Tag: #psychologicalthriller

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Murder Your Darlings by Jenna Blum

Book Description

Simone “Sam” Vetiver is a mid-career novelist finishing a lukewarm publicity tour while facing a deadline for a new book on which she’s totally blocked. Recently divorced, Sam is worrying where her life is going when she receives glowing fan mail from stratospherically successful author William Corwyn, renowned for his female-centric novels. When William and Sam meet and his literary sympathy is as intense as their chemistry, both writers think they’ve found The One.

But as in their own novels, things between Sam and William are not what they seem. William has multiple stalkers, including a scarily persistent one named The Rabbit. He lives on a remote Maine island, where his writer life resembles The Shining. And when writers turn up dead, including from The Darlings support group William runs, Sam has to ask: Is it The Rabbit—William’s #1 Stalker? Another woman scorned? Can William be everything he seems?

***

Elise’s Thoughts

Murder Your Darlings by Jenna Blum has the author venturing into the thriller genre. Formerly known for her historical novels, she still maintains some semblance by making her female lead, Simone “Sam” Vetiver, a historical novelist. This suspenseful novel had love, grief, and revenge.

Readers meet Sam who is finishing up a book tour while searching for some ideas for her next plot. She then receives a fan letter from best-selling author William Corwyn who shares the same publisher. She is appreciative of his offer to help her write the next novel but refuses. Instead, she decides to give up everything for the right man. And it appears William is that man. They start out as friends, but it moves quickly to a steamy relationship. Yet, something does not appear as it seems. Although William at first seems like a dream come true, as time goes by the relationship becomes less promising and sentimental.

To add to their woes William has an obsessive stalker who he dubbed the Rabbit. She appears to have Sam in her cross hairs. Through some investigation Sam is wondering if her loneliness led to trusting the wrong people.

Readers take the journey with Sam as she tries to navigate her different emotions and wonders who really has a dangerous obsession. Told in the perspective of the three characters: Sam, William, and the Rabbit, people begin to realize things are not as they seem, wondering who the good guys are and who are the bad guys.

The plot is riveting and will have readers not wanting to put the book down.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Is it true you interviewed Holocaust survivors?

Jenna Blum: Yes, for many years for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, I interviewed about sixty survivors starting at the age of 23.  Because I was so young they asked I interview couples, survivors who met each other in the concentration camps, displacement camps, overseas, or when they got to this country. What really struck me is that they did not talk about it much with each other, keeping that part of their life under wraps. I am grateful to be a part of the project. The skills that I got from this would lend itself well to interview survivors of any trauma. I learned how to extract dramatic stories with the least amount of damage possible. In fact, I would be honored to interview Israeli survivors of October 7th.  

EC: Turning to your current book why a thriller?

JB: This is my first thriller. I am known for historical fiction. I had this story about murderous writers in my head, pushing the ideas for the historical novel away.

EC: Was there a difference between writing thrillers and historical novels?

JB: It was a such a joy to write a thriller because I did not have to do any historical research. In writing thrillers, I felt like I was putting together a puzzle. All I had to do is unpack my life since I have been a career writer since I was sixteen. I married my own experience with the publishing world and a mid-life women writer at the crossroads. It was so much fun to write.

EC: Being a writer did you worry about writing about writers?

JB: Yes, I thought am a cheating and cannibalizing my life. Then I read this plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz and called her. I asked her if she got any pushback when she started writing thrillers. She told me to write it, and this is the result. Sam’s life is exactly mine. She is so me in terms of her writing experience and existence, including putting my apartment in the novel.

EC: How would you describe Sam?

JB: She is sweet and hopeful. In the beginning of the book, she is despondent because her career has not gone as she hoped. She is trying hard to be optimistic.  Sam is a survivor of a traumatic background, so she does not trust her own instincts, which makes her wildly co-dependent.  She is vulnerable, desperate, and is looking to do something different. I think Sam is also charming, reserved, paranoid, funny, and tenacious.  She is nuts in the way a lot of writers are nuts, spending most of her time with imaginary characters.

EC: How would you describe William?

JB: I think he is hilarious. He is a malignant narcissist. The only research I did for the book is looking up what is a malignant narcissist. I find narcissist characters have a view of themselves that is ironclad and is not the way the rest of the world sees them. It makes William amusing and frightening to watch. He is a terrible cad. He is chauvinistic, charming, unreasonable, egotistical, moody, arrogant, ambitious, lonely, and a bully.

EC: What is the role of the “Darlings?”

JB: William sees himself as the “giver.” It is a support group for other writers. He helps people by bringing them together in the community.  People can see through them what writer’s obstacles are like. This shows him as having an altruistic and philanthropic side. I am hoping this helps to build a nuance portrait of him.

EC: What about the relationship between Sam and William?

JB: He manipulates her so much and she allows that to happen. Readers might want to say to her, ‘snap out of it.’ She is totally co-dependent. I am also in recovery for co-dependency. I am hoping through Sam’s actions readers who are co-dependent do not feel alone and see there are ways around it. Other readers might want to shake her and to say to her, ‘can you not see this guy is terrible for you.’ Through Sam I wanted to shine a light on this issue. The relationship is 100% dysfunctional, following a traditional narcissism cycle of love bonding, disappointment, the person being dumped, and then that person being pulled back in. Narcissistic and co-dependent people often complement each other.

EC: Why name the stalker Rabbit?

JB: William uses that name because the person has a terrible over-bite and does not have very many lovers. This is a moment when his misogyny is completely on display, being so judgmental. My favorite line is when the Rabbit reveals her real name.

EC: What do you want to say about the Rabbit?

JB:  I love the Rabbit. I had the most fun writing her and William.  She is gritty, determined, loves books (her saving grace), she has determination, and speaks truth to power.

EC: Next book?

JB: I want to stay in the thriller lane with three ideas rolling around in my head. I realized that when I wrote historical novels I always wrote about sex, death, and catastrophic events.

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.

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Strangers in the Car by C.M. Ewan

Book Description

Late at night…

Abi and Ben are driving home down foggy country roads, arguing about having had to cut short their weekend away when they take a wrong turn. Abi’s driving, but her eyes leave the road for a moment as she says something to Ben – just as he gasps. A man is in front of the car, waving a torch. Abi swerves to avoid him.

You see a family stranded…

Ben tells her they should stop and go back, but Abi refuses. It’s dark, the roads are isolated and they don’t know this stranger. But, as Abi continues on, they see a broken-down car. Every instinct is still telling Abi to drive by, but then she notices the woman holding a car seat with a baby in it.

Would you stop?

For a moment, Abi hesitates, but they can’t leave a mother and baby on the side of the road. Agreeing to give the family a lift, they set off again. But now these strangers are inside their car and it might be the worst mistake they have ever made…

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/228646255-strangers-in-the-car?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=2Hrt3LXQo1&rank=1

***

Elise’s Thoughts

Strangers in the Car by C. M. Ewan will take readers on a roller coaster ride.

The plot has Abi Foster and her boyfriend Ben Simmons driving home, having cut their weekend vacation in Cornwall short due to a crisis at Ben’s law firm. They are arguing about cutting the weekend short when Abi misses a turn in the foggy country roads.  They spot a stranded family with a young baby whose car has stalled.  They learn the father is Paul, the mother is Samantha, and the baby is Lila.  They offer the family a ride to Bristol but offering them a ride takes Abi and Ben down a treacherous road. It seems Paul has a lot of gambling debts and is trying to avoid the bad guys. At this point the story is told from three different perspectives with dual timelines. The author weaves in flashbacks from Samantha and Paul’s events from prior in the day.

This is a story where readers will think of the idiom, no good deed goes unpunished. The story is intense from beginning to end and people will be on the edge of their seats.

***

Author Interview

EC: How would describe Abi’s boyfriend, Ben?

CME: He insists on doing the right thing. He is responsible, law-abiding, a  middle of the road guy. He is also innately selfish.  Ben is tested throughout the story where he wakes up to realize Abi’s priorities must be his priorities. He was a complacent character living in his own world inoculating himself from the trauma Abi has been going through. This entire situation forces him to grow up, mature, and confront these things.

EC: Why write the timelines in the style of going backwards when the time is given and the current situation when there is no time?

CME: The Abi and Ben’s story is the essence of the plot and is played out in real time fashion. The excerpts with the time are from earlier in the day until the car breaks down. In the book there is a point where both timelines come together. It did not occur to me to put time markers in the main thread, which is what is happening now. The Abi and Ben timeline is a real compressed timeframe, while the hitchhikers backstory of Samantha and Paul is spread over many more hours during the day.

EC: How would you describe one of the hitchhikers, Samantha?

CME:  She was an accessory to the crime of what Paul was doing and complacent. She is Paul’s wife who is troubled.  She is a cowed wife to Paul who is a very dominant figure. She is a mystery.

EC: What about Paul?

CME: He is mean, complicit, jealous of Samantha’s family’s money, frustrated, terrorizing, violent, unstable, dangerous, antsy, unpredictable, and frustrated. He was a bully and not that smart. He is very self-serving.

EC: How would you describe the bad person, Collette?

CME: She is a psychopath, ruthless, uncaring, money hungry, violent, a planner who is deceitful, a liar, dangerous, and evil. She is an expert criminal.

EC: What was the role of baby Lila?

CME: She is a baby to be protected.  Lila is the reason Abi does everything she does because she wants to protect all children. This is also true of Samantha. The theme of most of my books is how far would someone go to protect those they love, especially children. Lila is needed for everything to make sense and is the driver for Abi to become the heroine she does not know that she is.

EC: Next book?

CME: It is titled Eye Spy. It is a contained thriller set on the Eurostar high speed train from Paris to London. A father travels home to his wife with his four-year-old daughter and his teenage stepdaughter. His younger daughter says she spied a bad man on the train with the family.  It will be out in March 2026 on Amazon.

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 Tour/Feature Post and Mini Book Review: Crime Writer by Vinnie Hansen

CRIME WRITER

by Vinnie Hansen


September 22 – October 17, 2025 Virtual Book Tour

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for CRIME WRITER by Vinnie Hansen 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 Promoamp giveaway. Enjoy!

***

Book Description

In the peaceful California coast city of Playa Maria, CRIME WRITER ZOEY KOZINSKI joins a local police officer for a ride-along in hopes of breaking through her writer’s block. But during a routine traffic stop, the cop is shot, the victim of a brutal homicide.

Zoey realizes she is the only witness and the number one target on the killer’s hit list. PTSD kicks in, sending her into a tailspin. It doesn’t help that she lives on an illegal cannabis farm and that her estranged mother has just arrived. Even the police officer’s widow points a finger at the writer, claiming she was a distraction, and the police department knew it.

Lurking on the fringes is a man who stopped briefly at the crime. Good Samaritan or sinister suspect? For her safety, Zoey needs to find out.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/240145337-crime-writer?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=bguNasUCCB&rank=1

Crime Writer

Genre: Suspense
Published by:  Level Best Books
Publication Date: September 9, 2025 (ebook)
Number of Pages: 266 (paperback)
ISBN:  979-8-89820-027-5 (paperback)

***

My Mini Book Review

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

CRIME WRITER by Vinnie Hansen is an immersive crime thriller where the reader knows who the killer is and what he is doing to cover his tracks, but the interest, twists, and action are all centered around the protagonist, a crime writer and musician named Zoey Kozinski.

The red-headed and feisty Zoey witnesses the murder of the police officer she is doing a ride-along with during a routine traffic stop. The killer knows there is a witness and the drug trafficker he works for tells him he must eliminate her. With PTSD from the incident, the arrival of her estranged mother she has been hiding from, the cop’s widow who blames Zoey and wants revenge, and a man who appeared at the scene of the crime and keeps popping up in her life, Zoey needs to unravel what is happening and who to trust before she ends up dead.

This story starts out appearing to be very straight forward, but the more you learn, the more twisted and anxiety inducing the story becomes. Zoey is interesting and Ms. Hansen’s writing brings her to life with all her problems. The ending was not what I was expecting, but it is satisfying. For me, this was an interesting change in perspective from the usual crime thriller/police procedural mystery.

***

Excerpt

One

Day 1 – early evening

Heat from the Mobile Data Transmitter radiated onto Zoey Kozinski’s arm. The interior of the patrol car cooked, muggy and close. September brought the hottest weather to the central coast of California, anxiety about fires flaring as the oak leaves curled and undergrowth crisped. Thankfully, Officer Austin kept the windows of the patrol car open even as the sun started to set. 

“Must be boiling with your vest.”

“Better to sweat than bleed.” Austin’s profile was sharp angles, pointed nose, strong chin.

“How much does that thing weigh?” Zoey already knew, but the officer didn’t seem talkative. She needed to crack the façade and dig out some grist to apply to Officer Horne, the character in her book. Her stalled, barely-started book.

“Six pounds.” 

Officer Austin rolled along Scenic Drive, a main thoroughfare through Playa Maria County. Zoey wished they could listen to music, something to go with driving on a sultry evening, maybe Ella Fitzgerald’s “Summertime.” Instead, the police radio spat information, filling awkward silence. Zoey jotted down that a list of stolen cars was tucked on the left side of his dash. She’d chosen a night shift, hoping for a modicum of action but nothing on the radio stirred Austin’s interest. 

“How do you feel about ride-alongs?” She flipped her legal pad and the printed-out opening pages of her manuscript winged to the floor. All two of them. A whopping three hundred ten words. She bent down to retrieve them.

“It’s part of our Community Policing.” Austin kept his focus forward. “To increase civilian awareness of what police work entails.”

She didn’t bother to write down the canned response. 

Austin must be a rookie to receive the crappy assignment of hauling a ride-along, but he didn’t look like one. Silver highlighted his short hair. Older than her fictional Officer Horne. Her protagonist Horne should be young, freshly free of his training wheels, a more credible character to rush toward a terrible mistake after witnessing the shooting of a fellow officer. 

In the margin of the legal pad, she scribbled: A hot-head. Temper=hubris. Too eager to prove himself? 

Then she wrote Stan and put a question mark after it. The name of the murdered officer in her manuscript had appeared in a magician’s puff of smoke, typed by her fingers before she was conscious of a choice. Not a common name for guys of her generation, the lost kids born between Generation X and the Millennials. The name had merit—easy to pronounce, but not overly used. Why had it popped into her head? 

She slipped her pen through her tangle of red hair and scratched her scalp.

Austin shot her a glance, maybe thinking she didn’t know she was using the ink end. 

“Writing off the top of your head?” 

She smiled slightly. Witty for a police officer. 

He quirked a brow. “Making headlines?” His tone was dry. No smile. Was he being funny or busting her balls?

Zoey tapped the legal pad. Her next question wasn’t on it, but Austin’s age and his quips begged for it.

“What did you do before becoming a law enforcement officer?”

Long fingers curled around the wheel, maneuvering the vehicle through the rush-hour clog of Scenic Drive. He scanned the lanes of traffic and sidewalks long enough that she thought he wasn’t going to answer.

“I was a teacher.”

“Really?” Her voice squeaked with unveiled surprise. Heat rose up her face. With her coloring, there was no playing off a blush. When she was a kid, her Grosse Pointe classmates had pinned her with the nickname Tomato.

“High-school history.” In the parking lot, he’d offered a firm handshake and introduced himself formally as Officer Austin, although he’d added with a trace of humor ‘at your service.’ Over six-feet with ropy muscles, he was a bit old for her, maybe forty-five, but a hottie, nonetheless.

“That’s a strange career trajectory.”

“Not really. In both jobs you deal with a lot of young punks.”

As part of the outreach program, he probably was not supposed to refer to members of the community as punks. She was making progress.

“In policing I bet you have more flexibility about how you deal with punks?”

His lip curled, but he didn’t respond.

“So why the career move?”

“In teaching, the more you work, the less you’re paid,” he said. “Police work offers time-and-a-half for overtime. Ten-hour shifts and four-day work weeks. More money and time for my family.” 

“Kids?”

“Three.”

She felt a twinge of disappointment. Her sex life had been reduced to her Magic Wand, and Austin wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, so a bit of fantasy had slipped under her normally guarded door. Since she didn’t want a relationship, a hot cop could be the ticket. Married killed that idea. 

And three kids! With the world’s exploding population and global climate change, that was self-indulgent. One of her least favorite character flaws—in reality. In fiction, it was a great character flaw.

“My wife’s the one who should have made the career move to cop,” Austin volunteered. “She’s a tiger. Can outshoot me.” He shook his head in admiration.

Another twinge. She had a serious weakness for men who complimented women in absentia. 

Zoey touched the cool metal of the AR15 propped in front of the passenger seat. “This is some serious fire power.”

The creases in his uniform lifted infinitesimally, a hint of a shrug. “You should see what they have on the street.”  

She ran her finger down her list of questions. Nothing so far had gotten the juices flowing. “What kind of handgun do you carry?” 

“Smith & Wesson. Officers with more seniority get Berettas. The most senior officers have Glocks.” Jealousy tinged his voice. “But if you want a better gun, you can buy one. I’m looking at a Glock.”

The crackling voice of dispatch relayed a report of a middle-aged black male dealing drugs in Playa Maria Park. 

Austin swung off Scenic onto a street that cut along the seedier edge of downtown, where the homeless population dwarfed the number of university students. He slowed at the park. 

Dusk had sifted into darkness, but streetlights illuminated the perimeter of the grass. Young men played basketball in a well-lit court. A lone man leaning against a light pole straightened at the cruiser’s arrival. Austin put the windows up, parked the car, and plucked a wood baton from the base of his door. “Remain in the vehicle.” 

Another patrolman rolled up and joined him. She noted details. Suspect’s dreadlocks glisten in bluish light. Tan pants bag around skinny legs. 

Austin questioned the man, while the other officer patted him down and dipped into the pockets of his army-fatigue jacket. With the window closed, Zoey sweated. 

In the end, the man bumped away and swaggered toward the basketball court.

Talking together, the officers watched him, then turned in the direction of the vehicle. Austin nodded. The other man laughed. They were talking about her. The inside of the cruiser steamed like a sauna. Austin was letting her marinate in a patina of sweat.

Zoey opened the passenger door, which prompted Austin to step toward the cruiser. Before he plopped into his seat, he thunked his baton into its spot. 

“I asked the suspect if we could search him and he said no,” he started before Zoey even asked. “But he has a Search Clause.” Austin cleaned his hands with foam sanitizer.  “That’s a bargain he made for probation. He relinquished his right to probable cause.”

She scribbled the information. This was good stuff, strengthening her knowledge of the law. 

“But you didn’t find anything?”

“Maybe he sold out.”

Dry humor. Deadpan delivery. Her favorite. To curtail a blush, she cast her eyes to the pocket of his door.

“Don’t most officers these days carry whip-batons?”

He gave her a look. 

Amazing eyes—way greener than her own. He yanked the baton from its spot and held it across his lap, the top grazing her thigh. 

Phallic symbol, for sure. The air inside the car shifted subtly.

“See all those nicks?” he said. “My T.O. gave this to me, said the riff-raff on the street notice the dents. They’re mostly from getting in and out of the car, but hey,” he returned the baton to the door pocket, “they don’t know that.”

He gave his hand a second squirt of the sanitizer. “I tell you one part of this job I don’t like. The grime. You’d have to get up close to appreciate how much that guy . . . how grubby he was.” Austin started the car. “Tell you the truth, I’m more afraid of an accidental needle poke than a gunshot.”  

“Was he dealing?”

“I imagine.” Austin put down the windows. Fresh air rushed into the compartment. “He doesn’t have any other means of income.”

The radio called Austin to roust a panhandler near the entrance to the freeway. Civilian complaint. Austin zoomed back up to Scenic. At the intersection before the freeway entrance, he stopped at a red light with the rest of the traffic. The girl panhandling on the median spotted the cruiser, folded her sign, and meandered down the sidewalk.

Austin turned and rolled along the street across from the girl. In spite of a curvaceous figure packed into tight jeans, with her wavy brown hair hitched into pigtails she looked all of fifteen. The girl ignored them. 

Zoey twisted toward Austin. “Are you going to stop?” 

“She’s not doing anything illegal now. She didn’t even jaywalk.” He sped up. “We got her off the median.”

“Yup. Sure did.” He knew, and she knew, that as soon as they were out of sight, the girl would return to her spot. 

How do they negotiate spots? She wrote. First come, first served? 

If she asked Austin about the girl—did he know her—what was her story—she sensed he’d blow off the questions. The police department had picked the wrong officer to give ride-alongs. Austin lacked a gregarious, empathetic personality. 

Zoey tried to unpack how she’d arrived at this conclusion. Maybe because he’d chosen policing over teaching. Police work had to be more frustrating than high school teaching, certainly less rewarding.

***

Author Bio

A Claymore and Silver Falchion finalist, Vinnie Hansen is the author of the Carol Sabala mystery series, the novels LOSTART STREET, ONE GUN, and CRIME WRITER, as well as over seventy published short works.

She is a member of Mystery Writers of American, Sisters in Crime, and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. A retired high-school English teacher, she lives with her husband and the requisite cat in Santa Cruz, CA.

Social Media Links

www.vinniehansen.com
Amazon Author Profile
Goodreads
BookBub – @vinnie5

Purchase Links

Amazon – https://pictbooks.tours/BbIBvA5Y

Goodreads – https://pictbooks.tours/7Y6wWGfA

PICT Tour Page – https://pictbooks.tours/nmCGXK98

PICT Giveaway Page – https://pictbooks.tours/zVgaCSjk

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PROMOAMP GIVEAWAY

https://www.promoamp.com/c/crime-writer-by-vinnie-hansen

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Watch Your Back by Terri Parlato

Book Description

Accidents happen, no matter how careful or well-intentioned you are. Psychiatrist Eve Thayer frequently reassures her patients of that fact. There are even times when accidents have good consequences—like when Eve met her now-husband, Nathan, at his collision shop after another car ran her off the road.
 
After a whirlwind courtship, Nathan and Eve have settled into domestic life. They have a lovely home on a quiet street, a beautiful baby girl, and even the perfect babysitter to care for her. And yet, something isn’t quite right.
 
The stress in Eva’s life is mounting, both professionally and personally. Though the clinic where she works has been remodeled since its notorious days as an institution for the criminally insane, she feels increasingly uneasy there. And in her own neighborhood, a break-in at a nearby empty house hasn’t helped, either.
 
Detective Rita Myers hasn’t yet figured out whether Eve is a target or a suspect, but every disturbing discovery in this usually peaceful neighborhood seems to revolve around her. Only as a deadly ice storm crashes through does it become clear just how far from perfect Eve and Nathan’s lives really are. And as the cracks in the surface come to light, so do the sinister secrets that lie beneath.

***

Elise’s Thoughts

Watch Your Back by Terri Parlato intertwines suspense, romance, retribution, and redemption in a compelling measure. It realistically shows how young couples handle stress and trying to make ends meet, which can affect their relationship. The main characters’ professions and personal lives play a significant role in the unfolding of the plot.

The two main characters, Nathan Liddle and Eve Thayer, have settled into domestic life after a whirlwind romance. Shortly thereafter they become the parents of a baby girl, Rosewyn. Due to the stresses of her job, they do not have much time together for their marriage with Nathan spending a lot of time taking care of the baby. As a psychiatrist, Eve Thayer has been tapped to lead the medical staff at a new psychiatric center in the Boston suburb of Graybridge, leaving her little time to help her husband with their infant daughter. He decides to seek companionship elsewhere by having an extramarital affair.  The cracks in their relationship become huge after their baby girl is kidnapped from the babysitter’s home and their secrets are revealed. There is a multitude of suspects including Eve, her best friend Rachel, some of Eve’s psychiatric patients, and the babysitter. The detective on the case, Rita Myers, must unravel the secrets and find out who is responsible.

The narrative is told in multiple points of view of Eve, Nathan, and Rita. This helps to make the plot fast paced and intense as well as weaving together the family’s turmoil, the detective’s ability to connect the clues, and the hunt for the culprit.

This plot will have readers guessing all the way through.  The prologue starts the story out with a bang, and it does not let up from there. The author writes very multidimensional characters, and the effective red herrings add to the twisty plotline.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the story?

Terri Parlato: I often start out with writing the characters.  I thought of my children and the young adults who seem to be working very hard with long hours.  They have a hard time balancing home, career, and family. This gave me the idea for Eve and Nathan.  Because I write thrillers, I had terrible things happen beyond the difficulties of life. The villain is out for vengeance.

EC: How would you describe Eve?

TP: She is a psychiatrist who feels overwhelmed.  She is steely, workaholic, quiet, introspective, and wants to control her emotions and keeps them in check.  Growing up she did not get a lot of warmth and nurturing, especially with her father cheating.

EC: How would you describe Nathan?

TP: Protective, attentive, down to earth, personable, and puts his child ahead of his own desires.

EC:  Do you think the relationship between Eve and Nathan has gone downhill?

TP: After Eve finds out Nathan cheated on her she becomes very distant, and he takes to drinking and smoking.  He feels very guilty, and she withdraws, becoming angry. Nathan was seeking companionship because he felt so ignored by Eve.  I wanted readers to think about this moral dilemma.  Both had a responsibility to talk it out but neither did, but because of having parents MIA, communicating was harder for them. Being from the social media generation they were not good communicators.

EC:  What kind of parents are they to their young daughter, especially after the child went missing?

TP: Nathan is very indulgent.  For Eve, she loves her daughter but is not sure how to be a mother. She struggles with ‘Am I doing this correctly?’  Then when the child goes missing both worry that the kidnapper has evil intentions. Once the child went missing it magnified the type of parents they had become.  Plus, having a child kidnapped is one of the worst things a parent can go through. It brings out their doubts as a parent and tests them to their limits.

EC: What about Eve’s best friend Rachel?

TP: I wanted her to exemplify how the relationship shifted between Rachel who was single and Eve who is now married. Eve is not as dependent on her. Relationships are difficult and tricky. They used to have good old times as single women.

EC: Was Rita, the police detective, also in other books?

TP: She is in all three books set in this fictional town. Rita is the common thread with her own narrative arc.  She is growing as a character and has her own demons that shows from book 1 to this book, 3. In this novel, Rita’s drawing plays a role in solving the crime.  The first book explained why she draws.  In elementary school, the teacher had her draw something to distract her.  This really worked and helped her to handle her life.  Being the youngest of nine children she lost her brother to leukemia and an older brother to the Vietnam War.  Drawing taught her to deal with her feelings. Now it works with her profession because as a detective she can see clues visually.  It is a coping mechanism that turned into a tool for her detective work.

EC: Is Rita a lot like Eve?

TP: Yes.  Both are lonely, workaholics, and tenacious. I wanted Eve to be a different female lead than in the first two books.  She parallels Rita’s personality in that both have demons and are not sure how to handle them.

EC: Next book?
TP: It will be out March 2026 and is a domestic thriller.  Rita will not be in it.  There will be family drama with a villain who will be causing havoc as well as a murder.

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.

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: The Son’s Secret by Daryl Wood Gerber

Book Description

Maggie Lawson is the smart, capable dean of a boutique college, but even the most confident mother has a weakness – her child. When Maggie can’t reach her college senior son, Aiden, to tell him that his father has been shot, she starts to panic. She texts. She calls.

Is Aiden ghosting her, or have the dangerous stories Aiden’s father, her investigative journalist ex-husband, pursues finally brought trouble to her door? Maggie is sure that something is very wrong, but no one believes her. As dark events unfold, she must rely on her own investigative instincts to find Aiden. But when Maggie uncovers a devastating secret, she faces a race against time to save him.

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Elise’s Thoughts

The Son’s Secret by Daryl Wood Gerber is not the type of story her readers are used to.  Instead of gardens, tea shops, and fairies flying around she has ventured into suspense and mystery. This story explores the complex mother-adult son dynamic.  Parents will relate to the main character understanding the fine line between being hovering to being supportive and caring. Plus, the anxiety that every parent goes through when their children do not answer their texts.

This story has Maggie Larson, now the Dean of a college, trying to notify her son, Aiden, that his father has been shot and is in the hospital. When Aiden does not respond she begins to panic. Since they were close, she finds it difficult to believe he would ghost her, disappearing and disregarding her texts.

She eventually gets her ex-husband, Josh, to believe her and together they investigate what could have happened to their son. As they pursue the disappearance, evidence and then threats pile up, convincing them that something seriously has happened.

This story can be considered a domestic and psychological thriller.  Readers will be put on a rollercoaster ride. There is tension and intrigue that will have people taking the journey with Maggie.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Why this genre?

Daryl Wood Gerber: When I first became a writer, I wrote suspense, but they did not get published.  Finally with the cozy mystery genre I found my voice. Yet, I still wanted to write suspense.  So, I took a couple of the suspense I first had written and re-wrote them.  I wrote outside the norm of the cozy. I had an English publisher put this story out.

EC:  Idea for this book?

DWG:  This story had been sticking in my head for a long time.  It came to me when my son was clerking for a judge in New Orleans.  I thought ‘what would happen if he disappeared, and I could not get a hold of him.’  This is a mother’s worse nightmare.

EC:  Do you think part of the key to this story is the non-response of adult children?

DWG:  Yes! The adult children do not answer their phones, and many times do not answer their texts. It drives me crazy, and I put it in the story.  I would write to my son asking if he had seen my three previous texts and to please respond.  He answered, ‘sorry mom I got busy, and I thought I did.’  Really, he could see if he did. My first fear is that something was wrong because he was not responding.  I do not think I overreact.

EC: How would you describe Maggie?

DWG: A nurturer, hovers, caring, sometimes smothering. She wonders if she is a helicopter mom. When her friend and daughter-in-law tells her she is too much she wonders if she is over-reacting to her son not responding or is she right to worry. She is a complex character because this is a contradiction to her being a dean of a college, and previously an investigative reporter. After her brother committed suicide, her mother checked out.  Maggie promised herself she was not going to be that type of mother and would be dialed in. Her attitude comes from myself who is a mom who does not want to hover but wants to guide because I am older and wiser.

EC: How would you describe her son Aiden?

DWG: He is artistic, creative, and at times emotionally overwhelmed. He is sometimes very tough on himself. After he lost his fiancé, he has become emotionally ripped open for two years. Now a woman comes into his life who he falls in love with. He can be temperamental.

EC: What is the role of Maggie’s divorce?

DWG: Her ex-husband is an investigative reporter. After he had a couple of affairs they got divorced. I had him shot and in the hospital to show that Aiden does not respond to the dad also, never reaches out, even though they are close. Maggie must repair the bridge with her ex so they can work together to find Aiden. He helps to keep her grounded.  They become a wonderful team if the emotional baggage is taken away.

EC: What about the role of suicide?

DWG: Maggie had to deal with it twice in her life.  Once, when her brother committed suicide, and when she had a student commit suicide.  Now she worries if Aiden has committed suicide. This drives the story.

EC: Next book?

DWG: It comes out in October, the first in a new series, “The Literary Dining Mysteries.”  It is titled Murder on The Page.  It is a cozy mystery involving food and books. A caterer lives in North Carolina in the Blue Ridge mountains who was close to the local bookstore owner.  After she were killed, she is determined to find out who did it. Each book in the series will focus on some classic novel. This one will have Pride and Prejudice. The community will have book clubs with food, reading, and dress up.

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.

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Talking to Strangers by Fiona Barton

Book Description

When Karen Simmons is murdered on Valentine’s Day, Detective Elise King wonders if she was killed by a man she met online. Karen was all over the dating apps, leading some townspeople to blame her for her own death, while others band together to protest society’s violence against women. Into the divide comes Kiki Nunn, whose aggressive newsgathering once again antagonizes Elise. 

A single mother of a young daughter, Kiki is struggling to make a living in the diminished news landscape. Getting a scoop in the Simmons murder would do a lot for her career, and she’s willing to go up against not just Elise but the killer himself to do it.

***

Elise’s Thoughts

Talking to Strangers by Fiona Barton is the second book in the series. This one involves three women out for the truth, all will be narrators in the story.

Police detective Elise King is assigned to investigate the murder of local hairdresser Karen Simmons.  Before her death, Simmons ran a singles group called the Free Spirits, and King immediately sets her sights on the men Simmons was dating. The author humanizes the detective by showing how she is trying to cope and recover from a mastectomy and chemotherapy.

Stepping on King’s toes, almost competing with her is Kiki Nunn, a journalist striving to find the big scoop. Considering she interviewed Karen about her online dating she decides to investigate the online dating angle.

Then there is Annie Curtis, who lost her young son Archie sixteen years ago in the same woods that Karen died. Though the police swiftly arrested Nicky Donovan for Archie’s murder, a pedophile who killed himself in custody. Annie is agonized both to feel the old wound being ripped open and to be racked by the unbearable suspicion that Nicky was innocent, and Archie’s killer is still at large.

It is fascinating to see how Barton has all three women come together in the end to help find the murderer.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the story?

Fiona Barton:  This is the second book in the series with my detective Elise King. I had a conversation with a friend who was talking about on-line dating when it started out.  She had a date with someone and sent a map of coordinates.  She was very excited.  I was dubious because I wondered if she was putting herself at risk.  I then spoke to other friends. This is now the new normal of dating. I know of women who met lovely men and got married.

EC: What about the victim, Karen?

FB: She was being judged. There are people who were negative about her dating strangers and thought, ‘what was she thinking. Did she ask for it in a way.’ I hoped to explore this judgement in the book. There is a book quote, from Elise she “hated the fact she was just a number.”  People do not realize there is a person behind that number. It is so dehumanizing.

EC:  What about social media?

FB: It is here and will not be rid of. I wanted to show the effects of social media and how it can be used. The ‘friends’ on social media are usually people that the person does not know and have just popped up.  Communication is more and more on-line.

EC:  How would you describe Elise?

FB:  She is an incredibly ambitious woman.  She is driven.  In book 1, Local Gone Missing, readers see that Elise thought her life was sorted out until her boyfriend dumped her for a younger woman and she discovered she had breast cancer.  Her whole world turned upside down. Elise feels vulnerable and has a fear the cancer will come back. She started to question and is doubting herself. She is battling the physical and emotional side of the disease, which she tries not to acknowledge. Elise is on her own but is lonely.  I think she is a woman in conflict.

EC: How would you describe the journalist Kiki?

FB: She is a single mom.  Because she has a child to raise, she is no longer in mainstream journalism. She is pushy, takes risks, and is always looking for a scoop. Like Elise she is lonely. Kiki cares about Karen and does not see her as a number.

EC:  What role does Annie play in the story?

FB: She is a victim who had her child murdered. Annie tries to put one foot in front of the other, but having Karen die in the same woods as her son has reopened all the wounds. Like Kiki and Elise, she is also lonely even though she is married.  Annie feels she is not heard in her marriage.

EC: Of the three women characters which pushed the case along?

FB: I think they all had a hand in it.  Elise helped it along through her investigation, finding out the information. Kiki took a deep dive into the online dating world.  I think they thought they were stepping on each other’s toes, but they complimented each other. I think they could be friends.  In this book when they were together both saw crisis but could be friends.

EC: Next book?

FB: No title, but Kiki will be featured.

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.