogs — and doesn’t think twice about swerving to avoid an adorable terrier in a country lane. Or following along, when the troublesome pup goes darting off into a local vineyard.
But she never expects where the runaway dog is leading her — straight to a corpse!
Clementine Courtenay, elegant matriarch of the May Valley Vineyard, lies floating face-down in a stream.
The police say she must have slipped and drowned. But Abby’s not so sure.
As rumors begin to swirl amid the tangled vines, Abby realizes that no one in Clementine’s inner circle is quite what they seem.
Between jilted lovers, greedy offspring and bitter rivals, Clementine kept her friends close and her enemies closer still . . .
What secrets will Abby find — fermenting in the darkest corners of the Courtenay family cellar?
It’s up to Abby to solve the case before this sweetest vintage turns sour .
MURDER IN THE VINEYARD (Maybridge Murder Mysteries Book #4) by Liz Fielding is another wonderfully engaging addition to the cozy Maybridge Murder Mysteries series featuring an English horticulturist, wife and mother who seems to always find herself embroiled in a murder. This book can be read as a standalone, but the protagonist’s family and all the Cotswolds characters continue to evolve, and I have enjoyed the entire series in order of publication.
Abby Finch finds herself swerving into a hedgerow after barely missing a small terrier that has darted in front of her car. It is wet and trembling, so she puts it in her car to begin the search for its owner. She meets the woman who runs the local dog rescue, Fancy Day, and discovers the dog was homed to Clemintine Courtenay, who is from an old money family and owner of the May Valley Estates Vineyard. When they go in search of Clemie, they find her lying face down in a stream dead. While Abby has questions, the police feel there is no foul play involved.
Abby promises her new husband she will not get involved, but there are rumors and questions that do not add up. Clemintine was entangled in family greed, drama, and rivalries as well as hiding her own secrets. When another body turns up in the same location, Abby and her friends work to untangle the twisted family vines.
I enjoy this series and Abby’s adventures every time I get a new addition to this series. Abby and her family and friends continue to engage me in every outing. Ms. Fielding’s writing of the character interactions and friendships make me feel as though I could walk right into the story and be a part of the group. Scout the terrier’s journey to becoming a part of Abby’s family is a wonderful addition to the story. The mystery plot in this addition to the series is very smartly interwoven with current and generational family secrets, plenty of red herrings, and the always present horticultural tie ins that I enjoy reading about.
I highly recommend this entertaining addition to the Maybridge Murder Mysteries series.
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Author Bio
Liz Fielding worked as a secretary in Africa and the Middle East and was co-ordinator of the Brecon Jazz Festival before writing full time. Her books are published worldwide in multiple languages, she has won the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA award for both The Best Man & the Bridesmaid and The Marriage Miracle and in 2019 was honoured with an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Romantic Novelists’ Association in the UK.
She is now writing cozy crime for Joffe Books and her first Maybridge Mystery, Murder Among the Roses is available now.
In the 1920s, archeologist Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon of Highclere Castle made headlines around the world with the discovery of the treasure-filled tomb of the boy Pharaoh Tutankhamun. But behind it all stood Lady Evelyn Herbert—daughter of Lord Carnarvon—whose daring spirit and relentless curiosity made the momentous find possible.
Nearly 3,000 years earlier, another woman defied the expectations of her time: Hatshepsut, Egypt’s lost pharaoh. Her reign was bold, visionary—and nearly erased from history.
When Evelyn becomes obsessed with finding Hatshepsut’s secret tomb, she risks everything to uncover the truth about her reign and keep valued artifacts in Egypt, their rightful home. But as danger closes in and political tensions rise, she must make an impossible choice: protect her father’s legacy—or forge her own.
Propelled by high adventure and deadly intrigue, Daughter of Egypt is the story of two ambitious women who lived centuries apart. Both were forced to hide who they were during their lifetimes, yet ultimately changed history forever.
DAUGHTER OF EGYPT by Marie Benedict is an informative as well as an engaging dual timeline historical fiction novel featuring a young English woman in search of the tomb of a female Egyptian Pharaoh and the life of said Pharaoh from research and the speculation of an author whose books continually satisfy.
Lady Evelyn Herbert grew up listening and learning about the wonders of Egyptian archeology from her father, Lord Carnarvon, and Howard Carter, the archeologist who ran Lord Carnarvon’s digs. Evelyn becomes obsessed with Hatshepsut; finding her lost tomb and discovering why she was nearly erased from history 3000 years previously.
In the 1920s, Evelyn is allowed to accompany her father and Carter to Egypt. While there is disappointment in their first attempts to uncover Hatshepsut’s tomb, they finally make headlines around the world with their discovery of Tutankhamun’s intact burial chambers.
In the second timeline, Hatshepsut tells her story and even though she reigned over a time of peace and prosperity, she was nearly erased from all history. Her bold and visionary rise as a female pharaoh took political and religious maneuvering, but not all accepted her reign.
This is a compelling take on the lives of two strong, ambitious women who lived centuries apart. I knew nothing about Evelyn accompanying her father and Carter on the digs, so I found that very interesting. I love reading and learning about ancient Egypt and the pharaohs and I found Ms. Benedict’s resolution to Hatshepsut’s story as acceptable as any others I have read about previously.
Ms. Benedict consistently brings one or both of her compelling female protagonists out of the shadows and to readers’ attention. Overall, this is another entertaining historical novel that taught me something new.
***
About the Author
Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years of experience as a litigator, who found her calling unearthing the hidden historical stories of women. A graduate of Boston College and Boston University School of Law, she is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of DAUGHTER OF EGYPT, THE QUEENS OF CRIME, THE MITFORD AFFAIR, HER HIDDEN GENIUS, THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE, LADY CLEMENTINE, THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE ROOM, CARNEGIE’S MAID, and THE OTHER EINSTEIN. She has also coauthored with Victoria Christopher Murray the New York Times bestselling THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN, a Good Morning America book club pick, and THE FIRST LADIES, Target’s 2023 Book of the Year — and with Courtney Sheinmel, THE SECRETS OF LOVELACE ACADEMY. All have been translated into multiple languages, and many have been selected for national book clubs. Writing as Heather Terrell, Marie also published the historical novels The Chrysalis, The Map Thief, and Brigid of Kildare. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for FATAL PATTERN (The King Legacy Book #2) by Kate Angelo on this Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, and excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links, and a PICT giveaway. Enjoy!
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Book Description
A COVERT INVESTIGATION
A stalker attacks behavioral analyst Dr. Tori Crew at knifepoint, shattering the fierce independence she’s built since her parents’ unsolved murder. Forced into an off-the-books criminal investigation, Tori must push her expertise–and her fiercely guarded heart–to the breaking point as a killer’s pattern emerges.
A LOOMING THREAT
Homicide detective Blade St. James has been Tori’s friend and protector since childhood. Haunted by his own past of parental abandonment, Blade is determined to build a stable life and find the peace that always seems just out of reach. But when Tori’s life is threatened, his guardian reflexes collide with everything he’s been trying to build.
A HIDDEN MENACE
As the conspiracy rooted in Tori’s past pulls them deeper, the boundaries of their friendship blur, and the truth neither can deny becomes impossible to ignore. Can they unmask the sophisticated serial killer before they become the final, fatal piece in the pattern?
In this gripping romantic suspense thriller, Kate Angelo delivers pulse-pounding psychological suspense and forensic investigations threaded with slow-burn romance and a heart-stopping cold case.
FATAL PATTERN (The King Legacy Book #2) by Kate Angelo is a fast-paced, emotional roller coaster of a Christian romantic suspense that delivers more answers tied to the over-arching criminal conspiracy plot from The King Legacy book #1, Girl Lost, and a new romance between two members of the previously introduced group of friends. I recommend reading book one first because of the large amount of crossover between the two books.
Dr, Tori Crew has a stalker. Detective Blade St. James has been Tori’s protector since childhood when they were taken into Stryker’s Warriors program for troubled and or delinquent children. As the stalker escalates, Tori and Blade receive information that this may all tie back to Tori’s childhood and the murder of her parents.
The conspiracy is even deeper than they imagined. Her parent’s deaths are leading them to clues that grow into a serial killer investigation and conspiracy in local law enforcement agencies that tie into organ harvesting which almost got their friends killed previously. But who can they trust, and will their discoveries lead them to the killer or their own deaths?
This second book in The King Legacy series is full of surprises and twists. The characters and the over-arching suspense plot from book one around a criminal conspiracy involved in organ harvesting keeps the plot moving with an ever-increasing sense of dread and peril. The killer’s fascination with fractals made an interesting, and to me, unique plot point. Both Tori and Blade had not only a serious investigation to solve but also had to face many of their childhood traumas to move forward and move from friendship to couple. The romance is a slow-burn romance with no sex scenes due to this being a Christian romantic suspense. The author ties the scripture verse in the preface of the story to the denouement perfectly and does not make the reader feel as if they are being preached at throughout the story. There are still more questions to be answered, and I look forward to reading more books in this series.
I highly recommend this thrilling Christian romantic suspense addition to The King Legacy series.
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Excerpt
1
THE COLD EDGE OF THE BLADE kissed Tori Crew’s throat, drawing a rivulet of blood that began its descent down her neck. “Don’t move.” The whisper brushed against her ear. Tori tasted bile at the back of her throat, and for one horrifying moment, she thought she might throw up. Her pulse thumped against the knife pressed to her carotid. Each beat reverberated through the steel and deep into her bones.
The parking lot at the Kingdom MMA Gym stretched dark and empty around her. It was her stupid idea to meet at 4:30 a.m., and now here she was all alone. No witnesses. No help.
Stryker should be here. Setting up folding chairs in a circle near the boxing ring, brewing that industrial- strength coffee that could wake the dead, preparing for morning Bible study with the kids who lived in the residential program.
But Stryker wasn’t coming.
Stryker lay unconscious in a hospital bed, his salt-and-pepper hair loose around his pale face instead of tied back the way he always wore it. Some lunatic had tried to kill her mentor. One of the greatest men she’d ever known, and now—
The blade pressed deeper. “I said don’t move.”
Her knees wanted to buckle, but she locked them straight. Stryker had taught her that. Stay strong. Stay focused. The fighter in her knew what to do. Elbow to solar plexus. Heel to instep. Grab the wrist. Twist. Three seconds and he’d be on the ground. But he had the knife pressed just right. She couldn’t make a move without him slicing through a major artery. One wrong angle, and she’d bleed out before she hit the pavement. She forced her breathing to slow. Fought the adrenaline that wanted to flood her system and make her do something stupid. Assess. Analyze. Act.
The mantra from Krav Maga training steadied her racing thoughts. Observe first. Plan the attack. Strike when the odds shifted.
“You’re bleeding.” His breath was hot against her neck. “I’ve always liked the color of blood.”
She cataloged details. Male. Less than six feet tall, based on the angle of the knife. Maybe 5′9″. Right-handed. Gloves. No discern able accent. No alcohol on his breath. Not impulsive. Calculated. Educated.
He drew in a breath. “Such a pretty shade of red, don’t you think?”
“Who . . . who are you?” She worked to keep her voice steady despite the tremors threatening to overtake her body. “I’m the one who watches. I’m your . . . shadow. A part of you.” His free hand clamped around her chest, crushing her arms against her ribs. The blade pressed deeper, stealing her breath. “You’ve been busy. Two new cases, six trips to the gym, and you changed your coffee order to vanilla instead of caramel.”
Her stalker. The one who’d been leaving notes on her car. The one who’d been calling and hanging up. The one the police wouldn’t pursue because the “non- violent harassment” apparently didn’t meet the threshold for a credible threat.
He’d been watching everything.
Her stomach twisted, not with fear— she could handle fear—
but with fury. “You think that makes you powerful? It makes you pathetic.”
The knife pressed deeper. Not enough to do serious damage, but enough to elicit another drop of blood. His gloved finger caught the droplet sliding down her neck, then traced it back up to the wound.
“Ah. We mustn’t lose too much. Not yet.”
She analyzed his posture. The way he held the knife. How his chest rose and fell against her back. “What do you want?” “To show you that I can kill you anytime I want.” His laugh was soft, almost tender. “This is just the beginning, Dr. Crew. I’m not done toying with you yet.”
Fight instinct coiled through her muscles, but her mind weighed the odds again and overrode them. Information. Get information. Every criminal had a pattern, a motivation. Understanding him meant catching him. And catching him meant ending this night mare.
She strained her eyes to the right, trying to catch even a sliver of his face in her peripheral vision. “Why me?”
“Because you think you understand the darkness,” he said. “But you don’t. Not like I do.”
A pair of headlights sliced through the blackness, white light stabbing her retinas. The blade lifted from her throat. She spun, fist cocked for a power jab at his face, but she only struck air. Gone. The coward had melted into the shadows along the wall, black clothing swallowed by the darkness as he disap peared into the alley beyond. Her chance—blown. She could have ended this right here, right now. Could have put him down and dragged answers out of him. Instead, she was standing here bleeding while he slipped away like the roach he was.
A car screeched to a halt beside her. The driver’s door flew open. Detective Blade St. James erupted from his unmarked Charger with his hand on his holstered weapon. “Tori? You okay?” Her fingers went to her throat and came away sticky with blood. She stared at the crimson smear. A savage anger bubbled up inside her chest. He’d touched her. Cut her. And vanished like smoke.
“What the—” Blade’s eyes widened at her blood- slick fingertips. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s just a scratch.” Her knees felt shaky. She’d had every skill and training to handle situations exactly like this, and she’d let the stalker get the drop on her.
“What happened? Who was that?”
“My stalker.” She pressed the cut to stem the bleeding. “Stalker?” His voice rose in disbelief. “What stalker? Since when do you have a stalker?”
“Three weeks, give or take.” A crimson droplet had dropped on her knuckle. Perfect. Round. Like a bead of glass. “I’ve always liked the color of blood.”
Ice slid through her veins.
“And you didn’t think to mention this?” Blade had his phone out. “We need to call this in. Get you to a hospital.” “No.” She caught his wrist. “The locals are aware, but you know stalker cases. Nothing they can do.”
“Tori, he had a knife to your throat.” His voice ticked up. “That’s attempted murder.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is that simple. Let’s do this right. Get an officer out here. Take your statement, photos, dust for prints, canvass witnesses—” “There are no witnesses at four thirty in the morning!” She swept her arm toward the deserted street and empty parking lot. “And he wore gloves, so no prints. We’ve got nothing.” “All the more reason to report it. You say this guy’s been watch ing you for weeks, and now he’s crossed the line to physical assault. He’s escalating.”
“You think I don’t know that?” She dropped her hand from the cut and stormed over to Blade’s car.
***
Author Bio
Kate Angelo is the Publishers Weekly bestselling author of Hunting the Witness, Selah Award winner of Deadly Holiday Hijack, and Amazon Top 100 bestseller of Driving Force. Kate works alongside her husband championing stronger marriages and families. Her journey from foster care to bestselling author fuels her fast-paced romantic suspense, where flawed characters discover hope and healing through life’s fiercest trials and relationships. When she’s not putting fictional people through the wringer, she’s out creating real-life happily-ever-afters at conferences and events nationwide.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for DARKNESS FALLS (A Detective Nathan Parker Novel Book #5) by James L’Etoile on this Partners In Crime Virtual Blog Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links, and a PICT giveaway. Enjoy!
Book Description
Not all darkness flows into the Valley of the Sun from our southern borders.
Detective Nathan Parker discovers a double murder in a Phoenix drug lab, and all the evidence points at a connection to his son, Miguel. Was his adopted son swept up in a drug rip-off and murder? Did he play a role in the distribution of illicit designer drugs in the valley? As authorities close in on Miguel, Parker discovers a border militia group rushing to control the drug flow. The Night Watch militia leaves of trail of violence in their wake and local politicians use the shadow of the scourge of drug violence to influence an upcoming election. Who stands to gain while Parker and his family are caught in the crossfire? Who will betray them?
Genre: Thriller / Police Procedural Published by: Level Best Books Publication Date: August 25, 2026 Number of Pages: 350 ISBN: 978-889203313 Series: A Detective Nathan Parker Novel
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My Book Review
RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars
DARKNESS FALLS (A Detective Nathan Parker Novel Book #5) by James L’Etoile is another edge-of-your-seat police procedural/crime thriller featuring Detective Nathan Parker with the Maricopa Sheriff’s Department. While each book in this series centers around a new criminal investigation, this series has main characters that I feel are as significant as the plot and continue to evolve in each book. I suggest reading the series in order of publication.
When Detective Nathan Parker is called to the scene of a double homicide in an isolated trailer, at first glance it appears to be a tragic but not uncommon drug related murder. As he and his partner search the trailer, a familiar backpack is discovered. It belongs to his adopted son, Miguel. Now it is personal and Nathan must discover if everything he believes about his son’s life is true, even as he believes Miguel is not telling him the whole truth.
Miguel becomes a suspect in the murder investigation with DEA and ICE involved which could lead to Miguel losing everything. Nathan must deal with rogue DEA agents, crooked members in his sheriff’s department, white supremist biker gangs, and anti-government militias to fight to not only save Miguel but his pregnant wife, too.
This story has a fast pace and tension level that will keep you reading well into the night. Mr. L’Etoile never shies away from controversial and/or difficult topics that are related to our southern border and immigration. Money, power, and corruption, and all the alphabet agencies give this plot plenty of twists and surprises along the way with an ever-increasing sense of apprehension. Nathan needs the assistance of all his friends to solve this case and protect his family even as he faces a betrayal too close to home.
I highly recommend this thrilling addition to the Nathan Parker series and cannot wait for more!
***
Excerpt
Chapter One
Sucking stale air through a respirator, John Thomas Mitchell finally found his niche. He dropped out of high school because it wasn’t his thing. The teachers said he wasn’t being challenged. Truth was, John Thomas left because he’d learned what he needed to make it on his own.
Most of the people he interacted with only knew him as the Birdman. If you wanted the best high, the Birdman was the source. He wasn’t a drug dealer; he was a connoisseur—a brand ambassador of pills.
“J.T., I got another five hundred bagged and ready,” a reedy voice said through his respirator.
John Thomas pulled the lever on his manual pressing machine, one of his own design, and twenty white, perfectly pressed pills dropped out, each embossed with his own logo—a Blackbird in flight.
“We need another thousand for the college this weekend. It’s pledge week, Cal.”
John Thomas tapped the plastic container, shaking loose the snow-colored powder residue from the sides, and monitored the loose material as it flowed onto the dimpled steel plate where it would be formed and pressed into the coveted Blackbird doses. The perfect blend of Ecstasy and opiate.
A hard knock on the trailer’s thick metal door reverberated through the old single-wide.
John Thomas and Cal exchanged a glance through drug powder dusted goggles.
“Cops?” Cal said.
John Thomas glanced at his watch. “Cops don’t knock. Must be our boy coming to pick up. He’s early. Get it would ya? I’m in the middle of setting up the next press.”
Cal scooted back from the workbench and placed the plastic-wrapped bundle of pills on the cheap folding table set up in the middle of the stripped-down trailer.
The knock at the door sounded again. This time, it came harder and rattled the heavy doorframe.
“All right, all right, I’m coming, dammit,” Cal said as he slid the two bolts that secured the door.
The moment he threw the door aside, a thundering blast echoed in the small space. Cal flew back against the far wall, a crimson blossom leaching through his t-shirt.
John Thomas fell out of his chair, and two gunmen, both dressed in black, wearing full-face respirators, stepped into the trailer. John Thomas crabbed backwards on the floor trying to distance himself from the gun-toting pair.
The closer of the two leveled a black shotgun at him.
John Thomas blanched. He looked away from the gunman. “Take it. Take what you want.” He held his hands up—submissive and cowering.
The gunman tipped his head to his partner, who stepped over Cal’s body and stuffed the bags of finished pills into a black nylon zippered duffle.
When the pills were tucked away in the duffel, the man backed away. The gunman didn’t lower the shotgun.
“You got what you came for. I won’t tell nothing,” John Thomas said. His voice thin and quivering.
Over his pounding heartbeat, John Thomas heard the gunman’s reply.
“I know you won’t.”
A flash from the muzzle and an ear-splitting roar filled the trailer. John Thomas lay sprawled on the floor. The gunman slung the shotgun over his shoulder and stepped around what was left of John Thomas’s head and grabbed the heavy pill press, dumping the powder that hadn’t been compressed on the floor.
He backed through the door and took a last look inside before his partner tossed in a plain blue backpack. They closed the metal door and jogged to where they’d parked their dark blue Ford F-150 pickup.
The pill-laden duffel went into a hardcover case. The gunman took less than a minute to strip down the pill press and remove the plates that formed the pills with their unique Blackbird signature logo. The two steel plates tucked into another hard case, and the mechanical parts of the press were tossed into a thick copse of creosote brush.
After the cases were secured in the back seat, the men got in, started the truck and backed away.
The gunman pulled his respirator off and tossed it into the back seat. His blue eyes fell on his cell phone he’d stashed on the console. He scanned it while driving on the rutted, washboard dirt road and dialed 911.
“911, what’s your emergency,” a voice sounded over the cellphone.
“Hey, I just spotted a pack of illegals busting into a trailer out near Vulture Mountain west of Wickenburg.”
“How do you know they were undocumented?”
“You can tell, and I heard gunshots.”
“What’s your name?”
The gunman hung up and handed the phone to the passenger, who slipped out the SIM card, snapped it in half and tossed the bits out the window.
“How long you figure it’ll take them to find the place?” the passenger said.
“Not long.”
The gunman pressed down on the accelerator toward Phoenix.
***
Author Bio
James L’Etoile uses his twenty-nine years behind bars as an influence in his award-winning novels, short stories, and screenplays. He is a former associate warden in a maximum-security prison, a hostage negotiator, and director of California’s state parole system. His novels have been shortlisted or awarded the Lefty, Anthony, Silver Falchion, Macavity, and the Public Safety Writers Award. Illusion of Truth, Sins of the Father, and Darkness Falls are his most recent novels. James also serves as the Executive Vice President of Mystery Writers of America.
New parents Holly White and Sheriff Evan Gray are sleep deprived but incandescently happy to be celebrating their baby’s first Christmas. Their family, friends, and neighbors are spoiling the newest addition. Adding to the perfect holiday season is the recent completion of their newly built home. All that’s left to do is move in and send off those change-of-address cards. But their cup full of cheer turns sour when Holly discovers a dead body.
It all started with a sweet trip down memory lane—Candy Cane Lane and Toyland were two of Holly’s favorites as a child, and she had been looking forward to sharing them with her baby. Then she stumbled upon the body of Greysen, the animal keeper, left among the reindeer at the petting zoo.
Earlier in the day, Holly witnessed a fight between Greysen and a stranger. Stranger still, the reindeer petting zoo had originally been empty that day—no reindeer in sight until they reappeared along with a corpse.
As Holly fights to keep the Christmas spirit alive, she is Greysen’s only chance at justice—and her baby’s only chance at a happy first Christmas.
DECK THE HALLS WITH BOUGHS OF MURDER (Christmas Tree Farm Mystery Book #7) by Jacqueline Frost is back for a highly anticipated annual holiday visitation with Holly, her family, and friends in Mistletoe, Maine and of course the annual murder. This is a series that I recommend is read in order of publication because the lives of the characters are continually evolving and they make this series so endearing that you want to follow their lives besides also including a good cozy mystery murder.
Holly White-Gray and husband Sheriff Evan Gray are sleep deprived but looking forward to their baby, Joy’s first Christmas in their newly built home on Holly’s family’s Christmas Tree Farm. Holly has been doing her best in her attempts to stay out of other people’s intrigues, but as she is taking Joy on her first trip to a childhood amusement park, she witnesses an argument. When she and her sister-in-law return later to look for the family heirloom gloves Joy lost, they discover one of the men from the argument dead in the reindeer pen.
No matter how hard she tries, Holly “The Gumdrop Gumshoe” is once again in search of a killer even as the stakes are so much higher this year with a new baby to keep safe.
I love this cozy mystery series so much and while the amateur murder investigation is always well plotted with plenty of red herrings, it is the wonderfully endearing characters that I look forward to catching up with every year. The love of family and friends, the settings, and the time of year puts you in the mood to celebrate yourself. While a murder is investigated and solved in each book, the author is still able to instill humor and fun throughout with witty dialogue and the Reindeer Games on the tree farm.
I highly recommend this enchanting addition to the Christmas Tree Farm cozy mystery series and look forward to many more to come.
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About the Author
Jacqueline Frost is a mystery-loving pet enthusiast who hopes to make readers smile. She lives in rural Ohio with her husband and three spunky children. Jacqueline is a member of the International Thriller Writers (ITW) and Sisters in Crime (SinC).
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for AVALON MOON by Michael Amos Cody on this Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links, and a PICT giveaway. Enjoy!
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Book Description
In Avalon Moon, a local man has gone missing and then is soon found dead in a highland meadow, side-by-side with an unknown woman. When another man and woman go missing and a female deputy is found murdered, Gabriel Tanner, editor of Runion’s weekly newspaper, and Plumer Reeves, a reclusive local hawkshaw working for the niece of the first dead man, suspect a monster is hunting in their western North Carolina mountains. Two extraordinary young women, the Avalon community’s Ariel Anderson and Lonesome Mountain’s Livvy Goforth, join Tanner and Reeves to lead the attempt to discover and stop the killer.
Genre: Psychological Horror, Thriller Published by: Madville Publishing Publication Date: May 19, 2026 Number of Pages: 340 ISBN: 9781963695670 (ISBN10: 1963695674)
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My Book Review
RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars
AVALON MOON by Michael Amos Cody is an atmospheric Southern Gothic genre mash-up that seamlessly blends horror, mystery, suspense, and crime thriller into a book that captivates and engages.
Gabriel Tanner owns, edits, and writes for the local paper in Runion, North Carolina. As he is putting information about a missing woman in the paper, he is called to photograph a crime scene. What he discovers at the scene are the remains of a man and a woman. At about the same time, a young mountain woman, Livvy Goforth, has asked Plumer Reeves, a local hawkshaw, who finds missing things, including people, to find her uncle, who she knows is dead. More people disappear and the community begins to realize they have an unknow killer in their mountains and everyone must work together before more end up dead, including themselves.
Set in the mountains of Madison County in western North Carolina and featuring a mix of social class protagonists, this author’s writing pulled me right into the intensifying suspense, and beauty of the location. Paranormal elements and folklore traditions are woven throughout the plot, but do not overtake the plausibility of the crime plot.
I am very glad to have joined this book tour, because I probably would not have been aware of this book otherwise and that would have been a terrible shame. I highly recommend this Southern Gothic mash-up genre book and hope many more people discover it!
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Excerpt
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
ONE
Gabriel Tanner
“Editor of and chief contributor to a country weekly” never made my top ten list of things I wanted to be when I grew up. For the longest time, I had only one item on that list—Rock Star! I toyed with adding a second item, maybe being just a hit-making songwriter, but the songwriting I did throughout the 1980s was so closely bound up with the Rock Star! idea that I couldn’t pull the two apart. If I didn’t become the next Bruce Springsteen, which I didn’t, I was unlikely to become the next Bob McDill—ditto on the didn’t.
So, with the Rock Star! phase of my life gone grumbling into my dreams, I left Nashville in the hot gut of August 1990, retreated, tail between legs, to Runion, my hometown in the North Carolina mountains, and the following January entered Runion State University, where I double-majored in English and Journalism. I took a part-time job as student reporter and all-around grunt for Sheldon Dean’s Runion Recorder. A couple years after I graduated, Sheldon decided he was tired of writing and offered me a full-time position as editor, keeping only the title of “General Manager” for himself. I accepted.
And so it came to pass that on a cold evening in early March, on the darker side of twilight, I drove toward the Lonesome Mountain end of Genesis Road, planning to swing around the back way into Runion. On regular mornings going to work, or any other time I was in a hurry, I drove down to the French Broad end of Genesis and took the river road up a short hill and onto Main Street, but I was dreading two hours minimum of sitting in a meeting at the Madison County Cooperative Extension Office complex, housed in the recently renovated Old Mill on Mill Street, and taking notes for a regular report to appear in next week’s paper. The room would be stuffy with heat and humanity, and to be honest, I was lollygagging.
This year’s March was looking like a lion-lamb version—in like a lion, out like a lamb. We expected to wake up the next morning to some serious snow and ice courtesy of Winter Storm Ulysses. The fields on my left and the woods on my right seemed to hold their breath in anticipation.
I rolled to a stop at the T-intersection where Genesis Road dead-ends at Jewel Hill Road, with Lonesome Mountain ahead and to my left, dark against the sky. My new Honda hybrid sat quietly, and still not used to its workings, I thought it might have died but relaxed when no warning lights appeared. Even though the temperature was in the upper thirties, I opened my windows and—with no other traveler sitting at my bumper and politely honking, as our mountain folk do—sat at the intersection with my eyes closed and my skin alive to the chilly air. I heard a few of last summer’s still-tethered leaves shivering in the boughs overhead and something scurrying through the underbrush in the woods off to my right. I think I could’ve engaged the emergency brake and gone to sleep, but I opened my eyes, suddenly uneasy and unsure why.
The headlights shown across Jewel Hill Road and lit the lower part of a hillside pasture beyond. A few head of cattle midway up the slope stood at the edge of the light and grazed on pale grass.
Not one to be unnerved by a bovine presence in the twilight, I strained my senses to catch and identify what raised hairs along my forearms and around the back of my neck.
To my left, a field rolled away in successive swells toward a wooded ridge standing blackly against the sky. Runion lay on the other side of that ridge, but somewhere between the town and me, yips and cries rose from the gathering dark. These joined together into an eerie howl of various voices that twisted around one another, broke apart, and swelled together again.
Coyotes.
When I was growing up in these mountains, coyotes existed only in old TV westerns. But they were voice-over actors only, strictly behind-the-scenes. They were soundtrack features. Technicians of ambiance. Nothing said a cowboy was alone in the darkening wilderness like the distant howl of a coyote. The cowboy would raise his eyes from the campfire and sit still and listen for a moment, alert to the wild. But it was never the coyote itself that frightened him. Maybe the coyote’s cry was a reminder of his loneliness and vulnerability—that if such a critter could be out there in the dark, then anything could be out there.
But in recent years, coyotes had loped out of the faded glory of Hollywood’s western and into our world, maybe crossing the Mississippi around Memphis and moving steadily east across Tennessee until they reached Appalachia and Runion. They were seen trotting along the edges of regional four-lanes or lying dead on twisting mountain highways. They stole cats and small dogs just beyond the lights of back porches. That evening at the stop sign, they yipped and yapped and cried somewhere out on the verge of a Runion farmer’s field.
Still, I thought, at least they aren’t wolves. Wolves, of course, were a different story. Send up the howl of a wolf into the night, and the cowboy would become focused on the beast, not on loneliness or vulnerability. The wolf’s howl menaced, threatened. Eyes might shine at the edge of the campfire’s light, followed by snarling close-ups. Then enter the legend of the wolf mixed with a man, and the beast achieved cinematic glory, jumping genres from westerns to horror, something coyotes could never quite pull off.
When I pressed the accelerator, the Honda whispered to life, and I turned left toward town. If I sat there much longer, I would be late for the extension meeting, during which one item on the agenda just happened to be related to the beasts of my T-intersection musing. . . .
***
Author Bio
Michael Amos Cody is author of the 2017 novel GABRIEL’S SONGBOOK and the 2021 collection A TWILIGHT REEL, winner of the Short Story category in the Feathered Quill Book Awards 2022. His 2025 literary suspense novel STREETS OF NASHVILLE won the Thriller category in the 2026 Independent Press Awards. His new novel, released in May 2026, is the psychological thriller AVALON MOON. Cody lives with wife Leesa in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and teaches early American literature and creative writing in the Department of Literature and Language at East Tennessee State University.
