Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Reviews on the Utrecht Murders two book blog tour. UTRECHT SNOW and UTRECHT RAIN by Jonathan Wilkins which introduce the reader to a police investigative team in the city of Utrecht in the central Netherlands.
Below you will find book blurbs, the main cast of characters, my book reviews, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Blurbs
UTRECHT SNOW: Utrecht police inspector Caes Heda leads a team looking into the disappearance of young women. Meanwhile his daughter, Truus, bored with University takes up a job with disgraced former police office Thijs Orman at his Private Detective Agency and finds herself looking for yet another missing girl, this time it’s her bosses own daughter. are they all linked? At the Kroonstraat Police station the team Caes has put together look into the normal run of the mill cases and try to overcome the weather as much as the crime in the city as snow envelopes the streets of Utrecht. We meet twins Freddie and Maaike Meijer who patrol the streets together with colleagues Adrie and Danny. The team is made up by Madelon Verloet and man mountain Ernst Hougewood. Together they investigate car theft, street crime, assault and finally murder. We look at the everyday lives of the police involved, Caes still traumatised after his wifes early death and Truus falling for Maaike.
UTRECHT RAIN: Maaike Meijer is attacked in a senseless outbreak of violence at the Dom Tower in Utrecht. Her brother, Freddie, fights off the assailants, but how is the brutality linked to a series of violent threats, cyber crime and the Dutch Secret Service? Truus Heda continues her work as a private investigator whilst caring for her lover before finding the missing link. As the nightmare unfolds we enter the world of Serbian gangsters and Utrecht Goths and see how Hoofdinspecteur Caes Heda and his overworked team tackle a crime that could consume the city.
CAES HEDA – Hoofdinspecteur (Police Inspector) in charge of Kroonstraat Police Bureau in Utrecht
TRUUS HEDA – 19-year-old daughter of Caes Heda, student at Universiteit, apprentice to Private Investigator Thijs Orman
MADELON VERLOET – Hoofdagent (Detective)
ANDRE VOELMAN – Hoofdagent (Detective)
DANNY MEEUWEN – Surveillant
FREDERIK MEIJER (twin brother to Maaike) – Police Agent
MAAIKE MEIJER (twin sister to Frederik) -Police Agent
ERNST HOEWEGAN – Brigadier
THIJS ORMAN – Particulier Onderzoeks Bureau (Private Investigator), discharged from police force due to drug use, training Truus Heda
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My Book Review
UTRECHT SNOW by Jonathan Wilkins is a police procedural thriller set in Utrecht, Netherlands. I was attracted to the book by the cover and the unique setting. Utrecht is in the central Netherlands and was considered a religious center for centuries. It has a medieval old town, canals, gothic cathedral of St. Martin and a 14th century bell tower. This series is set in present time.
Young women are missing from the Universiteit and Hoofdinspector Caes Heda and his team are on the case. All the girls appear to have nothing in common other than not having family or friends that would raise the alarm at their disappearance.
At the same time, Truus Heda, Caes’ daughter bored with Universiteit, has accepted an apprenticeship with Private Investigator Thijs Orman a disgraced ex-cop. One of the missing girls is Thijs’ daughter, Steer. Which brings the police, Truus and Thijs all together to solve the disappearances.
As capable as Truus believes herself to be, she unknowingly runs into the dangerous killer. Now Caes and his team have to find and save the girls, including his daughter. Will they find them alive?
I did have difficulty at first getting into this story, but I am glad I persevered. There are I feel too many Dutch words used throughout the book to pull in the average reader. I found it authentic and interesting, but I did have to work at accepting this was how it was written. The missing girls and the murders all were paced well, which lead to a good thriller plot.
I do wish this was written as an introductory novella rather than a full-length book because there was too much repetition of Caes dealing with the loss of his wife, Truus’ kickboxing, Maaike’s judo and Truus and Maaike’s relationship. One scene on each would have been enough, but it was repeated excessively. I felt there should have been more attention to the thriller plot and much less on their private lives.
I enjoyed this introduction to a new, unique location and way of policing. The characters are fully fleshed out and the thriller plot was good. I just feel there is too much emphasis on scenes not necessary to the plot and it should be edited down to a novella with more focus. (Check out my next review for Utrecht Rain because I believe it is a much more focused and polished thriller.)
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My Book Review
RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars
UTRECHT RAIN by Jonathan Wilkins is the second police procedural thriller book in the Utrecht Murder series featuring Chief Inspector Caes Heda and his team. This book can easily be read as a standalone.
Maaike’s is attacked while on patrol with her twin by a group all in black and severely beaten before Frederik can get to her.
While she is recuperating with Truus looking after her, Truus is pulled off the street and taken to AIVD headquarters (AIVD is the General Intelligence and Security Service in the Netherlands) and asked to share information regarding a client that Thijs is surveilling.
At the same time Caes and the team are working not one, but two bank robberies pulled off simultaneously with all alarms and CCTV hacked. Each bank had five robbers all in black with bats and guns and they took the exact same amount of money.
All these investigations intertwine and converge with Maaike’s assault, Utrecht Goths, a computer genius and the Serbian mob. Will Caes and his team be able to solve everything in time to save the city?
I really enjoyed this unique look at criminal investigation, life and culture in the Netherlands. This second book in the series is much easier to read than the first with less Dutch, it is more reader friendly. The characters are fully-fleshed out and there is no confusion even if this is the first book you read. The fast pace and intersection of plot point revelations between Caes and his team’s investigation and Truus’ investigation leave you always with a reason to keep turning the pages.
A police procedural thriller from a unique place and culture with characters well worth following.
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About Jonathan Wilkins
Jonathan loves to write. He is a retired teacher, lapsed Waterstones’ bookseller and former Basketball Coach. He taught PE and English for 20 years and coached women’s basketball for over 30 years.
He regularly teaches creative writing workshops in and around Leicester.
I am very excited to be sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for Ann Girdharry’s new book – DEADLY SECRETS which is the second book featuring D.I. Grant and his team. It can be easily read as a standalone.
Below you will find a book blurb, my book review, the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Blurb
How long can you get away with murder?
In an idyllic Sussex town, Mr Quinn whispers a secret on his death bed. Hours later the person who cared for Quinn is killed.
Mr Quinn’s secret sets off events unlike anything Detective Grant and Psychologist Ruby Silver have ever seen. A series of deaths follow as a killer tries to cover their twenty-year trail of murder by drowning.
Grant, Silver and the team must track a killer who has been getting away with murder for years.
But when treachery, corruption and secrets from the past are used against Sergeant Tom Delaney, the killer turns their attention to one of Grant’s own…
DEADLY SECRETS by Ann Girdharry is a British police procedural thriller that I was very excited to receive from Bloodhound Books. I read the first book in this series, ‘Deadly Motives’ and loved it. This second book is an absolute edge-of-your-seat page turner and as electrifying as the first. It can be easily read as a standalone, but I know after you read this book and find out how much you love it, you will go back for the first.
This story has DI David Grant and the whole team returning for another investigation which begins with the stabbing death of a young nurse. Nurse Dixon was loved by everyone and yet she was brutally murdered and had her face cut out of a family picture. Criminal Psychologist Ruby Silver is helping the team once again and believes they may be chasing a serial killer as another death occurs which ties these deaths back to a twenty-year-old mystery.
DI Grant, Ruby and the team are tracking a killer who has eluded justice for many years even as they work the cold case of two boys who disappeared. The cold case also is connected to rumors from the past related to DS Tom Delaney father’s suicide.
The team is in a race to figure out how the past and present all tie together to find the killer before a person close to the team is targeted.
I read this book all in one sitting. I could not put it down. Ms. Girdharry has once again brought all her characters to life. They are all realistically heroic and evil. I felt Tom’s past trauma from finding his father’s body and the difficulty it caused in his work in the present was handled with empathy and it gives you more insight into his character. There are several POV ‘s between the past and present and yet I never lost track of who was speaking. The plot kept me glued to the page. There were several times I thought I knew who was responsible, but I was only partially correct because a plot twist or red herring would throw me back into questioning the killer’s identity.
I highly recommend this new intense and absolutely gripping thriller by Ms. Girdharry! I cannot wait to see where the characters go from here.
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Author Bio and Social Media Links
Ann Girdharry is a British, crime thriller author.
She is a trained psychotherapist and worked as a manager in the not-for-profit sector.
Her debut novel, Good Girl Bad Girl, is an ERIC HOFFER BOOK AWARD Finalist 2017 and a READERS’ FAVOURITE Five Star Book.
Here are a few fun facts from Ann Girdharry –
I love to travel and visit different cultures. As an adult, I’ve lived in the USA, Norway, UK and France.
One of my passions is roller blading and another is gardening.
I am excited to share my Feature Post and Book Review for the fourth book in this Harlequin Intrigue multi-author series – RUNNING OUT OF TIME (Tactical Crime Division Book #4) by Cindi Myers.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section with book purchase links. Enjoy!
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Book Description
Welcome to the Tactical Crime Division, a rapid-deployment joint team of FBI agents specializing in hostage negotiation, missing persons, IT, profiling, shootings and terrorism, with Director Jill Pembrook at the head.
When a terrorist is on the loose, the Tactical Crime Division is on the case.
To find out who poisoned medications, two of TCD’s agents are tapped to go undercover posing as a married couple and infiltrate the company. But as soon as Jace Cantrell and Laura Smith arrive at Stroud Pharmaceuticals, someone ups the ante by planting explosives in their midst. Turns out that the small-town family business is hiding a million secrets. Could they unknowingly be protecting a vengeful killer?
RUNNING OUT OF TIME (Tactical Crime Division Book #4) by Cindi Myers is the fourth book in this Harlequin Intrigue multi-author series featuring members of the FBIs Tactical Crime Division. This is a specialized unit of the FBI formed to handle the toughest cases at a moment’s notice anywhere in the country.
Family owned Stroud Pharmaceuticals is the major employer in the small town of Mayville. The TCD is called in to discover who tampered with the company’s best-selling herbal Stomach Soothers. The tampered bottles contained ricin and have so far killed six.
Jace Cantrell and Laura Smith are partnered undercover to portray a married couple working in the plant. The easy-going, rule-bending Jace is not sure how well this will work with the by-the-rules, uptight Laura. As they work to find the killer, they soon have even more to unravel as a bomb explodes by a plant door and kills an employee. They soon uncover that there were more bombs made.
The couple now needs to figure out if they have one killer or two and what is the motive before more people are killed. As the tension and suspense build to solve this case, so does the heat in their undercover marriage.
I enjoyed this addition to the series. It is a romantic suspense with a well written balance between the romance and the suspense. The ‘opposites attract’ romance is paced believably and both characters are fully fleshed for this shorter book. The sex scenes are short and just barely explicit. The suspense plot kept me guessing, not so much regarding who was guilty, but who was responsible for which criminal activity. I felt the romance was predictable, but I enjoyed the characters and the suspense kept me engrossed and turning the pages right up to ‘The End’.
I enjoyed this romantic suspense addition to the TCD series!
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Excerpt
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Special Agent Laura “Smitty” Smith – A disciplined agent who never breaks the rules, Laura must go undercover as a newlywed to find the person responsible for a rash of poisonings and bombings in a small West Virginia town.
Special Agent Jace Cantrell – the military veteran and special ops expert has a reputation as a rebel and a rule breaker – exactly the kind of man to clash with Laura, yet the two must pose as husband and wife to solve a case that brings death to their very doorstep.
Donna Stroud – The head of Stroud Pharmaceuticals intends to keep her company going and her family together in the face of tragedy, but how far will she go to do so?
Parker Stroud – Donna’s son chafes at his parents’ unwillingness to put him in charge of the family business.
Merry Winger – Parker’s girlfriend has big plans to marry Parker, despite his parents’ disapproval of their relationship and Parker’s own reluctance to make their relationship public.
Leo Elgin – His mother was poisoned by tainted medication manufactured by Stroud. He holds a grudge against the Stroud family.
Tactical Crime Division – Rapid-deployment joint team of FBI agents specializing in hostage negotiation, missing persons, IT, profiling, shootings and terrorism with director Jill Pembrook at the head.
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“We’ve got another tough case on our hands.” Jill Pembroke, director of the FBI’s tactical crime division, surveyed her team from the head of the conference table in the Bureau’s Knoxville headquarters. “One that re-quires a great deal of discretion.”
Something in the director’s tone made Agent Laura Smith sharpen her focus. Pembroke, with her well-cut silver hair and feminine suit, might be mistaken for a high society grandmother, but she was as hard-nosed as they came, and not prone to exaggeration. That she reminded her team of the need for discretion pointed to something out of the ordinary.
The door to the conference room opened and a man slipped in. Tall and rangy, Agent Jace Cantrell moved with the grace of an athlete. He nodded to the director and eased into the empty seat next to Laura. No apology for being late. Typical. Laura slid her chair over a couple of inches. Cantrell was one of those men who always seemed to take up more than his share of the available space.
“We’re going to be investigating product tampering at Stroud Pharmaceuticals in Mayville, West Virginia.”
Director Pembroke stepped aside to reveal a slide showing a squat factory building set well back on landscaped grounds.
“The antacid poisonings.” Agent Ana Ramirez spoke from her seat directly across from Laura. She tucked a strand of dark hair into the twist at the nape of her neck, polished nails glinting in the overhead light. “That story has been all over the news.”
“Do the locals not want the FBI horning in?” Agent Davis Rogers—the only member of the team not wearing the regulation suit—sat back in his chair beside Ramirez, looking every bit the army ranger he had once been. “Is that why the extra discretion?”
“No, the local police are happy to turn this over to us,” Pembroke said. She advanced to the next slide, a listing of the deaths—six so far, with two additional people hospitalized—attributed to Stroud’s Stomach Soothers, a natural, organic remedy that claimed a significant share of the market as an alternative to traditional antacids. “This hasn’t been released to the public, but the poison in the contaminated tablets was ricin.”
Laura would have sworn the temperature in the air-conditioned room dropped five degrees. “Any suggestion of a link to terrorism?” Hostage negotiator Evan Duran, bearded and brooding, spoke from the end of the table. “Anybody claiming credit for the deaths?”
Pembroke shook her head. “At this point, we aren’t assuming anything. Obviously, we want to avoid panicking the public.”
“The public is already panicked,” Rowan Cooper, the team’s local liaison, said. “People have been organizing boycotts of all Stroud products.” She absently twisted a lock of her jet-black hair, brow furrowed. “We’ll need a strategy for managing the public’s response.”
“The facility where the Stomach Soothers were manufactured has been closed for the time being and the product is being pulled from store shelves,” Pembroke said. “But another facility in town, which manufactures other items, remains open, and the company has reduced hours and reassigned as many employees as possible to the single plant. The company, the town, even the state officials, are very anxious to downplay this tragedy and get Stroud up and running full-speed as soon as possible.”
“Why do that?” Kane Bradshaw, Agent-at-Large, said. Laura hadn’t noticed him until now, seated as he was behind her and apart from the rest, almost in the shadows. Kane always looked as if he’d just rushed in from an overnight surveillance, all wind-blown hair and shadowed eyes. The fact that he was here spoke to the gravity of this case. While always on hand when the team needed him, he wasn’t much on office decorum.
“Jobs.” Cantrell’s voice, deep and a little rough, like a man who smoked two packs a day, sent a shiver through Laura. He didn’t smoke, but maybe he once had. “Stroud Pharmaceuticals is one of the biggest employers in Boone County,” he continued. “The coal mines are shutting down, and there isn’t a lot of other industry. Stroud has been a savior to the community. They—and the officials they elected—are going to do everything in their power to keep the company running and redeem its reputation.”
“Even covering up murder?” Laura asked.
Cantrell turned to her, his gaze cool. “I doubt they want to cover it up, but they’ll definitely downplay it and keep it quiet.”
“They want us to help, but they don’t want us to be obvious.” The youngest member of the team, computer specialist Hendrick Maynard, jiggled his knee as he spoke. A genius who looked younger than his twenty-six years, Maynard never sat still.
“Precisely.” Director Pembroke advanced to another slide of a small town—tree-shaded streets lined with modest homes, some worse for wear. A water tower in the distance displayed the word Mayville in faded green paint. “Agents Smith and Cantrell, you are to pose as a married couple and take jobs at the Stroud factory. Investigations so far point to the poisonings having originated from within the plant itself, so your job is to identify possible suspects and investigate. Agent Rogers, you’ll be in town as well…”
Laura didn’t hear the rest of the director’s assignments. She was focused on trying to breathe and holding back her cry of protest. She and Cantrell? As a couple? The idea was ridiculous. He was rough, undisciplined, arrogant, scornful…
“You look like you just ate a bug.” Cantrell leaned to-ward her, bringing with him the disconcerting aroma of cinnamon. His gravelly voice abraded her nerves. “Don’t think I’m any more excited about this than you are.”
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About the Author
Cindy Myers became one of the most popular people in eighth grade when she and her best friend wrote a torrid historical romance and passed the manuscript around among friends. Fame was short-lived, alas; the English teacher confiscated the manuscript. Since then, Cindy has written more than 50 published novels. Her historical and contemporary romances and women’s fiction have garnered praise from reviewers and readers alike.
I love getting a few box sets for my summer reading so there is no waiting on the next book in that series that I am engrossed in reading. A sizzling hot paranormal/urban fantasy series that I have previous reviewed now comes in three different box set groups right now.
Check out Lisa Carlisle’s – VAMPS: Underground Encounters Box Set 1 with gargoyle shifters, vampires, and witches; SHIFTERS: Underground Encounters Box Set 2 with shapeshifters, vampires, and rockstars, or you can get them both together in Underground Encounters Box Set (2 Book Series)!
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VAMPS: Underground Encounters Box Set 1 with gargoyle shifters, vampires, and witches
OVERALL RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars
Book 1 – CURSED
CURSED (Underground Encounters Book #0) by Lisa Carlisle is the start of the paranormal/urban fantasy series featuring gargoyles, vampires, shifters, witches and demons. I have read other books in this series and have loved them all and this short story did not disappoint.
This story introduces the French gargoyle shifter brothers, Lucan, Danton and Mattias who are happily living with their clan. Lucan starts seeing a witch, who believes their relationship is more than just the fling Lucan believed it to be. When she comes across the brothers discussing her and Lucan, she believes they are speaking disrespectfully of her and she curses them with a black spell that locks them in their stone forms and clouds their memories of her.
As the brothers adapt to their cursed lives, they find that when they see someone in danger, they are released from their stone forms for 24 hours.
Are they to be cursed forever? Or will the brothers be able to find a way to break the curse?
This is an intriguing introduction to the gargoyle brothers, Michel their vampire boss and VAMPS the underground alternative goth nightclub. Ms. Carlisle has done a good job of worldbuilding in such a short book. I do not usually like cliffhangers, but since I read this book after the book that gives us Danton’s story, I was not upset and did not have to wait.
Once you start reading this series, you are going to be hooked!
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Book 2 – SMOLDER
SMOLDER by Lisa Carlisle is the revised novella start to her Underground Encounters paranormal romance series which was originally released in 2012 as Smoldering Nights. I love Ms. Carlisle’s various series, but this novella still lacks the depth of character and originality I look for in her books.
Nike is a firefighter who loves to let off steam with her best friend, Maya on the dance floor of Vamps, the local goth night club. On one of their nights at the club, she sees the man she has a crush on from her rock climbing gym. He has a French accent, a gorgeous body and beautiful eyes. She cannot believe her luck when Michel asks her up to accompany him to a private room upstairs, but she is about to get an education in other creatures that coexist with mortals.
Michel is a nightwalker. He does not know what draws him to Nike at the club or the gym and he knows he should not get involved with a mortal, but he finds her irresistible. When he gets Nike to agree to accompany up to the private rooms, they are attacked by an old enemy right when things begin to get interesting.
Michel and Nike go on the run. The attraction is too much to resist and they begin to explore their sexual attraction and also begin to wonder if it could become more. Can they have a future or will Michel’s enemy find them once again and destroy them both?
This novella was a very quick read and a good introduction to the Underground Encounters series. Nike is a strong heroine who can stand on her own which I loved. Michel is sexy and a dream, even with the fangs. There just was not enough depth to the characters due to the shortness of the story and it does end abruptly.
You have to start this series. It is a fun intro and the sex scenes are steamy, hot and well written.
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Book 3 – FIRE
FIRE (Underground Encounters Book 2) by Lisa Carlisle is HOT!
I am very glad I continued on in this paranormal romance series, even though the first novella in the series had a few problems for me. This story begins a year after the fire at Vamps and follows Maya. It can easily be read as a standalone, even though it does bring characters from the first novella back.
Maya Winters is missing her best friend and decides Halloween is the perfect time to return to Vamps and blow off some steam dancing after a long shift working as a firefighter. As she is dancing away to her favorite tunes, she suddenly feels eyes on her. When she sees the tall, dark and brooding bad boy staring at her she feels an instant attraction.
Tristan Stone is the new, mysterious owner of the rebuilt Vamps. Tristan is from a long line of Salem witches. He stays away from people due to what he considers his curse, because he has only ever been able to see darkness around people and it drains him. When he comes up from his underground lab beneath the club one day to check on things, he immediately spots a woman dancing because of the brilliant light surrounding her. This has never happened before and he has to find out why she is different.
Maya and Tristan combust when they are together. The two opposites are light to dark and outgoing to cautious. Tristan thinks Maya may be the answer to his curse, but he has never told anyone about it outside of his family. Maya is harboring a secret of her own that she has never shared. The sex is hot, but can a relationship with secrets last?
Maya and Tristan are main characters that are perfect together. Ms. Carlisle has given these characters depth that is as fun and entertaining as it is serious. The sex scenes bring the fire and heat.
With the return of Nike and Michel, I cannot wait to see what happens next in this series!
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SHIFTERS: Underground Encounters Box Set 2 with shapeshifters, vampires, and rockstars
OVERALL RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars
Book 1 – IGNITE
IGNITE (Underground Encounters Book 3) by Lisa Carlisle is now my favorite of this series!
Vamps underground nightclub is the epicenter of each book in this paranormal romance series that are all easily read as standalone stories. Ms. Carlisle’s world of vampires, shifters, witches and gargoyles just keeps getting better and better.
Book 3 has Lily Everett celebrating a promotion with her friend at Vamps. Lily works hard at her job, works out hard at the gym and is an avid reader who has occasional sex with no commitments. Lily’s night out is interrupted by The Velvet Cocks lead singer and she is not thrilled until she hears him sing. He has a sensual voice that captivates her. Lily is interested, but very guarded and a loner because she has a furry secret that she never shares.
Nico Bedrosian aka Leggy Bones is a rock star by night and a computer geek by day. He is intrigued by the golden eyed beauty who does not seemed interested in him. He gets Lily to let him in enough to be a friend with benefits and those benefits are extremely hot!
Real feelings begin to grow on both sides, but Lily refuses to share why they can never be together. Nico wants to break down Lily’s walls and find out why she is so afraid to commit, but can he really handle the truth?
Lily and Nico are both well fleshed out characters that have many layers to their personalities that make them unique. You can feel for Lily having to grow up with her secret and being too afraid to share. Nico is just perfect with his rock star looks and voice, literary knowledge, geekiness and English accent. These two have explicit, steamy, smokin’ hot sex scenes throughout the story, but they are well placed and realistic to the building relationship.
Ms. Carlisle has built an intriguing paranormal world around Vamps and each book has increased my interest and love of the series. I cannot wait to see who will be introduced next!
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Book 2 – BURN
BURN (Underground Encounters Book 4) by Lisa Carlisle is another sizzling addition to the VAMPS paranormal romance series. When you sit down to read about Devon and Layla, clear your schedule because you are going to want read this one from start to finish.
Layla flees London for her immortal life. She has been framed for a theft from a master vampire, who does not believe in her innocence. She returns to America and reinvents herself as “Angelica”, the new lead singer for an 80’s heavy metal cover band.
Devon St. Clair has a reputation as one of the best bounty hunters for hire. Ruthless and relentless, he always gets his man or woman. Aided by his years in Royal Special Forces, he is also a shifter. He can shift into any animal form and every one of them hates vampires. When he catches up to Layla at VAMPS, he is entranced by her and her voice, but he cannot let that get in the way of his job, can he?
This series just keeps pulling me in and I have to say that I especially loved Layla and Devon! Layla is petite and yet mighty, in character and physical strength. Devon is all hot, tough shifter and yet has softer, vulnerable moments that appear for Layla. The sex scenes are smokin’ hot and steaming. The plot is not unique, but Ms. Carlisle puts some interesting twists into this world of paranormal creatures that makes them unique.
This book can easily be read as a standalone in this series, but I bet if you love paranormal romances as I do, you will want to read them all.
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About the Author
USA Today bestselling author Lisa Carlisle loves stories with dark, brooding heroes and independent heroines. She’s honored to be a multi-published author writing in different genres since she’s wanted to be a writer since the sixth grade. For much of her professional career, she’s written non-fiction — but she’s discovered writing romance is the most fun. Her romances have been named Top Picks at Night Owl Reviews and All Romance Ebooks.
When she was younger, she worked in a variety of jobs, moving to various countries. She backpacked alone through Europe, and lived in Paris before returning to the U.S. She owned a bookstore for a few years as she loves to read. She’s now married to a fantastic man, and they have two kids, a cat, and many fish.
THE LOST GIRLS by Helen Pryke is a thriller that is the first book in a new series featuring a female investigative journalist and it will keep you on the edge-of-your-seat. The author had me anxious and squirming with each revelation about the antagonist’s past.
Four years ago, a young boy is kidnapped and his dead body is discovered a few days later. The same week his family is grieving, one girl is abducted as she walks home from school and another is abducted just a week later in front of the same school. All three cases go cold with no resolution.
Michael and Chloe want resolution to their sister’s disappearances. They approach investigative journalist, Maggie Dupont for help. Maggie is willing to write a piece to bring the girl’s case back into the news, but as they uncover clues that the police missed they suddenly find themselves in a race against the clock to find the kidnapper before their sisters become replacements for his sisters who died sixteen years earlier in a house fire.
Maggie is a wonderfully complex protagonist. With a traumatic past and her present health issues, she is still willing to help Michael and Chloe. Her curiosity and search for justice will not let her take the easy way out. Maggie and the kidnapper in alternating chapters reveal their pasts and the events in present time. The plot was fast paced and built to an exciting climax, but I did have a problem with Maggie not notifying the police, especially when they uncovered important information from a witness and they found the house in which the girls were first hidden. Up to that point, I would have said this story was believable, but that changed my mind. I did think the author did a good job of demonstrating the rescued girls’ PTSD in the epilogue.
I enjoyed this start to the Maggie Dupont series and am interested in reading more.
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About the Author
Helen Pryke is a British author who has been living in the north of Italy for almost 30 years, learning everything about Italians, their culture, and their way of life. She now considers herself more Italian than British, even though she has never lost her British accent. Addicted to coffee and chocolate, she has also developed a passion for good food, having married an Italian who is a wonderful cook!
As well as writing suspense novels, Helen also writes emotional women’s fiction set in Italy that deals with the difficult subject of abuse in a sensitive way. She also writes middle grade fiction under the pen name, Julia E. Clements. You can find her books here: author.to/JuliaEClements
When she’s not writing, she works as a proofreader for indie authors and a translator (from Italian to English). She loves reading, and will read anything and everything.
Today is my turn on the Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour for the start of this new thriller series. I am very excited to share my Feature Post and Book Review for DANGER IN PLAIN SIGHT: A CALLIE JAMES THRILLER by Burt Weissbourd.
Below you will find a book synopsis, my book review, two excerpts from the book and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Synopsis
It took fourteen years to construct a safe world for her and her son–and only one night for her ex to unravel it.
Celebrated Seattle restaurateur Callie James is more than a little thrown when her ex-husband, French investigative reporter Daniel Odile-Grand, shows up after fourteen years asking for her help. Even more disturbing: as she throws him out, Daniel is deliberately hit by a car, hurled through the front window of her restaurant–broken, bloody and unconscious. He flees from the hospital and breaks into Callie’s apartment, where he passes out. Reluctantly, Callie hides him. When she gets back to her restaurant, two assassins walk in, insisting that she find Daniel for them by tonight or pay the consequences.
Overwhelmed and hopelessly out of her depth, Callie hires the only man she knows who can help her: Cash Logan, her former bartender, a man she had arrested for smuggling ivory through her restaurant two years earlier, and who still hasn’t forgiven her.
The assassins blow up her restaurant. It’s Callie’s nightmare. And the worst is yet to come as she and her unlikely, incompatible ally discover that the most perilous dangers are far closer to home than they’d imagined.
Genre: Thriller Published by: Blue City Press Publication Date: May 5th 2020 Number of Pages: 224 ISBN: 1733438211 (ISBN13: 9781733438216) Series: A Callie James Thriller, 1
DANGER IN PLAIN SIGHT: A Callie James Thriller (Callie James Thriller Book #1) by Burt Weissbourd is a thriller featuring a protagonist that I look forward to following in many more books in this new series. I could not put this book down as the characters evolved and the action reaches a fevered climax.
Callie James has worked hard for years to make her French restaurant in Seattle one of the best. It has provided the security and safety she needed to raise her son after divorcing her cheating husband, Daniel in Paris.
Daniel shows up in Callie’s restaurant after fourteen years and asks her to hide him bringing danger to her door. Not knowing what to do, she does know someone who will, Cash, her former bartender. She is not sure if he will be help her though since she had him arrested for smuggling two years ago.
As Callie’s world spins out of control, Cash and friends pull Callie into the fire. Callie and Cash have to deal with international money launderers, illegal weapons dealers, professional killers and terrorists. Cash will find out what Callie is truly made of and he may never be able to call her “Frosty” again.
This book took me completely by surprise. I sat down expecting from the title and cover that I would be reading about the usual kick-butt female protagonist, but that is not what happened. Callie starts out in the story by being so by-the-book and black and white in her values, but as the book progresses, so does Callie. The more that happened, the more Callie evolved and came out of her “Frosty” persona to become the kick-butt protagonist I was waiting for. Cash is the perfect foil and ultimate partner for Cassie. He and his band of friends, with their murky pasts and specialized abilities ramp up the action with every twist and turn of the plot Mr. Weissbourd throws at them.
This thriller has a cast of memorable characters, has fast paced action and an intricate plot. I cannot wait for the next book in this series to see what Callie and Cash get involved in next.
I can highly recommend this first book in this new thriller series!
***
Excerpt
It was 1:15 a.m. when Kelly and Gray returned. They must have been watching, because they came in as the last patron left. Will showed them to the bar, where Callie was waiting at her table. They sat facing her, different suits this time. Gray wore a thin gold square-link chain around his neck and a matching gold earring—stylish and expensive. Kelly wore a similar gold necklace with a floating diamond solitaire pendant. As Will was asking where their suits had been made, Callie interrupted. “A drink?”
“Another time,” Gray said, all business now. “Have you found Daniel Odile-Grand?”
“No, as I said before, I have no idea where he is.”
“That’s unacceptable,” he said matter-of-factly. He turned to his partner, who nodded, regretfully smiling her agreement.
Callie was prepared. Cash had told her to hit her “ice mode” button—a phrase he’d coined for her chilliness when irritated—at any sign of trouble. He’d recognize that and take it from there. “I beg your pardon?” she replied, classic subzero. She sipped her tepid San Pellegrino with lime.
“As I explained, urgent matters are at stake.” Gray waved his hand to include the dining room downstairs. “I’m told this fine restaurant is underinsured.”
“Yo, Callie.” Cash had materialized behind her, carrying chips and guacamole for the table. “I thought you said we were well insured.”
“We are, in fact, well insured,” she agreed.
Cash leaned in. His physical presence didn’t seem to faze these people. “So we don’t need insurance, then, we’re fine,” he pointed out.
Gray leaned in, too, measuring Cash, finding him wanting. “Listen carefully, cowboy, this is not your concern.” He said it slowly, advising a dim-witted child.
Kelly shook her head and spoke for the first time. “No, surely not.”
Cash’s eyes locked onto Gray’s. “Then this is your unlucky day, pardner. From now on, to get to the lady, you go through me.” He flashed a shit-eating grin. “Did you call me Cowboy?”
Gray grinned ever so slightly. Kelly smiled, picture perfect.
“Cowboy?” Cash repeated, frowning now as he emptied the bowl of guacamole on Gray’s cream-colored silk suit.
Gray was up, going for his gun. He fell to the floor, writhing, when Andre planted his metal prosthetic in the hit man’s groin. Cash already had Kelly’s arms pinned at her sides. Andre took her gun from its shoulder holster and trained it on Gray, who was on the floor, covered with guacamole.
“Let this go,” Cash told Gray. “You don’t want a war. Not with me.”
“Nice suit,” Andre added, and lifted Gray’s gold necklace with the black metal toe of his prosthetic leg. “Love the bling.”
More from Danger in Plain Sight
Cash closed his eyes. He had to do something to divert his mind from these horrific insects. He turned away, stretched his sore arms, flexed his tense back, focusing on Callie. Callie James . . . Okay, it was working. Picturing her face, the corners of his mouth turned up and his spirits soared.
Callie James . . . Why did he feel so wholly in love with her?
He stood, arms extended behind him, as he considered his on-again, off-again history with women.
Women found him attractive, and he’d been with many of them. His relationships, however, rarely lasted as long as he expected. There was some part of himself that he held back, and women sensed this and eventually moved on or asked for more of a commitment than he could make. Over time, he realized that it wasn’t a part — like a piece — but rather some portion of his unusual intensity. He understood that he was very accepting of other people and only offered as much as a woman looked for — some essential emotional minimum — to sustain the relationship. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It was a strong, keenly sensitive person’s way of protecting a partner from unwanted, possibly unsettling intensity. It’s who he was. Everything that he did, he did well but sparingly. So in some way he didn’t understand, he was choosing women who were less intense than he was.
Callie was the first woman he’d ever been with who demanded one hundred percent at all times. She was relentless, and even when she wasn’t aware of it, every bit as intense as he was. He didn’t hold anything back with her — yet she always wanted an explanation, an elaboration, an argument, or an answer to a difficult question. She’d never idealized him, that’s for sure. And he never pretended with her. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but the out-of-the-blue way this had happened between them, the strength of it, was something entirely new for him. Did he trust it? Yes, unequivocally. Did he know why? Yes, unequivocally again — it was because Callie James could never be untrue to herself.
Cash sat down, and turning back, he watched the horrible insects squirming in the jar.
No, he couldn’t lose her. Not now.
More from Danger in Plain Sight
He opened the back door and then led Christy up the stairs to apartment 2D. Will opened the apartment door, held it for her. Christy came through the door into the living room. Will closed the door behind her.
“Christy,” Callie called from where she’d been standing behind the door.
When Christy turned, confused, Callie whispered, “You miserable bitch,” and she fired two barbed, dart-like electrodes from her Taser into Christy’s chest. The electrodes created a circuit in the body, essentially hijacking the central nervous system, causing neuromuscular incapacitation.
Christy fell to the floor, writhing in uncontrollable muscle spasms. When the writhing stopped and she’d curled into the fetal position, Callie and Will cuffed her hands behind her back.
When they were able to get her on her feet, Callie said, “We’re trading you for Cash Logan and Amjad Hasim.”
“What are you talking about?”
Callie slapped her, as hard as she was able. The blow tore Christy’s lower lip, drawing blood, and bruised her cheek. Callie hadn’t planned to do that—it was her second time, and she’d never hit anyone nearly so hard in her life—but red-hot rage was coursing through her veins. She was trembling, though her ever-present anxiety had receded, and she sure as hell didn’t feel helpless.
“Are you crazy?” Christy cried out.
“Don’t even try that. I know what you and Avi have done—to Daniel, to my restaurant, to my friend Doc. You almost killed us all on the boat. And now you have Cash, damn you!”
Christy’s face changed; she got it—Callie had somehow put it together. “You low-life skanky cunt, I’ll kill you myself.” Christy spit in Callie’s face.
Callie slapped her again, a fierce crack, astonished, yet again, by the rage she felt welling inside. And in that moment, she understood that her usual internal restraints—her rules and regulations—were no longer in place. It was as if an anvil had been cut loose from around her neck.
Blood dripped from Christy’s lip, her left eye was partially closed, and tears streamed down her face.
Callie stepped closer. “If anything happens to Cash, if you hurt him again, I’ll kill you, Christy Ben-Meyer. I swear that on my son’s life.”
Five minutes later Christy was standing on a stool in the center of the room. Her hands were cuffed behind her back. Her feet were bound. Her mouth was covered with duct tape. There was a noose around her neck that was tightly tied off to the pair of sturdy eyehooks that Will had screwed into the ceiling beam earlier. Christy’s head was tilted back and up; the rope was that tight. Another rope was tied to the leg of the stool. If the stool were pulled out from under Christy’s feet, she would hang.
Callie held a handgun to Christy’s kneecap.
Will was shooting a video with Callie’s iPhone.
Callie spoke to the camera. “Avi Ben-Meyer, I promise you that I will shoot out Christy’s left kneecap in fifteen minutes if you haven’t arranged the exchange with Itzac by then. In thirty minutes, I’ll shoot out her other kneecap and hang her. Believe me on this — if Cash Logan is hurt in any way, I’ll torture her without mercy before she dies.” Callie nodded, done. She walked to a corner of the room, fighting for breath. Dear God! What had she just said? Torture Christy? Damn it, if they hurt Cash . . . She gasped — she’d never even known that she could have feelings like that.
Will placed a calming hand on her back, and he gave her the phone. Callie noted the time, then sent the video to Itzac.
More from Danger in Plain Sight
The martinis arrived, each one with an extra inch of refill in a glass tumbler. “The angel’s share,” Cash explained. He raised his drink, a toast. “To you, Callie, to what you could become.”
She clicked his glass with hers. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You have a shot at extraordinary.”
“You think so?”
“Possibly. But it’s an entirely different kind of extraordinary than turning-me-over-to-the-cops-for-smuggling-erotic-netsuke-into-your-restaurant extraordinary.”
“I deserve that. Jesus what an unforgiving, righteous gal I was.” She raised a palm. “Your words. And you were right. I’m sorry.” She touched his arm. “I was mean-spirited, foolish—just plain wrong — and I’ll always regret that.”
“Suppose we let that go.” Cash raised his glass again.
She touched her glass to his. “Thank you.”
“Speaking of regrets, honestly, I never anticipated that this past week would be so difficult—the anxiety, hiding Lew, the mace, the damage to your restaurant, the explosives on the boat . . . It was especially hard to lose Doc . . .” He let it drift.
She nodded, found his eyes. “I misjudged you early on . . . Conventional thinking sometimes blinds me—how you look, how you dress, what your job is. Long story short, you’re not at all what you seem. I listened carefully to you with Detective Samter today. You’re so smart, so able in the world. And in your way, though you’d never admit it, you try to get it right. Yes, you present whatever you’re proposing as practical, a calculated, opportunistic thing. What I’m learning, though, is that with you that’s also, as you see it—after carefully weighing pros and cons—the best for all involved. Or as I would say it, theright thing. How you get there is often confusing to me, but you do get there, way ahead of me, and, well, I admire you.”
“Thank you . . . That’s a two-way deal.” Cash watched her, surprised by her expressiveness. “Truthfully, this past week, I underestimated you. You’ve been right there, as hard as that must have been for you. You kept defying my expectations. Just when I was ready to give up on you, you did the smart thing, the hard thing, under protest, but you did it. And now, I’m watching you in the eye of a serious storm, just when I’d expect you to cave in, fall apart. But no, you manage. You even stand tall. Callie, you have a fine, strong heart.”
She smiled. “I’m a restaurateur. I never knew what to do outside my restaurant. I was always afraid.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“It took a lot of work and a huge amount of energy to accomplish that deception. I mean you can’t imagine what it was like for me to find you — ask for your help — at the Dragon. It was all I could do to look at you, to keep even a semblance of composure.”
“And that’s changing?”
“Yes, I think so. I hope so.”
“How did this happen?”
“It’s you, Terry.” She looked at him, eyes serious. “In your tenacious, patient way, you dragged me—kicking and screaming—out into the world, step by baby step, and though it’s every bit as frightening and even more unsettling than I imagined it, I’m okay with it. Yeah, I’m even getting my sea legs.”
“Bravo, then, Callie James. To both of us.”
She raised her glass. They toasted silently.
“Truthfully, Cash, at times I even like it out here.”
“Well, it suits you.” Cash watched her smile.
“I even like talking with you . . . And I was never a talker.”
“I’m guessing we have some great, contentious conversations ahead of us.”
“I like the idea of that.”
“Likewise.”
“Cash and Frosty, tête-à-tête.”
He took her small, delicate hands in his big, busted-up mitts.
Their kiss was tender, sweet, Cash thought. After, there were tears in Callie’s eyes.
***
Author Bio
Burt Weissbourd is a novelist and former screenwriter and producer of feature films. He was born in 1949 and graduated cum laude from Yale University, with honors in psychology. His book, Danger in Plain Sight, published on May 15th 2020, is the first book in his new Callie James thriller series. His earlier books include Inside Passage, Teaser, Minos, and In Velvet, all of which will be reissued in Fall 2020.
