Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: When She Dreams by Amanda Quick

Book Description

Maggie Lodge, assistant to the reclusive advice columnist known only as Dear Aunt Cornelia to her readers, hires down-but-not-quite-out private eye Sam Sage to help track down the person who is blackmailing her employer. Maggie and Sam are a mismatched pair. As far as Sam is concerned, Maggie is reckless and in over her head. She is not what he had in mind for a client but he can’t afford to be choosy. Maggie, on the other hand, is convinced that Sam is badly in need of guidance and good advice. She does not hesitate to give him both.

In spite of the verbal fireworks between them, they are fiercely attracted to each other, but each is convinced it would be a mistake to let passion take over. They are, after all, keeping secrets from each other. Sam is haunted by his past, which includes a marriage shattered by betrayal and violence. Maggie is troubled by intense and vivid dreams–dreams that she can sometimes control. There are those who want to run experiments on her and use her for their own purposes, while others think she should be committed to an asylum.

When the pair discovers someone is impersonating Aunt Cornelia at a conference on psychic dreaming and a woman dies at the conference, the door is opened to a dangerous web of blackmail and murder. Secrets from the past are revealed, leaving Maggie and Sam in the path of a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to exact vengeance.

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Elise’s Thoughts

When She Dreams by Amanda Quick, is a story with lies, murder, blackmail, and drugs. This series takes place during the 1930’s in the small town of Burning Cove, California with some recurring characters.

The opening scene sets the atmosphere for the rest of the plot. Maggie Lodge enters the office of Dr. Oxlade for a session about her lucid dreams. Unbeknownst to her, he gives her a drug called the enhancer. He is hoping to control her dreams, actions, and mind. As Maggie is fighting the effects of the drug, she barely escapes from the office.

Lucid dreams become almost a character in the story. People dreaming are aware that they are dreaming. During the dream someone may gain some amount of control over it to try to become aware of their consciousness.

Maggie must also deal with the fact that someone is blackmailing her employer, Dear Aunt Cornelia, an advice columnist. She hires private eye and former policeman Sam Sage to help find the blackmailer. The investigation leads them to a conference on psychic dreaming where Maggie realizes Dr. Oxlade is also attending. It seems some women who were lucid dreamers are being killed. As tensions rise and the murders increase, Maggie and Sam realize they are in the path of a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to exact vengeance. They enlist the help of the series recurring characters Raina Kirk, a private detective and investigator, plus Luther Pell, to find information that will help to connect all the murdered women.

The relationship between Maggie and Sam is a delight. Their snarky, intimate, verbal fireworks conversations are enjoyable. But they also realize there is a passionate chemistry between them. What they must overcome are the secrets kept from each other. Both are haunted by their pasts.

Once again readers will not be disappointed with this 1930s mystery. This intriguing and suspenseful story is full of twists. A bonus is how Quick intertwined the information about lucid dreaming into the story.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?

Amanda Quick: The story idea comes from the fact that I am personally intrigued with dreaming. One of the most interesting types is lucid dreaming where someone knows they are dreaming. The goal is to control the dream and solve problems that someone could not solve while awake. For example, rewrite nightmares or sad dreams to find peace. This was a hot topic in the thirties. Now on online there are many people looking it up. It is like waking up before falling off a cliff or in my case learning to fly.

EC: There are all types of dreams in the book, what are the differences?

AQ: Lucid dreaming is real. Astral projection is junk science, pure fantasy. It is when someone thinks they can travel in their dreams as their soul moves to another location. Latent psychic senses have someone believing they have a psychic vibe yet are not aware of it. This is also a scam.

EC: How would you describe Maggie?

AQ: Maggie is a lucid dreamer who can control her dreams, which allows her to see things in a different light. She is adventurous, outgoing, and a modern woman. She is very smart, independent, bold, a little reckless, unpredictable, and confident. Maggie wants to do the right thing and wants to find answers.

EC: Why does she have an aversion to marriage?

AQ: She had a very close call when her fiancé wanted to marry her for her money and then he was going to send her off to an asylum. In those days it was not hard to get a woman committed against her will. This is why she is wary of marriage.

EC: Sam Sage versus Sam Spade?

AQ: I did not even try to hide it and had fun playing off the character. I was going for the iconic 1930s hardboiled private eye. My character Sam Sage is much nicer and a lot more honorable. Sam Spade is from The Maltese Falcon, an American icon. I put this quote in the book, Sam Spade is “arrogant, egotistical, narcissistic ass, with the moral code of an alley cat…he isn’t interested in justice…and a lousy detective.” His goal is to prove he is the smartest guy in the room. I wanted my character to be in the same occupation but with better personality traits.

EC: How would you describe Sam Sage?

AQ: He is really interested in justice and doing the right thing. Sam is the classic good guy, very protective. Some people see him as world weary and wise cracking.

EC: What about the relationship between Maggie and Sam?

AQ: They play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses. She is reckless and he is a ‘by the books guy’. They are very passionate about each other. Each sees the underlying strength of the other and trusts each other.

EC: Next books?

AQ: It will be another Jayne Castle Dust Bunny book, a futuristic romantic suspense novel, titled, Sweet Water and the Witch, coming out September 30^th. The next Amanda Quick book is out a year from now, titled The Bride Wore White. A woman wakes up in the honeymoon suite with a dead body next to her. Raina Kirk and Luther Pell have become the anchor characters for the series and will be in every book as cameo players.

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 Book Review: Speakeasy: A Time Travel Novel by Elyse Douglas

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for this first book in a new series – SPEAKEASY: A Time Travel Novel by Elyse Douglas on this Virtual Author Book Tour.

Below you will find a book description, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section, the author’s social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Enjoy!

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Book Description

In 2019, A West Village Nightclub Singer, Roxie Raines, stumbles through a basement doorway into the past and finds herself in Roaring Twenties New York, with all its dangers, secrets, excitement, and romance.

Roxie Raines lurches through a secret basement doorway in 2019, and time-slips back to New York’s raucous Roaring Twenties. While she dazzles the speakeasy crowds with her “modern sound,” she gets trapped in the dangerous web of Frankie Shay, an evil club owner. She struggles to escape his control and return to the basement doorway that sent her to 1925.

When she meets the handsome detective, Jake Kane, it’s love at first sight, but Jake has a secret past, and her own time travel secret makes him suspicious.

Roaring Twenties New York comes alive with flappers, gangsters, romance and speakeasies and Roxie’s stunning rise to stardom could come with the price of losing both the man she loves and her own life.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60592112-speakeasy?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=bpKHMinHIf&rank=1

SPEAKEASY: A Time Travel Novel

by Elyse Douglas

Publisher: Broadback (April 5, 2022)
Category: Time Travel, Historical Fiction Romance
Tour Dates May 3-June 30
ISBN: 979-8423229016
Available in Print and ebook, 375 pages

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My Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

SPEAKEASY: A Time Travel Novel (Book #1) by Elyse Douglas is an entertaining and smart time travel romance set in New York City in 1925. I have read other time travel romances by this author and always enjoy them. While this is the first book in a new series, it does have a complete plot without a cliffhanger.

In August of 2019, Roxie Raines is a struggling singer/pianist who loves performing the old classics. After her performance in Speakeasy, a New York club in Greenwich Village, she follows a local street person who has broken in to the basement and watches him vanish through a blue lit whole in the wall. When she is startled by the bar cat, Roxie falls through, too.

Roxie wakes in the alley behind The Black Cat in New York City in 1925. Roxie finds herself held by a mob boss who discovers her talent. Roxie loves the praise she gets for her performances, but she wants her freedom. She has no connection to the outside world excerpt for the postcards she drops from her hotel room window asking for rescue. She is discovered and rescued by a handsome personal detective and his assistant, but Roxie still does not who to trust with her past. It is 1925 and mob bosses, bootleggers, bribed politicians, and dirty cops are all fighting for their piece of the action.

Can Roxie find her way back to 2019 and does she even want to?

This is a fun romp through New York City in 1925. Roxie is a talented heroine who is capable in the present world, but much more suited to the 1920’s. Jakes’s story just keeps becoming more complicated as more of his personal life secrets are revealed and his dilemma between what he considers the honorable solution versus what he personally wants. The romance progresses at a believable pace and is appropriate to the time-period. The description of clothes, locations, laws, and personal rights was well researched and interesting. The only thing that slightly bothered me was the main antagonist, Frankie Shay, at times seems more of a caricature than a fully fleshed character, but he still fit with the overall suspense plot.

I really enjoy Ms. Douglas’ time travel romances and I am looking forward to seeing where the next novel in this series takes me.

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Excerpt

SPEAKEASY

Elyse Douglas

Twenty-six-year-old Roxie Raines took the subway down to Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village and hurried off in a warm, August rain. It was nearly dark, and the shimmer of streetlights on the wet streets made it seem later than it was. She glanced up to see a tall construction crane, quiet now but surely swinging about during work hours. Another high rise? Did New York City really need another luxury high rise? There was an “old” part of Roxie, a part that longed for the old New York she’d seen online and in old black-and-white movies, before the glass towers, the needle-pointed, multimillion-dollar condos, and the encroaching chain stores took over.

Cars splashed water, taxis honked, and a thin, dripping pan handler shook his chipped cup for loose change, little mumbles moving his lips.

Roxie glanced at him and thought it odd that he wore retro clothes, scuffed wing-tipped shoes, slacks with no crease, a matching suit coat, and an open collar white shirt. His old-fashioned, gray fedora was tilted right, low over his brow, and a large mole on the left side of his nose helped give him a menacing look. Still, she felt compassion for him. He seemed strangely out of place under the yellow smudge of light from an overhead streetlamp, and he seemed utterly lost in the lonely, silver rain.

Fumbling with her umbrella, Roxie stopped, dug into the pocket of her yellow rain jacket, found three quarters, and dropped them into the panhandler’s cup. He nodded, his vacant eyes staring ahead.

“Isn’t there a shelter nearby you can go to?” Roxie asked.

He didn’t look at her, and his response was incomprehensible.

“Can I help you go somewhere and get out of this rain?” Roxie asked, seeing he was soaked, water dripping from the brim of his tattered hat.

He slowly turned to her, his eyes glassy and wide. “Do you know where you come from, girlie?” he asked, in a low, gravelly voice that sounded like a threat. “Do you know how you got here, doll? Are you stranded, too?”

Roxie felt a shiver ripple up her spine and she didn’t answer.

He flashed her a crooked gash of a grin. “No… I see it in you. You don’t know where you are or how you got here. You’re lost. Just like me, doll, you’re lost.”

And then he laughed, a sinister laugh.

Spooked, Roxie whirled around, thrust her umbrella toward the rain and charging wind, and headed off toward Charles Street, her sneakers soaked, her capri jeans damp, and her chin-length, blonde hair gone wild and frizzy.

“What the hell was that all about?” she mumbled to herself, quickening her steps, and not looking back at the man. And then she thought, How do people get so lost and so crazy?

Roxie had a gig that weekend in a Greenwich Village bar called Speakeasy.

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About the Author

Elyse Douglas is the pen name for the married writing team Elyse Parmentier and Douglas Pennington.

She and her husband, Douglas Pennington, have completed many novels, including The Other Side of Summer, The Summer Letters, The Christmas Eve Series, Time Visitor, Time Change, The Summer Diary, and The Christmas Diary Series.

Social Media Links

Website: www.elysedouglas.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/douglaselyse
Facebook: www.facebook.com/elyse.authorsdouglas

Purchase Link

Amazon

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Rafflecopter Giveaway

“http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/e23ee71d1542/”

Friday Feature Author Interview by Elise Cooper: The Sweet Life by Suzanne Woods Fisher

Book Description

Dawn Dixon can hardly believe she’s on a groomless honeymoon on beautiful Cape Cod . . . with her mother. Sure, Marnie Dixon is good company, but Dawn was supposed to be here with Kevin, the love of her life (or so she thought).

Marnie Dixon needs some time away from the absolute realness of life as much as her jilted daughter does, and she’s not about to let her only child suffer alone–even if Marnie herself had been doing precisely that for the past month.

Given the circumstances, maybe it was inevitable that Marnie would do something as rash as buy a run-down ice-cream shop in the town’s tightly regulated historic district. After all, everything’s better with ice cream.

Her exasperated daughter knows that she’s the one who will have to clean up this mess. Even when her mother’s impulsive real estate purchase brings Kevin back into her life, Dawn doesn’t get her hopes up. Everyone knows that broken romances stay broken . . . don’t they?

Welcome to a summer of sweet surprises on Cape Cod–a place where dreams just might come true.

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Elise’s Thoughts

The Sweet Life by Suzanne Woods Fisher is a feel-good book. It has a story of self-reflection, healing, love, and faith although there are some difficult issues covered regarding loss, hardship, and fear.

The plot has Dawn Dixon’s life turned upside down when her fiancé, Kevin, backs out of their wedding. She then finds out her mother had breast cancer and treatment. In addition, both mother and daughter are still recovering from the sudden death of their husband/father.

After Kevin insists Dawn goes on vacation, using the honeymoon reservations, she decides to take her mom, Marnie. Both need a relaxing get away. But the trip turns into a longer then planned event after Marnie decides to buy a historical run-down ice cream shop. She is fulfilling a dream that Dawn and her father had. While trying to fix the shop, Marnie meets a townsperson, Lincoln, who is willing to help. Not to mention she calls Kevin for his advice. Marnie enlists Dawn’s help to carry out her dream because Dawn is the person to oversee operations and has wonderful ice cream making skills.

There is a potent emphasis on healing and self-reflection in relationships. Dawn is practical, focused, and a planner, while Marnie is spontaneous, a risk-taker, and creative. As they work together both start to understand and accept the differences of the other person.

This story is uplifting and inspirational emphasizing what is important in life. The small-town setting, humorous banter, colorful characters, and healing make for a wonderful story.

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Author Interview

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

Suzanne Woods Fisher: This is book one in the series, “Cape Cod Creamery.” About six years ago for a Christmas present I sent my husband and daughter to Penn State’s short term ice cream school. Ever since, ice cream has been a big part of our life. My editor wanted me to write a series about ice cream.

EC: Role of ice cream in the story?

SWF: It is a character. Ice cream has been a part of the family’s life, including a dream to have an ice cream shop. The mother buys this run-down ice cream shop and needs the daughter’s help. Ice cream has kept the family together and has continued to bring them together.

EC: Each chapter has ice cream quotes-why?

SWF: Little quotations about ice cream. These quotes relate to what is going on in the chapter. It gives the reader a visual appeal. There is one quote that relates to the theme, “life is like ice cream, and we should enjoy it before it melts.”

EC: Your favorite flavor?

SWF: Vanilla is my favorite. A funny story is related to that question. The most popular flavor in the world is vanilla, but the hardest to make. It cannot be masked. My husband did something that I wrote into the series. He made vanilla 59 times to make it right. The vanilla base is the main one for all other flavors.

EC: How would you describe Dawn?

SWF: She is an only child. She is more like her late father, than her mother. She is not spontaneous, or a free spirit, as is her mom. Dawn has very self-awareness and is a planner. She grows throughout the story. She is diligent, a perfectionist, and a rule follower. She was able to have some father-daughter time where ice cream between the two of them was their togetherness. After she lost her father and fiancé healing became important.

EC: How would you describe Marnie?

SWF: She is more creative. She is a breast cancer survivor. She is a child of the sixties, cooky. Marnie relies on her intuition. She is a lot of grey. She balances out Dawn.

EC: What was the role of cancer?

SWF: This is my story. On Christmas Eve I got the phone call I had it. I had surgery, healing, and then radiation. Cancer is right in front of you, but as time passes it gets farther away. The scenes where Marnie did not want to go to cancer survivor meetings was me. I wanted to be very private about it. I wrote this book during that whole process. This book was a gift to me, as an escape from that experience. Whoever is reading this, please get your annual mammogram because that is how my cancer was caught.

EC: How would you describe the relationship between Kevin and Dawn?

SWF: Kevin was struggling as the wedding got closer. He felt they were not in a place they should be to get married. He stopped and slowed things down. He kept checking in to make sure Dawn is OK. They become open where things went wrong. They are sensitive to each other.

EC: How would you describe Lincoln and Marnie?

SWF: Lincoln was a workaholic and then realized he lost everything. He had a moment that he had no one to put as an emergency contact. This was a wake-up call. They realize they have a lot in common. At this point they are just good friends and are shying away from a second romance. Both are slow, cautious, and careful. They try not to be judgmental.

EC: The historical association?

SWF: They are like a homeowner’s association. They want to keep the tone of the town. The drama of the book is how they wanted to put the brakes on anything that will be different from what the town was like.

EC: What is the theme?

SWF: Preserving the past while moving forward. Holding on to what is needed yet at the same time is not frozen, to let go and embrace the future.

EC: Next book?

SWF: It will come out in a year. Marnie goes to ice cream school and bumps into her husband’s niece, a chef who lost her job. She stays with Dawn and Marnie where Dawn and she compete. But Dawn’s cousin is clinically depressed and needs help getting back on her feet.

THANK YOU!!

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Book Review: Let Justice Descend by Lisa Black

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

LET JUSTICE DESCEND (A Gardiner and Renner Book #5) by Lisa Black is another exciting addition to this crime thriller series featuring a forensics expert and a detective who takes justice into his own hands. The crime plots in each book stand on their own, but I feel to understand the dynamics between the main characters, these books are best read in order.

With only three days before the contentious November election, Maggie and Jack are called to a unique crime scene. The current U.S. Senator Diane Cragin is dead on her own doorstep from electrocution. Cragin’s chief of staff is quick to blame the Senator’s Democratic contender, Joey Green Cleveland’s city development director.

With almost a million is cash found in the Senator’s home safe, Maggie and Jack must follow the money through the double-dealing politics of Cleveland and D.C. which only leads to more suspects. The investigation into the pending election exposes corruption at the highest levels and leads to more dead bodies as Maggie and Jack work to put the pieces together and catch a killer.

I love Maggie and Jack and the twist at the end of this book! The pace of the plot moves quickly with the election so close. Ms. Black does a good job of keeping the political players equally good and bad without favoring one side or another. The two political projects were good examples of how corrupt government officials and dark money work for the participants, but not the public and the government employee who was looking out for the public really had limited power. This story brings elements of political intrigue, police procedural and forensics all together into a thriller read.

I loved this addition to the series, the entire series and cannot wait for the next book to find out what Jack does next!

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About Lisa Black

Lisa Black’s books have reached the NYT bestsellers list, been translated into six languages and have been optioned for film. Perish was shortlisted for the inaugural Sue Grafton Memorial Award by Putnam and Mystery Writers of America. Lisa will be a Guest of Honor at 2021 Killer Nashville.

She is a certified crime scene analyst in Florida and a former forensic scientist for the Cleveland coroner’s office. She is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, the International Association for Identification, and the International Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts, and has testified in more than fifty homicide trials.

She still aspires to drive Nancy Drew’s convertible and marry Ellery Queen.

Website: https://lisa-black.com/

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Find Your Way Home by Jackie Ashenden

Book Description

He’s hell-bent on telling her what to do.
She’s determined to make it on her own.
They’re both going to learn a thing or two about first impressions.

Brightwater Valley, New Zealand, is beautiful, rugged, and home to those who love adventure. But it’s also isolated and on the verge of becoming a ghost town.

When the town puts out a call to its sister city of Deep River, Alaska, hoping to entice people to build homes and businesses in Brightwater, ex paratrooper Chase Kelly is all for it. He sees the benefits of building the economy, but only if those who come to Brightwater are ready for its challenges. Former oil executive Isabella Montgomery and her plan to open an art gallery don’t seem up to the test. Now Chase is determined to help her learn the ways of his formidable hometown.

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Elise’s Thoughts

Find Your Way Home by Jackie Ashenden is an adversary to lovers’ story with a lot of adventure. Readers get to imagine the beautiful New Zealand setting with the blueness of the lakes, the white capped mountain peaks, the weather changes, and the small-town atmosphere.

The plot has Isabella Montgomery, Bethany Grant, and Indigo Jameson hoping to open shop to help revitalize a remote town. Brightwater Valley, New Zealand, put out a call to its sister city of Deep River, Alaska, hoping to entice people to build homes and businesses in Brightwater to invigorate this ghost town.

Isabella (Izzy) decided to join the group after losing her job and being ditched by her fiancée. She wants to start over and embrace the adventurous spirit of the town unlike her former town of Houston, Texas. Chase Kelly is the defacto Mayor of the town. He is trying to raise a teenage daughter Gus by himself and make the town economically livable again. But he and Izzy seem to constantly butt heads as they try to find ways to bring in tourists.

Chase is a micro-organizer, managing everything, has a need for control and is very bossy yet is very caring and will do anything for those he loves. He tries to convince himself that he is not attracted to Izzy as he overanalyzes his feelings. Izzy on the other hand is determined to just follow her own lead and try not to please others. Chase and Izzy dance around each other and struggle to deal with ghosts in their past. But when they get together sparks fly as they realize they have more in common, including exes who never really cared about them.

This is a story of love and loss, acceptance, and new beginnings. The character banter is perfect as they snipe at each other until they realize they have a connection and are learning how to trust again.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: What about the setting?

Jackie Ashenden: This the first in a series set in New Zealand. I wanted to do something connected to my Alaska series, :Deep River.” Since New Zealand is ripe with small towns it made it easy to write a small town into the series. There is a small town in the South Island, an ex-mining town that I based the story on. The South Island has a lot of outdoor activities like bungee jumping and hiking, so the heroes must be outdoorsmen. I brought in some of my Deep River characters and connected them up.

EC: How would you describe Izzy?

JA: She is Zeke’s sister from the Deep River series. She is strong-willed, stubborn, does not like to rely on others, and is very protective as well as kind. Because of being a Southern girl, she is a planner and determined with some rage over what happened to her.

EC: How would you describe Chase Kelly?

JA: He is Izzy’s male counterpart with a similar personality. He knows what he wants, an organizer as well as arrogant, rugged, serious, a brooder, very charismatic. He is an ex-SAS paratrooper. Chase will do anything for the people he loves and the town.

EC: How about the relationship between Chase and Kelly?

JA: At first, they butted heads, getting under each other’s skin. They are fighting the physical attraction as well as each other. Both realize they must work together so they decide not to antagonize each other. As they slowly get to know each other they allow their feelings to show.

EC: Seems each character has father issues?

JA: The book That Deep River Feeling has Izzy’s brother, Zeke Montgomery, as the hero. Their father is the antagonist. Izzy was the peace maker between her father and brother. Her parents told her she had to be good, or they would disinherit her. Chase’s father went to the pub, after his wife died, and never left it. He has abandonment issues, having to be on his own and raising his little brother.

EC: Their exes are the direct opposite of Izzy and Chase?

JA: Both are weary of having a new relationship. They have certain assumptions and begin to realize those assumptions are wrong. Izzy sees in Chase someone who is protective, giving and caring whereas her ex was selfish, self-centered, and wanted only a trophy wife. Olivia, Chase’s ex always wanted her way and made him always justify himself, while Izzy listened to Chase’s feelings and took them into account. This is why I put in this quote to show how Izzy and Chase realized they accepted each other for who they are. The quote, “Love is acceptance. It doesn’t require you to do anything or be anything. It just requires that you be yourself.” New Zealanders are straight up people.

EC: What about your next book?

JA: The next book in the series, All Roads Lead to You, and comes out in November. Chase’s brother Finn is the hero, and the heroine is Beth. Finn is grumpy and Beth is an optimist, seeing the silver lining everywhere. She is determined to make him her friend and he is determined to not have her befriend him.

THANK YOU!!

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Book Review: Suffer the Children by Lisa Black

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

SUFFER THE CHILDREN (A Gardiner and Renner Novel Book #4) by Lisa Black is a gripping addition to the Gardiner and Renner series set in a juvenile facility with memorable characters. This police/forensic procedural can easily read as a standalone, but to understand the complex relationship between Gardiner and Renner this series is best read in order.

Firebird Juvenile Center is a prestigious Cleveland secure facility for damaged juvenile offenders who have committed minimal to serious offenses and cannot be remanded back to their homes, if they have one, without serious counseling and rehabilitation. Forensic expert Maggie Gardiner and homicide detective Jack Renner are called to the facility when fifteen-year-old Rachel Donahue is found dead at the bottom of a stairwell. The initial coroner’s findings lead to a judgement of misadventure.

As Jack and his partner Riley are finalizing their investigation, another young resident is found dead in the infirmary. Maggie and Jack are soon caught up in a secure facility with its residents ending up dead and a search for the killer among the many suspects.

Maggie and Jack also must worry about Maggie’s ex-husband discovering Jack’s secret life.

I really love this series and its main characters! I find Maggie’s forensic procedures and techniques always interesting and informative. With every book, the readers learn a little more of Jack’s back story and the lines he will or will not cross for justice. The attraction between these two continues to grow and is just fascinating because they started so far apart. Maggie’s ex-husband’s investigation into the Vigilante Killer is getting much to close to exposing Jack’s secret and Ms. Black’s twist to keep Jack safe for the moment is great. The crime/thriller plot is fast paced and almost reads like a locked room mystery since main the suspects are locked down in the Firebird Center. I found the information interspersed throughout the plot about juvenile justice and rehabilitation interesting and at the same time sad. It truly is a complex social problem which lends itself to interesting twists to this story.

I highly recommend this addition to the series and these main characters!

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About Lisa Black

She still aspires to drive Nancy Drew’s convertible and marry Ellery Queen.

Website: https://lisa-black.com/