Heiress-turned-sleuth Prudence MacKenzie and ex-Pinkerton Geoffrey Hunter step out of the elite society of Gilded Age New York as they venture into the city’s crime ridden streets and most dangerous neighborhoods to search for two missing children . . .
THE DEAD CRY JUSTICE
May 1890: As NYU Law School finally agrees to admit female law students, Judge MacKenzie’s daughter Prudence weighs her choices carefully. Chief among her concerns is how her decision would affect the Hunter and MacKenzie Investigative Law agency and her professional and personal relationship with the partner who is currently recuperating from a near fatal shooting.
But an even more pressing issue presents itself in the form of a street urchin, whose act of petty theft inadvertently leads Prudence to a badly beaten girl he is protecting. Fearing for the girl’s life, Prudence rushes her to the Friends Refuge for the Sick Poor, run by the compassionate Charity Sloan. When the boy and girl slip out of their care and run away, Prudence suspects they are fleeing a dangerous predator and is desperate to find them.
Aided by the photographer and social reformer Jacob Riis and the famous journalist Nellie Bly, Prudence and Geoffrey scour the tenements and brothels of Five Points. Their only clue is a mysterious doll with an odd resemblance to the missing girl. But as the destitute orphans they encounter whisper the nickname of the killer who stalks them—Il diavolo—Prudence and Geoffrey must race against time to find the missing children before their merciless enemies do.
***
Elise’s Thoughts
The Dead Cry Justice by Rosemary Simpson always involves a mystery, returning characters, and a social issue during the Gilded Age. This historical novel delves into a very tough and disturbing topic. But Simpson is such a gifted author and writes in a manner that does not go over the top. She realizes a line should not be crossed, leaving the subject matter up to the reader’s imagination.
The story opens with the main character, Prudence MacKenzie, heiress turned sleuth with her partner, Geoffrey Hunter, contemplating if she should accept the offer to attend NYU’s law school. It is now 1890 and women are making strides, but she is not sure how she will be accepted among the students and professors.
While weighing her decision a street urchin steals her sandwich. A chase ensues leading her to a badly beaten girl. The girl’s eyelashes and eyebrows have been replaced with tattoos, her skin is bleached artificially white, and she has been repeatedly raped. A Quaker refuge for the poor agrees to care for the boy and girl, both to traumatized to speak. Somehow, they slip out. Prudence, with the help of Geoffrey and some other contacts, are determined to find the children. They visit orphanages, brothels, a photographer, newspaper journalist, and a house of dolls. Their only clue is a mysterious porcelain doll that oddly resembles the missing girl. To their shock, they discover other young girls in the same situation. They now have a race against time to find the children and the perpetrators before it is too late.
This is an important issue to bring front and center since sex trafficking is still present today with very little coverage or outcry as it was in the 1890s. Readers will understand how Simpson brings to life the Gilded Age in New York City through detailed descriptions, real-life people such as Jay Gould, Jacob Riis, and Nellie Bly, and a riveting mystery.
***
Elise’s Author Interview
Elise Cooper: How did you get the idea for the story?
Rosemary Simpson: Each one of my Gilded Age Mystery books has a social setting, murder, and the two main characters. In this book it was the social exploitation of girls and women. It was a topic that needed to be addressed. The deeper I got into my research I realized there are a lot of parallels of what is happening now. At the time of my research Jeffrey Epstein was in all the papers.
EC: What about the abuse?
RS: It was horrific back then. The girls felt homeless. It was emotional and physical. The girls were bleached, tattooed, made to take arsenic and lead, starved, drugged, and beaten. Parts of this are true today. There was a great deal of abuse. Usually, it was the women themselves who were blamed for the sexual exploitation. The clients were rarely blamed. I kept looking and looking for major outcries against this. No one wanted to admit that this horrible issue could exist. I wanted it to be believable and to be realistic in the historical context.
EC: Lead and arsenic taken?
RS: Yes. It was done for hundreds of years to whiten the skin. It was a lead paste. It also did damage to the brain and other parts of the body. The arsenic was a very small amount used in cremes.
EC: Another relevant issue today is your quote about criminals?
RS: You are referring to this one, “Criminals arrested should be detained, but walked free.” This book takes place before Theodore Roosevelt became the police commissioner. Before him, the NYC police department was tremendously corrupt. Until Roosevelt came along there were not many who wanted to clean up the corruptness. People could pay to walk away after they committed a crime. What is happening today, with criminals getting out, is a replay of what has already happened, many and many times.
EC: Some of this story reminded me of the movie, “Oliver?”
RS: There were a lot of orphanages in NYC. They meant well and many were reformers. There was something associated with being an orphan as if it were the child’s fault. In the absence of stern parental control there was organized institutional control. Children were not assumed to be innocent, but the thought pattern was they tried to get away with everything unless there was a tight hold on them. A lot of the orphanages existed because of the donations. They were very grim. As soon as the orphans got to be a certain age, they were shown the door.
EC: Role of the dolls?
RS: Young women were being traumatized and deprived of their basic humanity. They were turned into objects. The porcelain hand-painted bisque dolls are now antiques and even back then were very valuable. The best ones did come from France. They were so beautiful they were collector’s items and usually were not played with. When I was a child, about five, I got a gorgeous doll from my French aunt. It was in a huge red and gold box, wrapped in huge red ribbon. I was afraid to take it out of the box for fear I might drop it. After my aunt left, I took it out of the box. It was gorgeous.
EC: Did the All-American Doll Shop influence you?
RS: I bought some of these dolls. But the idea was to make the dolls lifelike. But I was reversing it. I was making the real girls look doll-like. I only remembered these dolls during the rewrites. In my story it was a way of depriving the exploited girls to be human. Just as today, with sex trafficking, these girls are treated as objects.
EC: Were women really admitted to law schools during the 1890s?
RS: Most of the women were working in a husband’s law firm or writing wills/trusts. They were not arguing in full court before a jury. My character Prudence wants to defend someone in a court. Society is beginning to open up to achieve some sort of equality.
EC: How would you describe the young brother Zander who tried to save his sister from exploitation?
RS: An Oliver Twist kind of character: Resilient, crafty, quick on his feet, smart, does not give up, and very loveable. He bonded with his dog Blossom. An unquestioning love and loyalty. He is also protective, caring, and kind. He realizes to save his sister he has to manipulate society.
EC: Next book?
RS: It will be out this time next year and is titled, Death at The Falls. It takes place at Niagara Falls. Prudence has passed the bar, but no one will hire her. She and her partner Geoffrey go to Niagara Falls to help her aunt’s friend who is accused of murder. The social aspect is the push pull between private exploitation of the Falls and the public effort to preserve the natural beauty of the falls.
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.
MURDER AT MALLOWAN HALL (Phyllida Bright Mystery Book #1) by Colleen Cambridge is a clever and entertaining start to a new historical cozy mystery series with the housekeeper as an amateur sleuth set in the fictional manor home of Agatha Christie and her second husband, Max Mallowan.
Phyllida Bright previously worked with Mrs. Christie during WW1 where she was a nurse, while Mrs. Christie worked in the pharmacy. She was hired under not completely explained and slightly mysterious circumstances. Phyllida has a close friendship with Agatha, and she rules over the household staff with a strict adherence to decorum, but also with fairness, even as she deals with a supercilious butler who is curious to know more about her background.
Phyllida has yet to meet a gentleman she admires in real life as much as Agatha’s fictional detective Hercule Poirot. When she finds a dead body of one of the current house guests on the floor in the library, she is determined to follow in her favorite detective’s footsteps and solve the case. When a member of the household staff is killed next, Phyllida knows the killer is close at hand and she must work quickly before her own story ends abruptly.
I enjoyed this cozy mystery and found it to be a charming homage to Agatha Christie’s own mysteries. Phyllida is an amateur sleuth worth following and I am especially interested in finding out why she is trying so hard to keep her birth date and past a mystery from others and why she is so accepting of mores that others, in this time period, would find appalling. I loved that Phyllida got her denouement at the end of the story just as a fictional sleuth would in a written mystery. All the secondary characters in the household and their jobs were interesting to learn about and I will be looking forward to how Phyllida and Bradford, the chauffeur get on in future books. There are plenty of red-herrings and plot twists to keep the cozy mystery reader turning the pages.
A good start to this cozy historical mystery series, loved the intrepid Phyllida, and I am looking forward to more mysteries in this series.
***
Author Bio
Colleen Cambridge is the pen name of an award-winning USA Today and New York Times bestselling author.
Under several pseudonyms, she has written more than 36 books in a variety of genres and is always plotting her next murder—er, book.
Millie Fisher may be widowed, but she leads a full life in her Amish hometown of Harvest, Ohio. There’s her quilting circle, her Boer goats, her gift for matchmaking—and the occasional murder . . .
Millie is happy that her childhood friend, Uriah Schrock, has returned to Harvest after decades away. He was sweet on Millie in their school days, but she only had eyes for her future husband. Now, there’s a new spark between them, so Millie is concerned when Uriah doesn’t show up at the Harvest concert series—or for his job as the Village square’s groundskeeper. Perhaps Millie has been involved in too many murder investigations, but she has a sinking feeling. And when she and her best friend, Lois, find Uriah with the police, it seems she’s right . . .
A film crew is in Harvest to make a movie about a forty-year-old unsolved murder. A skeleton has been found at the bottom of a ravine—and Uriah is certain it’s his sister, Galilee. Right before Uriah left Ohio, she disappeared, and her harsh husband, Samuel, was found fatally stabbed with a knitting needle. The sheriff declared that Galilee killed him and ran away. Uriah never believed the theory, and he’s come back to Harvest hoping, Gott willing, Millie will help him stitch together the truth . . .
***
Elise’s Thoughts
Marriage Can Be Mischief is a cozy mystery in the small town of Harvest Ohio. It features Amish quilting matchmaker crime solver Millie Fisher and her English friend Lois Henry.
This installment has Millie’s childhood friend, Uriah Schrock, returning to Harvest to find out what happened to his sister, Galilee. Forty years ago, her abusive husband Samuel was found dead, and she has disappeared. But now a film crew doing a documentary on this cold case find a human skull and bones. After a DNA test the skeleton is found to be Galilee. The Sheriff who dislikes the Amish quickly determines that there is no new evidence to reopen the case and rules that she had killed her husband. But Millie realizes things do not add up and she agrees to find out the truth.
Always present to help Millie is her best friend, Lois. They are as opposite as can be. Millie is a widow who still mourns her late husband, while Lois is a three-time divorcee. Millie is reserved and Lois is flamboyant. Lois has purple/black spiked hair and Millie dresses in her Amish clothes. Even with these differences they are inseparable except for going to Church. Both spend their spare time trying to solve the murders in Harvest. Now they are trying to clear Galilee’s name and prove that someone else committed the murder. But it could be costly since the killer will do anything to make sure Lois and Millie are stopped.
Per usual, Amanda Flower does not disappoint. She consistently has likeable characters, charming settings, and engaging mysteries with plenty of humor to go around.
***
Elise’s Author Interview
Elise Cooper: Idea for this story?
Amanda Flower: There has been so many murders in Harvest. Because both series are doing well there will be more killings. I wanted a cold case. It works out for it to be in the Matchmaker series because Lois and Millie are in their sixties, which means they would have been around forty years ago as adults, when the murder took place. I also want to build a case around an Amish restaurant.
EC: Is there an Amish Corner Beach restaurant for real?
AF: No, but it was based on those Amish restaurants with big buffets. Buses come in with tourists to get big family size meals. It is like Thanksgiving every single day. There must be at least ten restaurants that all look the same and serve the same food.
EC: Why did you put in the Amish proverb at the beginning of the book?
AF: You are referring to this one, “A house is made of walls and beams; a home is made of love and dreams.” The crime that happened is really based upon spousal abuse. It is usually very hushed. I did not want to ignore it as a problem. I used this quote because the victim had a house, but it was not a real home for her since it was not a loving place. I just made the connection of the Barbra Streisand song, “A House is Not a Home.”
EC: The animal stars of this series are the goats, Phillip, and Peter. Do you have goats?
AF: No, but we do want them eventually. We are going to do chickens first. One of my neighbors told me chickens are like a gateway animal. They are more low maintenance than goats. Millie’s nephews and the goats always are a good addition to the story.
EC: Uriah and Millie are no longer an item?
AF: He is uncertain of Millie’s feelings. His mission to come back to Holmes County was to find out what happened to his sister. This has tortured him for the last forty years, not knowing what happened to her. He really cares about Millie, but his emotions are preoccupied by his missing sister. In the next book, he has returned home to Indiana. He was very dedicated to his sister, and realizes Millie is still in love with the memory of Kip, her late husband.
EC: You brought in Millie’s late husband Kip?
AF: Yes. He was steadfast and traditional Amish. They loved each other deeply. He was a kind and loving husband. She is not over him. Millie commented in this book, she does not know what he would think of her life now. She and Lois are chasing murderers and she is not leading a traditional Amish life.
EC: Abuse?
AF: Samuel, the abusing husband, and his wife, Galilee were never in love. Theirs was a marriage of convenience. Most Amish marry for love, but land and property were sometimes considered. If a man wants something monetary, they will marry for that reason. He did not love her and emotionally/physically abused her.
EC: The Bishop has so much say in someone’s marriage?
AF: Yes. This is one of the hard things for a non-Amish person to wrap their head around. He is basically the law in the district and what he decides must be followed. He is essentially chosen by G-d to lead the Church and the community. It makes it difficult for anyone to leave, because they will be excommunicated, which means they must be “shunned” by everyone including their family. In this book, I had the current Bishop remove a wife if there is even a rumor of abuse. He is compassionate and understanding to the wife’s struggles.
EC: The role of the sheriff?
AF: He is unkind and evil. He does not respect the Amish, considers them in a bad light, and has his judgement colored. He stays in this position of power because no one challenges him in an election. Sheriff Marshall has a lot of say with other law enforcement agencies in the state of Ohio. Eventually Aiden will challenge him in a future book.
EC: The role of baseball?
AF: The Amish will play baseball. Millie’s nephew, Micah, learned about baseball from an English boy who is his classmate. He taught Micah about collecting baseball cards. Micah is fascinated with this hobby because he loves playing baseball. Micah hides collecting baseball cards because there are pictures of the players on the cards. Remember the Amish do not have faces on dolls and never take photographs, or have pictures of their family, for that reason.
EC: How would you describe the victim, Galilee?
AF: Frightened. When she was working at the restaurant, she was more herself and enjoyed being away from her husband. Overall, timid and scared of her husband Samuel. She is kind and joyful at work, but at home she is closed off.
EC: Next books?
AF: The final book in the “Magical Mysteries Series” comes out in January 2022, titled Crimes and Covers. There is a murder outside a wedding tent. In February 2022 Put Out to Pasture, the farm series comes out. In March 2022 Frozen Detective will come out by Hallmark. It has a murder happening at a posh New Year’s Eve party at a ski resort. The murder weapon is a bow and arrow. Peanut Butter Panic, the “Amish Candy Shop Mystery Series” comes out in May or June 2022. It is set in Thanksgiving. The busybody, Margot, has her mother coming to Harvest with her new husband, someone very much younger than her. At dinner he drops dead from a peanut allergy. In July 2022 my first historical mystery comes out. It is set in 1855 with the sleuths Emily Dickerson and her maid. The “Amish Matchmaker Series” featuring Millie will be out this time next year. It is titled Honeymoon’s Can Be Hazardous. Lois’ ex-husband comes to Amish country with his new wife. The next day his wife dies, and Lois is the prime suspect. There will be an issue of drug trafficking.
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.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review on the HTP Holiday Romance Blog Tour for RODEO CHRISTMAS AT EVERGREEN RANCH (Gold Valley Book #13) by Maisey Yates.
Below you will find a book summary, my book review, an excerpt from the book and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!
***
Book Summary
Gold Valley’s rodeo champion is facing the toughest challenge of his life – a Christmas wedding!
Legendary bull-rider Jake Daniels has only one plan this holiday season – to ignore the pain it always brings. Until his best friend Callie Carson shows up on his ranch with a marriage proposal! Jake has lived so close to the edge it’s a miracle he’s still alive – he knows all about risk. But marrying the woman he craves more than anything feels like the biggest risk of all.
Callie Carson might be rodeo royalty, but to fulfil her dreams of riding saddle bronc, she needs her inheritance. And to access that, she needs a husband. But Jake the husband is deliciously different from Jake the friend, especially after the wild heat of their wedding night! He was only supposed to be her cowboy for Christmas, but Jake’s every heart-stopping touch has Callie questioning how she’ll ever be able to walk away.
RODEO CHRISTMAS AT EVERGREEN RANCH (Gold Valley Book #13) by Maisey Yates is another holiday contemporary western romance addition to the Gold Valley series. I always look forward to the Gold Valley books, but especially the ones set during the holidays.
Champion bull rider, Jake Daniels has returned to his ranch for the holidays leaving the rodeo circuit behind. He risked his life for years to obtain his dream of his own horse ranch and now he just has to make it through the holidays and the painful memories they bring.
Callie Carson is from a rodeo royalty family and has dreamed of riding saddle broncs instead of barrel racing. To fulfill her dream, she needs her inheritance and to get her inheritance before she turns thirty, she needs to be married.
Callie follows her long-time friend, Jake to his home in Gold Valley and proposes. Things begin to change and heat up as Callie’s friend becomes her husband and Jake may be taking the biggest chance of his life.
I always look forward to returning to this series or any romance by Maisey Yates. Jake and Callie are both dealing with difficult emotional baggage. While these two characters eventually come together for their HEA, there is a lot of grief and pain to get through first. Christmas has always played an emotional part in these stories and this one is no exception. I loved Jake and really felt for his painful past and the present feelings he had for Callie, but Callie was a little more difficult to care about because at times I felt she was too centered on herself and her own feelings. The sex scenes are explicit and smokin’ hot, but not gratuitous. While I enjoyed the romance when the H/h were finally emotionally together and I enjoyed the snippets of previous characters in the series, this was not my favorite of the Gold Valley series.
This is a good friends-to-lovers romance set during the holidays and I recommend the entire Gold Valley series.
***
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
JAKE DANIELS HAD grown up knowing that life was short. When he was in high school, he’d lost his parents, and along with them, the sense that anything in this world was guaranteed.
That kind of thing changed a man.
It could make him afraid of his own shadow, worried about taking risks and filled with a sense of self-preservation.
It was either that, or he realized since there were no guarantees, he might as well go all in. Push those chips out to the center of the table and see if the gamble paid off.
He’d done some admittedly dumb stuff as a kid. Not gambling so much as acting out. But the rodeo had changed him. It had saved him.
He’d spent the last eighteen years gambling and doing pretty damn well for himself, it had to be said. Years spent in the rodeo, flinging himself around on the back of enraged bulls, had netted him a decent amount of money, and now that he was more or less ready to get out of the game, those winnings, and the amount of money his parents’ life insurance had left behind, had gotten him a big spread in Gold Valley.
He was going to be a rancher.
Not cattle, like his cousin Ryder. No. He was getting into horses. High-value breeds. Another gamble. It would either pay off, or ruin him.
That was the kind of life he liked. That was the kind of thing that made him feel alive.
And if this was retirement, hell, he was pretty damn into it. Thirty-two years old, and wealthy enough to figure out a way to live his dream. Not bad at all.
Of course, there were things he would miss about the rodeo. The people on the circuit were practically family now. So many years traveling around the same venues, getting busted up together, competing fiercely and going out for a beer after.
But it had been time to leave, and all it had taken was one fierce accident to teach him that.
And Gold Valley was his home, so this had been the place to go to when his time in the rodeo was done.
The day his parents had died, his aunt and uncle had also died, along with the mother of one of his closest friends. That had left a passel of orphaned children, a big old ranch that had once been run by their parents and a whole lot of chaos.
But it had been a good life. Other than all the crushingly sad parts.
His cousin Ryder had taken care of all of them, since he was the only one who’d been eighteen when the tragedy had happened.
He often wondered how they’d made it through without Ryder punching them all in the damn face.
He was sure that Ryder had wanted to from time to time.
Hell. Jake and Colt had been absolute assholes. Neither of them had handled losing their parents well. Well, was there a good way to handle that? He didn’t know. But at seventeen and fifteen, he and his brother had been mad at the world, and kicking against the one person who had been doing his best to help them.
They’d both left home and joined the rodeo, the Western take on running away and joining the circus.
It had taken some years and some maturity for him to fully appreciate what he’d had.
Because what Ryder had given to them had been bound up in his loss, and until he’d been in his midtwenties probably, he hadn’t fully been able to separate those two things and think of home, and his cousin, without a measure of pain and anger.
Even now, when he pulled into Hope Springs Ranch, a strange sensation took hold of him.
Nostalgia, grief and home, all rolled into one.
He’d been contending with it a lot lately, because his—for lack of a better word—retirement was still fairly new, and being in one place and not on the road was unusual for him.
But that was a choice he’d made, and one that was taking a bit of time for him to settle into. It had been just over three months, and it still felt…wrong in some ways.
It was easier to pretend that all your demons were dealt with when you just spent a good portion of the time running from them. Made things simple. At least as simple as they could be.
The problem was his demons had done a decent job of catching up to him on the circuit, and that was when he’d decided it was time to move on.
When Cal had fallen…
How could he live with something happening to his mentee? Cal was his best friend and with his guidance had gotten hurt.
No, that had brought him back to a dark, raw place. One he didn’t want to visit again.
That calm before the storm. That bright ray of sunshine revealed to be the headlights of a Mack truck bearing down on him.
He’d read that poem that said nothing gold could stay.
In his experience, it turned out gold was fleeting. And revealed to be fool’s gold on top of it.
Good never lasted.
And it was rarely real, anyway.
He’d been… Well, he hadn’t been thrilled about Cal wanting to come for Thanksgiving, but he felt responsible for the accident so in the end he hadn’t been able to say no.
He pulled his truck up to the front of the farmhouse, and the door opened, three dogs spilling out the front and down the front steps.
“Back, mutts,” he muttered when he got out of the truck, smiling affectionately at the creatures as he bent down and scratched them behind the ears.
He looked up and saw Sammy standing on the top step of the porch, her baby on her hip. Sammy was married to his cousin Ryder now, but she was another member of their ragtag family. She hadn’t lost her parents, but her situation at home, as he understood it, had been unacceptable, and when she was sixteen she’d come to live with them. She’d never left, and she and Ryder had gotten married a year earlier.
Finally, in his opinion.
The two of them had spent way too long dancing around the truth. Not that he could blame them. Nothing in his life had ever made marriage look particularly appealing. His parents…
His parents had been unhappy, slaves to a ranch and their children, to marriage vows they’d said to each other and had always seemed like they might regret.
For just a moment it had seemed like it might all be fixed. For just a moment it had seemed like they’d be okay.
Then it had all been destroyed.
That bright spot of hope swallowed by reality.
After years of unhappiness, his parents had just died.
Jake couldn’t imagine that kind of life.
“How you doing?” he asked.
Sammy shifted the baby from one hip to the other, the little girl reaching out and grabbing her mom’s blond hair. Sammy laughed and unwrapped the chubby fist from her curls. She looked happier than he’d ever seen her before.
He supposed for some people there was something to be said for this life.
God knew Ryder seemed happier.
But then, it was impossible for Ryder to seem more grim. Jake felt pretty guilty about that with the benefit of age and wisdom.
“Great,” Sammy said. “We’ve been seeing so much of you lately. I feel spoiled.”
“Well, that’s good, because it won’t take long for you to just feel sick of me.”
“Never,” Sammy said, coming down the steps and offering him a hug.
Sammy was like that. Effortless, easy affection with people around her.
He admired it, but he’d never much understood it. There was only one kind of touch he was free with. Sex was simple. And being a champion in the world of rodeo meant there was no shortage of buckle bunnies lining up to see if the rumors were true. His bull rides lasted eight seconds, and a ride in his bed lasted the whole night.
He took a lot of pride in the fact that he had staying power. That he gave a damn for the pleasure of the women who passed through his hotel rooms.
But that was as deep as he got.
“Come on in,” Sammy said. “Logan and Rose are already here. Iris and Griffin are on their way.”
It was strange to him that everybody had paired off now. Everybody except for himself, and his brother, Colt, who would rather take a stick between the eyes than settle down.
Jake was confident that would be his brother’s stance.
His brother was still going out hard in the rodeo. As far as Jake knew he wasn’t even interested in coming back to town and settling down the way Jake was, let alone getting married.
He walked into the living room, and noticed all the little changes.
Since Ryder and Sammy had gotten married, the place, which had actually been basically the same in all the years since their parents had died, had gotten a bit of a facelift.
Sammy had added a whole lot of real grown-up touches to it. Pretty things.
It was weird. Weirder that he cared.
Ryder came through from the kitchen and offered a greeting. “Good to see you.”
“You, too. Hey, Sammy,” Jake said. “Would it be all right if my buddy Cal came for Thanksgiving?”
“Sure,” Sammy said. “The more, the merrier.”
He was glad Sammy was thrilled. He was less thrilled. But there were a spare few things on God’s earth he saw as sacred. His friendship with Cal was one of them.
The accident might have been a catalyst for Jake deciding to leave the rodeo, but it was just damned cowardly to then deny his friend’s request to come visit. Why? Because he felt guilty about the fall?
Hell, yeah, he did.
But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about the visit. Though even just being away and out of the game, knowing he was just out of it now for good… There were things he missed. He was looking forward to having a few beers and talking about old times.
“Good,” Jake said.
Eventually, Iris and her new husband arrived, followed by Pansy and her husband, West, and West’s teenage brother, Emmett. West and Pansy had taken over the raising of the kid, since West’s mother wasn’t hugely into the maternal thing. Putting it mildly.
And while everything with his family was good—it always was—there was an indefinable feeling of…change.
Right. Well, you haven’t been here very much, so you don’t have the right to have an opinion about how things have changed.
That thought galled him a little bit.
And it was true enough. He’d been gone, seen to his own affairs all this time, and something that had given him a small measure of comfort was the fact that he could come home at any time and things would be roughly the way that he left them. But not so much anymore.
There were new people. New plates. The house was fuller than it had ever been, but that made it a little bit unrecognizable, too.
It was a whole damn thing.
He finished eating, and hung out for a while.
Then he bid everybody farewell, got in his truck and started on the road back to his ranch.
Settling in Gold Valley.
There was a time when he’d been sure he’d never do that. And as he drove down the familiar highway he had a strange sense of…dread.
He hated that.
He chased dread. The kind of fear that held other people down, he pursued it. He’d spent years riding bulls because he’d figured why not give fate the biggest middle finger of all.
It was the quiet moments that seemed to bring the fear. The still moments. The golden hour, when the sun lit up the world around him and everything looked new. And there would be a moment. A breath. Where peace rested in his soul.
And right on its heels came the hounds of hell.
The arena had stopped it. The pounding of hooves, the danger.
It was just that it had followed him to the arena now so he’d figured he’d take his chances here.
Maybe that had been a mistake.
Too late now.
He drove through town, trying to get a look at how it might seem if he were an outsider. If he was someone who hadn’t grown up here. The brick facades were the kind of thing tourists lost their shit over. But he lost the ability to see them a long time ago.
For him… For him, Gold Valley had just represented everything he lost.
He’d been running when he’d left.
He’d run for a long time. And he’d achieved a hell of a lot.
But whatever he thought he’d feel when he got here… He didn’t.
And so he was trying to see everything with new eyes, like he was a new man, because he felt just so damned much like the old one. And he wasn’t the biggest fan.
Hope Springs always put him in this kind of mood.
So he shrugged it off and started mentally going over the timeline that he had in place for getting his ranch going. His first five horses were coming at the new year.
It was a new challenge. And it reinvigorated him. That was the problem. The rodeo had gotten stale. He’d won everything twice. You didn’t get better than that. He’d done it twice in a row, and he didn’t want to get to the point where he wasn’t winning anymore.
He’d peaked. Basically.
So now he had to go find somewhere else to do that.
That was something, anyway.
It was one reason he’d backed his cousin Iris when she had decided to open her bakery.
He knew all about needing a change.
Maybe that meant he actually was still running.
None of it mattered now, though.
He hadn’t had enough to drink tonight because he’d needed to get his ass home, but he was going to open some whiskey the minute he got in the door.
The place was out about ten miles from town, a nice flat parcel of property with the mountains behind it. The house itself was a big, white farmhouse with a green metal roof. Different to the rustic place at Hope Springs, but he liked it. The driveway was gravel, long and winding, with tall, dense trees on either side of the road.
But when he came through the trees into the clearing where the house was, there was a surprise waiting for him in front of the house.
An old, beat-up pickup was parked there, and he could see a lone figure leaning up against the hood. He parked the truck and got out, making his way over to the figure.
In the darkness, he couldn’t quite make it out, but he had a feeling he knew who it was. Early and unannounced.
Entirely in keeping with what he knew of his friend.
“Cal?”
And two wide, brown eyes looked up at him from beneath the brim of a white cowboy hat, long, glossy brown hair shifting with the motion. “Jake. I’m really glad to see you. Because… I don’t just need a job. I need a husband.”
Maisey Yates is a New York Times bestselling author of over one hundred romance novels. Whether she’s writing strong, hard working cowboys, dissolute princes or multigenerational family stories, she loves getting lost in fictional worlds. An avid knitter with a dangerous yarn addiction and an aversion to housework, Maisey lives with her husband and three kids in rural Oregon.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for FREEZE BEFOREBURNING (Sam Tate Mystery Book #3) by Nikki Stern 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 Rafflecopter giveaway. Enjoy!
***
Book Description
True Crime Fans Iced by Cold-blooded Killer
What do a bartender, a priest, and a librarian have in common? They all work in New York City. They’re all true crime fans. And they’re all dead, courtesy of a predator with a chilling approach to murder.
Talbot County, Maryland Lieutenant Sam Tate is in the Big Apple to find answers about her own tragic past when she is pulled onto the case of the Dry Ice Killer by an old friend with the NYPD. Drawn to a new colleague, she questions her long-time relationship with her FBI boyfriend. Meanwhile, she’s caught between the demands of an impatient bureaucracy and an especially sadistic sociopath. This may be Sam’s most dangerous case yet—if she survives.
Genre: Mystery/Suspense Published by: Ruthenia Press Publication Date: December 8, 2021 Number of Pages: 295 ISBN: 978-9995487-7-6 Series: The Sam Tate Mystery Series, Book 3
***
My Book Review
RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars
FREEZE BEFORE BURNING (Sam Tate Mystery Book #3) by Nikki Stern is an exciting, fast-paced police procedural/crime mystery featuring Lieutenant Sam Tate who manages even on vacation to become involved in the chase for a serial killer. This book can be read as a standalone with a new location and fully solved crime, but there are a backstories from the previous books regarding Sam’s personal life and previous cases that you miss out on. This series should be read in order.
Lieutenant Sam Tate is in NYC to reconnect with family and investigate lingering questions from her own tragic past. When she runs into the brother of a former partner, she is pulled into an investigation as a consultant which quickly turns into the search for a serial killer who seems to be targeting members of a true crime podcast.
As the body count increases, so does the threat to Sam’s own life.
This is a page turner with a great balance between the protagonist’s past story investigation intertwined with the present-day police procedural chasing The Dry Ice Killer. Sam is a strong, intelligent investigator who you can empathize with. The author does a good job of portraying how her past has influenced her current life and relationships. The ending leaves Sam moving to a new position again and a new type of personal intrigue surrounding her extended family. The crime mystery plot in this book in the series was well paced and continued to ratchet up the tension right up to the climax.
I can recommend this edge-of-your-seat police procedural crime mystery and I am looking forward to following Sam on more adventures in the future.
***
Excerpt
Ed Rizzo slid his ample body into the ornate confessional, crossed himself, and pushed a strand of thinning hair off his forehead. “Forgive me, Father,” he intoned, “for I have sinned, although I’m pretty sure God will cut me some slack even if my wife won’t, if you take my meaning.”
At ten in the morning, the sanctuary was deserted. Good. He didn’t need anyone listening to his confession, which he unloaded to the figure who sat beside him in the confessional over the next ten minutes.
Even as he talked, he considered who might be on the other side of the grate. Rizzo couldn’t make out the features of the man. He wondered if he’d landed the new priest. Maybe a younger person would make light of his transgressions, which mostly related to his perfectly legitimate reaction to his obnoxious neighbor, Frank Pagonis.
Rizzo had his justifications lined up. He hadn’t survived more than a year of enforced quarantine with three kids and a demanding wife, never mind the missing paycheck for a while, only to put up with the stolen newspapers, a lawn mower returned with a bent blade, and a television loud enough to wake the dead.
“But when his dog, which, by the way, he refuses to leash and that’s against the law, went and dug up my tomato plants, yeah, I sprayed some stuff on whatever the mutt left. Not enough to kill the animal, you understand. He can’t help it if he has a jerk for an owner. I would have sprayed his owner’s food if I could have. The point I’m making is, the dog got sick, but it didn’t die, okay?”
Rizzo cocked his head, thinking he might have heard a faint sigh.
“Now he’s coming around with a pile of vet bills and talking about suing me. I told him to take his threats and shove them. I tell you, Padre, I am this close to beating that smug face or maybe twisting that scrawny neck of his. My wife claims that kind of thinking is sinful. I don’t think it’s as bad as doing the deed. I haven’t told her about poisoning the dog, but sparing her the details isn’t the same as lying, is it?”
Nothing. The guy had probably fallen asleep. The confessional was stuffy, and Rizzo experienced a touch of claustrophobia. Time to move things along.
“If you can just suggest a penance to perform, I’ll get it covered. Then I can be on my way.”
He stopped talking, suddenly aware of the silence, how absolute and enveloping it was. The noises of the city street outside had receded. He could hear himself breathing.
“Hey, Father? You all right in there?” Rizzo scratched the grill dividing the two sides of the confessional. His head was pounding now, and he felt vaguely dizzy.
“I know I’ve been yakking a lot. How about we wrap this up, okay?” Again, no response. It occurred to Rizzo that the other man hadn’t said a word the entire time. What if the good father had suffered a heart attack?
He hoisted his bulk off the narrow bench and pushed himself out of the tiny space. The other side of the confessional had its own entrance. He rapped on the door, then tried the handle, more out of instinct than anything else. It turned in his hand, and he pulled.
The black-garbed figure sat with head bowed, hands folded in his lap as if in prayer or contemplation. Or asleep. Rizzo put a tentative hand on the man’s shoulder. With a sigh like a punctured balloon, the black-robed figure tipped sideways off the bench, fell to the floor, and rolled like a blow-up toy.
Startled, Rizzo jumped back. Stay cool, he told himself.
He bent over with an umph and put two fingers to the priest’s throat to search for a pulse. He expected to feel cold, not the scalding heat that burned his skin.
“Jesus Christ!” he yelled, forgetting for a moment where he was. He waved his blistered hand in the air and hopped around until a wave of nausea stopped.
With his foot, he nudged the body so that it rolled onto its back. He stared, speechless for once, at the face of the priest. Then he stepped farther back, pulled out his cell phone, punched in 9-1-1, and gave his report to the dispatcher in a calm, measured tone.
He agreed to wait for the police and medical authorities just outside the church. He even accepted the suggestion that he might dissuade others from entering until help arrived.
Without looking again at the body of the priest, Ed Rizzo crossed himself. He walked slowly to the front door, stepped into the fresh air, and threw up.
***
Author Bio
Nikki Stern is the author of six books, two non-fiction and four fiction. The Wedding Crasher, a 2019 Kindle Book Award Winner, and Bird in Hand, a 2020 Shelf Unbound Notable Indie, are the first two books in the Sam Tate Mystery Series. Freeze Before Burning is the latest. Nikki shares author credit on a series of interactive murder mysteries published by Samuel French. She’s a member of Sisters in Crime and the Independent Book Publishers Association.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review on the Harlequin Winter 2022 Investigator Blog Tour for LITTLE GIRL GONE (Procedural Crime Book #1) by Amanda Stevens.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section and the purchase links. Enjoy!
***
Book Description
Nothing matters more to her when a child’s life is at stake.
Special agent Thea Lamb returns to her hometown to search for a child whose disappearance echoes a twenty-eight-year-old cold case—her twin sister’s abduction. Working with her former partner, Jake Stillwell, Thea must overcome the pain, doubt and guilt that have tormented her for years and denied her a meaningful relationship. For both Thea and Jake, the job always came first…until now.
Discover more action-packed stories in theA Procedural Crime Story series. All books are stand-alone with uplifting endings but were published in the following order:
Book 1: Little Girl Gone Book 2: John Doe Cold Case
***
My Book Review
RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars
LITTLE GIRL GONE (Procedural Crime Book #1) by Amanda Stevens is the first romantic suspense book in the new Procedural Crime series from Harlequin Intrigue.
Cold Case Agent Thea Lamb who specializes in crimes against children and has returned to her hometown where a young girl has been abducted from her childhood home. She is there for answers from her mother who was letting mother and child live with her in the same home were Thea’s twin sister was abducted twenty-eight years ago.
Special Agent Jake Stillwell is called in to lead the FBI CARD (Child Abduction Rapid Deployment) team in search of the missing girl. Jake is determined to find this little girl as the hours pass. Thea is willing to help, but she cannot get involved due to her mother being tied to this case, too.
But Jake and Thea have been involved personally in the past and this case brings them back together to not only try to save a little girl, but maybe let them resolve the misunderstandings that let them walk away from each other in the past.
I enjoyed this romantic suspense and am looking forward to reading more books in this series. The present-day abduction suspense plot is completed in this book, but the cold case is still unsolved and will hopefully be resolved in future books in the series. The suspense plot does move at an uneven pace and at times I was able to put the book down. This may be due to all the information on the cold case and the number of people involved in both plotlines. The second chance romance between Thea and Jake is well written and believable with the dedication to their careers and their troubled backgrounds. There are sex scenes towards the end of the book that are explicit, but not gratuitous. Overall, this is a good start to this series.
I will be looking for more books in this Procedural Crimes series and this author.
***
Excerpt
“While I was trying to fish the doll out of the pool, someone came from behind and hit me over the head hard enough to daze me. Next thing I know, I’m caught in a whirlpool several feet below the surface. I lost my flashlight, so I was spun around underwater in complete darkness. No up, no down.” He paused. “For a while there, I wasn’t sure how I’d get out.”
Thea watched his expression as he spoke. He still seemed shaken from the experience. She’d never seen him like that. “I knew something bad must have happened.”
He summoned a brief smile. “I know what you’re thinking. I even thought so myself at the time. So much for my keen instincts. Someone came up behind me and I never sensed a thing.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking.”
“No?”
“I’m thinking you could have died down there and I would never have known what happened to you.”
“Thea.” He said her name so softly she might have thought the tender missive was nothing more than a breeze sighing through the treetops.
The sun bearing down on them was hot and relentless, but Thea felt a little shiver go through her. It hit her anew how much she’d missed that tender glint in his eyes as their gazes locked. How much she’d missed his husky whispers in the dark. The glide of his hand along her bare skin, the tease of his lips and tongue against her mouth. The way he had held her afterward, as if he never wanted to let her go. But he had let her go and she’d done nothing to stop him.
She drew a shaky breath. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“Get caught in a whirlpool? I’ll do my best.”
She scowled at him. “Don’t make light. You know what I mean.”
“I’m fine, Thea.” He seemed on the verge of saying something else, but he held back. Maybe he thought she wanted his restraint. She did, didn’t she? They were in a precarious situation. Adrenaline and attraction could be a dangerous combination. Throw in unresolved issues and they were asking for trouble.
***
About the Author
Amanda Stevens is an award-winning author of over fifty novels. Born and raised in the rural south, she now resides in Houston, Texas.
