Tag: #standalone

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: Where the Truth Lies by Katherine Greene

Book Description

Childhood sweethearts Rhett and Lucinda seem to have the perfect marriage, the child they always wanted, and even the white picket fence. But fifteen years ago, the couple came very close to losing everything. When outsider Jennifer Moore arrived in their tight-knit Kentucky town, a brief but explosive affair between the newcomer and the soon-to-be-married Rhett stirred up a violent storm of betrayal that ended with a dead body and a mystery riddled with corruption and deception.

Now, new evidence has surfaced—including an eyewitness who places Rhett at the scene of the brutal crime. Soon the carefully constructed life Rhett and Lucinda built starts to crumble—and the truth waiting beneath the surface could destroy them both.

In a town steeped in deadly Southern charm, secrets don’t fade—they fester.

***

Elise’s Thoughts

Where The Truth Lies by Katherine Greene, the pen name of bestselling authors A. Meredith Walters and Claire C. Riley, is a domestic suspense story. The small-town setting enhances the secrets, affairs, and deception made by each character, along with the alternating timelines and multiple POVs.

High school sweethearts Rhett Clark and Lucinda Herbaugh seem to have nothing in common. She is from a very powerful and rich family while he is being raised by a single mom who works very hard at her job. Yet, they appear to love each other and to be the picture-perfect couple with the perfect marriage.

But fifteen years ago, the couple came very close to losing everything, when outsider Jennifer Moore arrived in their tight-knit Kentucky town and had a brief but explosive affair with soon-to-be-married Rhett. Fast-forward to the present where new evidence has surfaced, including an eyewitness who places Rhett at the scene of the brutal murder of Jennifer.

Now the betrayal once again comes to the surface, and the mystery of Jenn’s death is riddled with corruption and deception. Everything Rhett and Lucinda strove for is crumbling as the “truth” begins to come out. Abuse plays a role in the story whether emotional, physical, or both. Lucinda’s father made sure everyone in the family and town sided with him. Jenn’s brother believes women should be dominated and intimidated, influencing Rhett in a bad way. With Jenn’s death at the center of the story each of the other character’s will have to answer to their own demons.

Other than Jenn, all the other characters are not likeable and very complex. This story has readers only rooting for Jenn to get justice as they turn the pages to find out the truth.

***

Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?

Abbi Meredith Walters: It is inspired by true events, a cold case, that happened in Virigina involving people in my family. I had this old scrapbook that was my grandmothers. I sent this to Claire, and we decided to write a book based on the information. There are personality traits like the people the characters were modeled after. We did make changes.

EC: How did you both decide to write together?

Claire C. Riley: Abbi and I have been friends for ten plus years. We met on Facebook in a writer’s group. We had both been writing separately for a very long time. During Covid Abbi had a bit of a writer’s block and I suggested we should write a book together. We both really, really liked doing it.

EC: Why the pen name Katherine Green?

CCR: My middle name is Catherine with a “C”, so I changed it to Katherine with a “K” and Abbi was stuck for a surname. She liked green and so did I, so we chose that as the last name.

EC: What was the role of Jenn in the story?

AMW: Claire and I agreed that the victim, Jenn, needed a voice. We wanted the reader to remember she was at the heart of the story and did not want her to get lost in it. She was meant to be the most likeable character in the story.

CCR: After writing about half the book, Abbi realized Jenn needed her own chapters. In the news the victim tends to be lost so we wanted to make her the forefront. We thought it was much more important for her to tell her story, more than anyone else. It helped to build the story around her.

EC: How would you describe Jenn?

Katherine Greene: She started innocent and finished innocent. She is vulnerable, fearful, a teaser, vulnerable, timid, and ran away from her life. Jenn was a prisoner in her family’s home. In some ways she is the other woman but unwillingly because she did not know.

EC: What was the relationship between Jenn and Rhett like?

AMW: He got something for this relationship that was lacking in his life. He was able to control her and felt he was in charge. I do not think he was capable of truly loving her and betrayed her. His entire relationship with her was what she could do to fill his needs.

EC: What about Rhett?

Katherine Greene: He was bullied into submission by this strong-willed family. He enters this dark world and is led astray by the other male character. We wanted to show how he was led down this different path that he meant not to go down. He started off as a lovely person who wants to please all the women in his life. We hope readers like him at first, and then at the end do not like him with the slow descent. At first, he is seen as trustworthy, honest, dependable, quiet, and charming. But then becomes obstinate, lacks common sense, and has rage.

EC: What do you want to say about Lucinda?

CCR: She just wants her parents’ approval and to be loved but must deal with overbearing parents. She has a slow descent into becoming an unlikeable person because of her striving for perfectionism. She is at times out of control, confident, from a privileged family, lonely, manipulator, and strong-willed.

EC: What about Lucinda and Rhett’s relationship?

Katherine Greene: They had secrets. She had old-fashioned values where she wants to get married and have children. He felt trapped in their relationship and felt emasculated by her and her family. She felt betrayed, deceived, and humiliated by him. They were bitter and combative toward each other. She stays with him out of spite because her parents never liked him. He creates a prison for her as much as she does for him. She was trapped by hoping he would love her.

EC: Do you think control plays an important role in the book?

Katherine Greene: The men in this book are all quite toxic in wanting control, while all the women felt they did not have control of their own lives. The continuity is that the characters felt all out of control over their own lives. The main characters each had to deal with overbearing people. Lucinda felt out of control because of her overbearing parents, Rhett felt overbearing by Lucinda, and Jenn ran away from home. No one was in control of their lives or actions. All were led astray by someone else’s actions.

EC: Do you agree that Marty, Jenn’s brother, was a character who did have toxic masculinity?

Katherine Greene: He passed it on to Rhett who latched on to him and had dark thoughts put in his head because he did not start out that way. He is domineering, wants things his way, unethical, intimidating, powerful, sadistic, arrogant, and wants to control the family dynamic. He has this book quote, “Women want to be tamed. They want to be controlled. They want to be put in their place.”

EC: How would you describe Bailey, Lucinda’s sister?

Katherine Greene: She is vulnerable, malleable, and family is most important to her. She has layers. She is also an attention-seeker, angry, possessive, and naïve.

EC: Next book?

Katherine Greene: We are writing two books. One is the sequel to The Lake of Lost Girls. The other book is Here We Lay Our Bones that has four simultaneous storylines, a mystery/thriller. The plot is based around the discovery of some bones.

THANK YOU!!

***

BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Book Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: The Last Fatal Hour by Jan Matthews

THE LAST FATAL HOUR

by Jan Matthews

May 4 – 29, 2026 Virtual Book Tour

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for THE LAST FATAL HOUR by Jan Matthews on this Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour.

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

***

Book Description

For Leona Gladney, former woman soldier of the Union Army, life goes on despite the echoes of the battlefield in her heart. Now a suffragist and budding socialite in Brooklyn Heights, she yearns for a literary life and family. But her husband’s business partner embezzles their money and disappears.

The society matrons of Brooklyn Heights turn a gimlet eye on Leona after the suspicious death of a wealthy friend. Leona will do anything to find justice for her friend and clear her own name, but she finds only secrets, seances and murder.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/246335662-the-last-fatal-hour?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=qBbDWbM73z&rank=1

The Last Fatal Hour

Genre: Historical Mystery
Published by: Coffee&ink Press
Publication Date: April 7, 2026
Number of Pages: 320
ISBN: 9798232470982

***

My Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

THE LAST FATAL HOUR by Jan Matthews is an intriguing historical murder mystery and domestic suspense mash-up set post-Civil War in Brooklyn Heights, New York. This book features a female main character attempting to be an amateur sleuth to clear her name and due to blackmail. She was previously a fighting female soldier in disguise during the Civil War who is now struggling with severe PTSD. This is a standalone fictional historical story that is authentic to the era and society it portrays.

Socialite Leona Gladney has attempted to put her past as a soldier in the Union Army and death of her first husband behind her. Remarried and working on personal literary pursuits, she still has dreams and moments of anxiety over her time in the service. Her anxiety is exacerbated by her husband’s business partner disappearing with their company’s funds.

When the robbery and suspicious death of a wealthy friend and matriarch leaves Leona a suspect, she is determined to uncover the real culprit. What she is not prepared for is a tangled web of seances, lies, deception, and murder.

This is an enlightening as well as maddening story of the legal and political struggles women faced in the 19th century intertwined with the intricately plotted chase of a killer. Leona is a strong character that is more than just her heritage and social status, but even as she tries to fulfill her feminine societal duties, she has an entire previous life she has kept from everyone but her grandfather. While her time as a soldier makes her an unusual protagonist, her life is historically possible. The many uses of laudanum especially involving females throughout this story is not only historically accurate, but also sad. While I suspected the outcome, it is still satisfying and once again brings society’s treatment of women to the forefront.

I highly recommend this intriguing historical mystery and domestic suspense mash-up.

***

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

The blot of ink stuck to her finger, tacky like drying blood. Leona scrubbed at it with her handkerchief as the clock chimed two hours after midnight. She capped the inkwell, and while the ink dried on her most recent entry, she organized the copies with ribbons. Blue for Daphne and red for Ruth. With shaking hands, she slipped the copies into stiff cardboard folios and tied them closed. Sighing, she set them on the desk in front of her.

The flames in the hearth beckoned. This wasn’t the first night she’d yearned for obliteration. It wouldn’t come if she gave in to the urge to throw her labor into the fire. Only paper and ink would vanish, leaving the memories behind.

Pen and ink or back to the laudanum.

A grim thought, the grimmest of all.

The words had clawed their way out tonight. She’d begun the memoir of her time as a Union soldier months ago with the hope her drowning spirits would revive once the words dropped to the page. Yet the foreboding crept through her and tightened around her throat as the little study filled with familiar shadows. This old terror had become a second skin, like the tattered and dirty uniform she’d once worn.

Over the monotonous chatter of the rain, the clock ticked away the seconds until her husband came home. Leona moved to the window, pushed aside the heavy velvet curtains, and looked out at night-shrouded Cranberry Street. A lamp glowed in a window across the street. Homesickness for Boston, for life before the war, for herself before the war, settled on her. The wind threw a heavy splash of rain against the window, and she jumped back, letting go of the curtain.

Pacing the study, her restless thoughts rushed on without fatigue. To keep the memories inside only fed the persistent mental return to the battlefield, and the outpouring of words somewhat tamed her tormented soul. She stopped and touched the folio. Work would save her: work, family, friendship, and love. Maybe she’d write a story about two clocks. A natural clock which kept good time and a mad clock that twisted time out of true.

The street door below opened and closed. At last Gil, home safe. She couldn’t even bring herself to scold him for being so late. Leona listened for his footsteps as she crossed the room to tuck the folios into her desk drawer and locked it. She closed the gaslight apertures in the study and turned up the flame on the wall sconces in the drafty hallway so he could find his way. In the bedroom, she shed her dressing gown, stepped out of her slippers, and kicked them under the bed. Gil made his clumsy climb up the stairs. When he stumbled into the room, she pulled the covers back. He fell into bed fully clothed beside her, mumbling and fretful, the sharp ripe scent of whiskey lacing his breath.

She laid her hand on his shoulder. Beneath the cloth of his shirt, his skin was cold and damp. “Rest now, go to sleep,” she whispered.

***

At first light, Leona had dressed in a blue and cream day gown and made her way downstairs for breakfast. The creeping dread of the night before had waned. She rubbed her gritty eyes and yawned again. Mrs. McCarthy poured coffee from the silver pot, the familiar, civilized table a welcome sight. The scent of bacon made her stomach growl.

“Are you well, m’um?”

Leona glanced into the broad face of their cook and housekeeper, a sturdy and mature woman with a comforting Irish burr. She wore her fading blonde hair in a crown around her head.

“I didn’t sleep much.” Leona yawned again behind her fingers.

Gil’s heavy tread on the stairs made them both jump, and Mrs. McCarthy squeaked.

“I’ll bring more breakfast in a jiffy.” She fled through the side door to the kitchen just as Gil ducked through the hall entrance.

Leona rose and smiled at her husband. He’d made a great effort to come down early after returning so late. She accepted his peck on the cheek, poured him coffee and set it between them, wifely mask in place. He glared with bloodshot eyes at the letter in his hand, and her stomach clenched.

“It’s not all bad news, Gil.” She’d read the contents of the letter before leaving it on his desk in his study, as Grandfather had addressed it to both.

He raised his hazel eyes to her. “You recall Henry has absconded with all our funds?” he asked in a sarcastic tone, squinting at the letter, then back at her.

She no longer knew what to say about Gil’s former business partner, Henry Caldwell-Jones. The police were still looking for him. It put the devil in Gil’s eyes to speak of it, so she tried to let it be, not wanting to distress him even more.

“Of course, I remember, Gil. I—”

“And now your grandfather won’t give me a second loan. I’ll have to go back to the bank and ask them again.”

“He only wants to speak with you face to face about our situation,” she said, in her grandfather’s defense. “He’ll help us, Gil. He did offer to speak at the lyceum on his return from Ohio, to help raise funds. It isn’t as if—” Or was it? “We won’t lose the house, will we?”

The muscles in his lean face twitched as Gil fought to hide his disappointment, and her heart broke a little more to witness it. “Your grandfather does not bring in the interest he once did.”

It was true Leona’s grandfather, poet, abolitionist, and Transcendentalist, didn’t bring in the money he used to at readings in New York and Brooklyn, but he didn’t suffer for it.

Gil raked his fingers through his thick, brown hair and opened his mouth. Mrs. McCarthy entered with his breakfast, apparently stopping what he meant to say next. He reached inside the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a small notebook and pencil. Laying them on the table, his frown deepened.

Once Mrs. McCarthy had bustled out again, Leona said, “I could write to Aunt Louisa.” Who was not truly an aunt, but a friend of her mother’s.

He opened the notebook and touched the tip of his tongue to the pencil. “We cannot afford to feed and house a man of Bronson Alcott’s caliber,” he replied with heaviness. He bent his head to the columns of numbers on the pages.

His confidence and spirits were usually high, and it hurt to see him laid so low. She did mean Louisa Alcott herself, not her father Bronson Alcott, as the speaker for the lyceum to draw a crowd. Her novel, Little Women, published two years before, had become hugely popular.

“I’ll sell the lyceum, that should help,” Gil murmured, eyes downcast.

Leona winced. It was where they’d met nearly a year before. At a loss again, she glanced down at her lapel watch—9 o’clock already. She stood and set cups and plates on the tray.

“Let Mrs. McCarthy do that.” His pencil went on calculating their precarious position.

“I don’t mind. I’m off to see Daphne this morning. I won’t be home until the late afternoon.” Taking a deep breath, she dared to ask, not expecting an answer. “How much do we owe?” She blew out her held breath, apprehension biting at her. “Why won’t you tell me how much Henry has stolen?”

“He’s made me a laughingstock.” His handsome lips formed a tight smile, but he didn’t look at her. “Don’t you worry, Leona, leave it to me. This will all be over by Christmas.”

***

On the street, she began to walk, then turned to observe the window where Gil labored, smoke curling from the chimney. The image stayed with her as she made her way to the newsstand around the corner and waited patiently for her turn to buy a paper. The sunny day, though cold, had driven people outdoors, well wrapped in fur-collared coats and wool scarves. Woodsmoke and the sharp tang of the river mingling with the scent of baking bread drifted on the breeze. She chewed on the frustration that he wouldn’t share their financial details with her. It made her more fearful not to know. Though she kept the memoir and chapter stories a secret from him, this was hardly the same.

Passing the newsstand, an article about the new bridge caught her eye so she bought the latest Brooklyn Eagle. The previous summer, the four of them, Henry, his wife Helen, herself, and Gil, had stood at the end of Noble Street to watch the construction of the giant caissons in the naval yard. Though approval of the bridge was a long-foregone conclusion, the article was typical of the Eagle’s awful anti-consolidation fear mongering. The article repeated the claim linking the boroughs would only bring the dregs of Manhattan’s Lower East Side into Brooklyn’s pure white Heights. The wrongness of such an attitude churned her stomach.

Leona folded the paper and tucked it under her arm with the folio, sighing. Who would save the poor of this world from the hatred of the rich? Her spirits drooped lower.

She breathed deep the November air on familiar, tree-lined Remsen Street, where she’d lived for two years before marrying Gil in August. The red door of the brownstone opened, welcoming her in. Timothy, the butler, took her hat and coat. Before he disappeared with them, his eyes met hers with a familiar blue twinkle.

“I’ll tell her you’re here,” he said.

“Thank you.” She inhaled the sweet smell of hothouse roses set in vases along the long hallway and waited for word of her arrival to reach Daphne and her nurse Audrey.

Audrey approached from the depths of the house. Her eyes, though hooded, were a pure delphinium blue, blonde hair pinned tight to her head. She wore a plain uniform of dark gray with long cuffed sleeves and a white apron.

“Mrs. Van Wyn is in the Lavender Room.” With a curt nod, she turned away.

When they first met, Leona and Audrey had often shared tea and conversation, but of late Leona felt nothing but a wall of smothered animosity between them. They hadn’t argued, as such, though she had an idea where the strained relations came from.

“Is she well?” Leona asked.

For a moment, she didn’t think Audrey would answer, but the woman turned toward her again. “She passed a quiet night. The laudanum helps.”

Leona frowned. Audrey flicked a dismissive hand and went on her way.

The introduction of laudanum in Daphne’s life began not long after Leona moved to Cranberry Street with Gil that summer. The spas and cures Daphne’s grandson Benedict and his wife arranged didn’t seem to help anymore. The family hired Audrey, who administered the laudanum, a common enough panacea. Laudanum’s presence always disturbed Leona, and she had protested to the family, but no one listened. Audrey had become cold after this discussion. Leona believed some of Daphne’s pain came from her daily battle with grief. Leona often feared her own grief and the overuse of laudanum, prescribed by a respected doctor in Boston, had killed the child from her previous marriage to Jack Davenport. Poor dead Jack.

***

Author Bio

Jan Matthews is an American expat living in the sunshine in Portugal.

She is (finally) retired from HIM and writes historical mysteries from the Middle Ages to World War I. When not writing or drinking coffee and wine in nearby cafes, she knits and crochets for charity and reviews books on her blog.

Social Media Links

coffeeandinkbooks.wordpress.com
Amazon Author Profile
Goodreads – @coffeeink
BookBub – @coffeeandink1
Instagram – @coffeeandink197
BlueSky – @coffeeandink2.bsky.social

Purchase Links

Amazon – https://pictbooks.tours/54WPvubH

BN – https://pictbooks.tours/3AOgpGPn

BookShop.org – https://pictbooks.tours/34sUBx6S

Goodreads – https://pictbooks.tours/pFVXjbRQ

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PICT GIVEAWAY

https://pictbooks.tours/NAUIwZ7q

ARC Feature Post and Book Review: Summer State of Mind by Kristy Woodson Harvey

Book Description

After the worst day in her professional life, burnt-out NICU nurse Daisy Stevens runs to Cape Carolina, North Carolina, looking for a new life—and possibly new romance. On her first day at her “simpler” job, high school baseball coach Mason Thaysden discovers an abandoned baby, sending ripples through the entire tight-knit town of Cape Carolina.

Mason is still struggling to reconcile the scars of the injury that kept him out of the big leagues, stuck in his hometown, and searching for a way out. This newcomer and the child they’ve saved together might be just the motivation he needs to stay put. Sparks fly as Mason acquaints Daisy with Cape Carolina, introducing her to his friends and family, including his batty Aunt Tilley, who is looking for relief from long-buried family secrets and her own fresh start.

But as Daisy becomes increasingly attached to this abandoned child, and begins facing her own demons in the process, a startling discovery is made that threatens to rip the entire town of Cape Carolina apart, placing Daisy, Mason, and Tilley in the center of the storm. In a novel that proves that “Kristy Woodson Harvey is (the) go-to for elevated beach reads” (People), they will each learn that with love, understanding—and a community theater production of Hello, Dolly!—sometimes life conspires to bring us just exactly where we belong.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242986076-summer-state-of-mind?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=tSxMnaQZfv&rank=1

***

My Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

SUMMER STATE OF MIND by Kristy Woodson Harvey is a Southern women’s fiction novel featuring a multi-generational small town southern coastal family, both by love and/or blood, a romance between two people damaged by previous trauma in their lives, and secrets, both past and present, that could destroy or free all involved. This is a book that you will not want to put down as you ride the waves of family and romantic drama.

Daisy Stevens is a burnt-out big city NICU nurse who decides after a personal traumatic experience to attempt a quieter life in a smaller hospital in Cape Carolina, North Carolina. On her first day on the job, the high school baseball coach and his star pitcher run into the ER with a newborn baby barely clinging to life that he found abandoned in a recycle bin behind the high school. Daisy feels an immediate connection to the baby.

Mason Thaysden is from a large multi-generational family in Cape Carolina. He was on the fast track to become an exceptional college baseball pitcher until a bar fight ended his prospects. After many years just surviving, he is now the local high school baseball coach with a team that could possibly win the state championship with the star pitcher Mason has mentored. While he is happy with the success he has nurtured, he still feels unsatisfied with his life.

Daisy and Mason hit it off immediately, but personal and family life decisions and secrets get in the way. Entangled in everything, past and present, is loveable Aunt Tilley, who lives in the past as much as the present. Will the revelation of the family secret from the past destroy this loving family? And can Mason and Daisy get through all their messy decisions and still be together?

This is such an engrossing story of family, love, secrets, and moral decisions. Aunt Tilley is a wonderfully lovable character that weaves between the past and present family dilemmas. I always enjoy Ms. Harvey’s complexity in her characters and the realism that makes them believable. Both Daisy and Mason have many unresolved issues and the author does not sugar coat them or even resolve them all. The entire multi-generational family is fascinating in its connections by blood and/or love, and I cannot imagine anyone not wanting to be a part of it. Sit down outside with a glass of sweet tea, maybe with a shot of bourbon mixed in, and travel to the North Carolina coast.

I highly recommend this engaging Southern women’s fiction novel.

***

About the Author

Kristy Woodson Harvey is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of a dozen novels including Beach House Rules and The Peachtree Bluff Series. A Happier Life is in development for film with MGM/Amazon, The Summer of Songbirds is in development for television with Hulu, and many of her other projects are in various stages of option or development for film and television. Her work has received numerous accolades, including Good Morning America’s Buzz Pick, Southern Living’s Most Anticipated Reads, Katie Couric’s Featured Books, and Joanna Garcia Swisher’s The Happy Place Reads. Kristy is the winner of the Lucy Bramlette Patterson Award for Excellence in Creative Writing and a finalist for the Southern Book Prize.

A Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate with Honors of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s school of journalism, her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Southern Living, Parade, Traditional Home, USA Today, and many more. She also holds a master’s in English from East Carolina University, with a concentration in multicultural and transnational literature.

Kristy is the cocreator and cohost of the hit weekly web show and podcast Friends & Fiction with fellow New York Times Bestselling authors Mary Kay Andrews, Kristin Harmel, and Patti Callahan Henry, which boasts more than three hundred thousand members. She is also the cofounder of the award-winning interiors site Design Chic, with her mom, Beth Woodson.

She lives on the North Carolina coast with her husband, son, and dog, Salt, where she is (always!) working on her next novel.

Social Media Links

Website: https://www.kristywoodsonharvey.com/kristy/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristywoodsonharvey

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristywharvey/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/summer-state-of-mind-by-kristy-woodson-harvey

Book Tour/Feature Post and Book Review: Body Man by Al Pessin

Hi, everyone!

Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for BODY MAN: A THRILLER by Al Pessin on this Book Amplifier Tour.

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

Book Introduction

Loyalty can be a steady force—or a dangerous one—depending on where it’s placed and how far it’s pushed. When circumstances begin to shift, that loyalty is tested in ways that challenge both identity and purpose. In Body Man by Al Pessin, those tests unfold under mounting pressure.

A presidency marked by bold policy changes becomes the center of escalating national tension. When an assassination attempt fails, it triggers a chain reaction that spreads across the country.

Spencer, the president’s closest aide, steps into a position of influence that few others hold. As leadership becomes increasingly unstable, he must make decisions that carry significant consequences.

Carl, a disgraced Marine sniper, is recruited into a militant movement that believes decisive action is necessary. His mission begins with clarity but becomes increasingly uncertain as events spiral.

As unrest intensifies and institutions begin to fracture, both men are drawn deeper into conflict. Each believes he is acting to protect the country, even as the outcome remains uncertain.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/235788913-body-man

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My Book Review

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

BODY MAN: A Thriller by Al Pessin is a thought-provoking political thriller that could have come right from the present-day headlines. This story is told in dual POV alternating chapters by the two main protagonists who both believe they are saving the country.

Spencer is idealistic and fresh out of college when he lands a job writing speeches and press releases for the new freshman Senator Wade Brick from Michigan. As the Senator’s star rises and he runs for President, he focuses on gun control as his main issue. Spencer becomes Brick’s body man when the campaign goes national. The body man is the invisible person behind the President that makes his life as easy as possible. When tragedy strikes, Spencer believes in helping the President in any way he can, but will he feelings for and belief in the President have him crossing a line?

Carl is a high school graduate with no ambitions who goes into the Marines just to get away from his life in Michigan and for the pay. He takes to the discipline and discovers he is an exceptional shooter. He is drawn into a group that believes black people and immigrants are destroying the country and the libs are going to take away all guns. He is skeptical at first but slowly gets indoctrinated by the group. Carl gets accepted to Sniper School, but just as he graduates, he gets into a fight with a fellow sniper who is black and drinking and being friendly with a white girl and he is dishonorably discharged. At home, he finds himself pulled into local militia groups and they have a job for him that could change the terrible course he believes the country is on.

This thriller is so terrifying because it is so believable. Not taking political sides, you can watch the train wreck in real time that both young men are leading up to and understand that they truly believe that their views are the right ones. Even when I felt I knew where the story was going, the author would throw in a slight twist that would change the direction of both main characters’ lives right up to the end. With crisp intense writing and compelling realistic characters, I could not stop reading this story from start to finish.

I highly recommend this compelling political thriller.

***

Excerpt

Chapter 1

Spencer

I’m the best person to tell you this story.

I was there. Saw the whole thing. I was the fly on the wall, the shadow, the potted plant. It was my job. I was the closest aide to the most powerful man in the world…

What I did, I did for the good of the country. There was no one else to do it. I stepped up and

did what needed to be done.

And that’s the reason you’re all living your lives like nothing happened.

Chapter 2

Carl

I woke up to what was really happening in America, and I did something. I defended it. I gave

everything.

Because that’s what American patriots do.

And that’s what I continued to do, no matter what you think, even when the Corps fucked me, even when the world turned upside down and inside out, even when “defend the Constitution

of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic” became more of a curse than an oath.

I’m Carl Reddy and this is my story.

I know you’ll remember my name. Everybody will.

But also remember that I’m an American patriot. Always was. Always will be.

***

About the Author

Al Pessin is an award-winning author and veteran foreign correspondent whose decades of frontline reporting fuel his high-tension political thrillers. He’s covered war zones from Iraq to Afghanistan, interviewed militants in Gaza, and was once expelled from China for “fomenting counter-revolutionary rebellion.”

Before turning to fiction, Pessin spent nearly four decades with Voice of America, serving as a White House and Pentagon correspondent and reporting from global hotspots across Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. His debut thriller Sandblast launched the Task Force Epsilon series and was followed by Blowback and Shock Wave.

He lives in Florida with his wife and their Labrador, Rory.

Social Media Links

Website: https://alpessin.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlPessinAuthor

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alpessinauthor/

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: The Star on the Grave by Linda Margolin Royal

Book Description

In 1940, as the Nazis sweep towards Lithuania, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara defies his government and secretly issues visas to fleeing Jewish refugees. After the war Sugihara is dismissed and disappears into obscurity.

Nearly three decades later, in Australia, Rachel Margol is shocked when her engagement reveals a long-held family secret: she is Jewish. As she grapples with this deception and the dysfunction it has caused, unspoken tragedies from the past begin to come to light. When an opportunity arrives to visit Chiune Sugihara, the man who risked his life to save the Margols during World War II, Rachel becomes determined to meet him. But will a journey to Japan, and the secrets it uncovers, heal the family or fracture them for good?

The Star on the Grave is inspired by the true story of Chiune Sugihara, and the thousands of people who owe him their lives. Sugihara is often referred to as the Japanese Schindler. It is estimated that he saved 6,000 people – the author’s father and grandparents among them, and as many as 500,000 people are alive today because of him.

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Elise’s Thoughts

The Star on The Grave by Linda Margolin Royal is a wonderful novel that explains the reasons why Holocaust survivors refused to talk about those horrific days and why some chose to no longer embrace their Jewish heritage, hoping future generations would never know the hatred and anti-Semitism that they had experienced. 

The story begins with Rachel Margol, a twenty-year old nurse in 1968 Sydney who only learns she is Jewish after she becomes engaged to be married to a Greek Orthodox doctor. Her grandmother, Felka, decides to tell Rachel the truth about her heritage. Rachel feels like her whole world has fallen apart and cannot understand why she was not told sooner of her Jewish background. Why was she sent to a Catholic school? Why has she never set foot in a synagogue? After finding out her grandmother is going to attend a reunion in Japan to see Chiune Sugihara, the man who saved her dad and grandmothers’ lives from certain death at the hands of the Nazis, Rachel decides to go with her.

From 1938-1940, Chiune Sugihara was the Vice-Consul for the Japanese Empire in Kaunas, Lithuania, and he defied his own government’s orders and secretly issued thousands of transit visas to Jewish refugees desperate to flee. Sugihara is often referred to as the Japanese Schindler. It is estimated that he saved 6,000 people including the author’s father and grandparents. Because Sugihara defied the Japanese government and issued the visas anyway, he was dismissed and disappeared into obscurity. At the reunion in Japan, Rachel meets other families who have been saved by Sugihara and learns more about her heritage. Readers take a journey with Rachel as she discovers new strengths within herself. She begins to understand the sufferings her family and others experienced during World War II and why they kept so many 

secrets. This story is very powerful, and the characters are very complex. Readers start to understand the trauma that Jews went through during the Holocaust and can relate the antisemitism that still goes on today.  A bonus is learning about Jewish traditions, ceremonies and rituals.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?

Linda Margolin Royal: My brother suggested we interview our dad on his 80th birthday. We knew they left Poland, went to Japan, and then came here to Australia. At first, when I heard about Sugihara saving our family from being murdered, I thought I would write it as a screenplay, but someone suggested I write it as a book as well. I gave it a try. I got it published in Australia. And now I have just secured a US publishing deal, and it is now available on Amazon. (https://www.amazon.com/Star-Grave-Linda-Margolin-Royal/dp/B0GRKKLTL2) 

EC: Did you ever get the story from your dad?

LMR: He mentioned how he escaped and was helped by this man, Chinua Sugihara. I looked him up and found out he had saved 6000 Jews in the Holocaust. I found out he was the reason I am alive. I was able to get in touch with his son to tell me what happened. This book is the true story of my family’s escape although I did take some artistic license. I created a character, Rachel, based on me but not fully me. 

EC: What happened to Sugihara?

LMR:  He was found in Moscow in 1968 by a survivor who was living in Israel. He had issued him a visa that helped him survive the Holocaust. Sugihara was told he saved all these people. He was issuing visas but had no idea if anyone would survive. On his return to Japan, he was dismissed by the diplomatic corps, likely due to the fact Japan in WWII was an ally of Germany and he issued visas to 6000 Jews illegally. He had asked three times for permission to do it and each time his government said no but he defied orders.

EC:  How would you describe him?

LMR: He challenged authority. He had a strong moral compass and did what was right. His father wanted him to be a doctor, but he left the entrance exam blank and walked out because he did not want to go into medicine. He enrolled and got a degree in International Studies. He was put in charge of the Manchurian Railway Project but resigned because of the brutality he witnessed inflicted on the Chinese workers by the Japanese. 

EC: How would you describe Rachel’s grandmother, Felka?

LMR:  She was based on my grandmother. Very intelligent, upbeat, positive, bold, brass, and funny. She had a huge presence and adored me and my siblings. She suffered privately, but lived and breathed for us. Both her parents perished in the Holocaust. 

EC:  How would you describe Rachel’s dad, Michael?

LMR: Michael was not based on my father, who was very loving. Michael conceals his own feelings from his family, non-compassionate, callous, uncaring, and avoids talking about the war.  He denies his Jewish faith and makes his family do so as well. He did this because of his trauma. 

EC: Were there any similarities between your dad and the book dad?

LMR:  He had a loving family and a rich life. He was forced to flee Poland as an 11-year-old. 

EC:  How would you describe Rachel?

LMR: A deep thinker, courageous, direct, and lacks order in her life. Motherless, she lost hers when she was nine years old.  Just as I did with mine, Rachel also has a strong bond with her grandmother who is the matriarch of the family. Felka was the rock of my and Rachel’s world. She was our go-to. 

EC: The Japanese seemed to be very complex about the Holocaust?

LMR: There were those who did not want to give visas to the European Jews. Yet, the Jews who did come to Japan did not face antisemitism. They gave them free food, found ingredients to make Matzo.  There was a synagogue there. My father and other survivors said they had a lovely experience in Japan. The Japanese people were welcoming.  About twenty years ago Sugihara became a hero there.

EC: Did Rachel change once she found out she was Jewish?

LMR:  She was brought up atheist. Then she finds out she has this rich heritage with a sense of belonging. This book is a mission for me to teach about the importance of faith. 

EC: What do you want readers to get out of the story?

LMR: Intense generational trauma is at epidemic proportions. Hitler’s work had far-reaching consequences.  It did not stop with the ones murdered but impacted second generation lives. For example, my husband’s father went through Auschwitz, survived, had terrible depression, and suicided when my husband was sixteen.  This severely impacted my husband and his parenting. 

Another point I wanted to make was that some people I met were brought up not Jewish only to realize in their late teens that their parents concealed they were Jewish in fear of persecution.

EC:  Do you think the story has connections with what is going on today?

LMR:  The book went to print the week of October 7th when 1200 Israelis were brutally murdered by Hamas. None of us could have imagined the antisemitism that followed all over the world, particularly in Australia. Here we have the largest population of Holocaust survivors other than Israel. No one ever thought anything could happen out here like the killing of Jews and then the Bondi Beach massacre happened during Hanukkah 2025. 

I have this quote in the book, “Fear of being singled out as a Jew, of being hated and persecuted…people judge us. People hate us without reason.” This is happening today. I think about what is happening when I wrote this, pre-October 7th. What it means for me to be Jewish is the constant fear of persecution and being wiped off this planet but with the desire for my people to stay on it. We have been threatened with extermination and elimination from this world for thousands of years and have prevailed. In some gentiles there is this festering seed of antisemitism and given the right circumstances it rises to the top and bubbles over in all its horrific glory. So, when October 7th and the aftermath happened there were those who accused Israel of committing genocide and ignored what really took place.  Then the Bondi Beach massacre happened even though Jews have been warning the government and the police for two years. There were attacks on synagogues and then what follows is attacks on Jews. We asked for 10 to 15 police at this event and were given three fairly untrained to deal with such brutality. 

EC: Why the quote about the tattoos done by the Germans on the Jewish people?

LMR: You are referring to the quote, “They stripped away the identity. The numbers are for identification.” When people refer to numbers like 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust or 1200 people died on October 7th or 3000 people died on 9/11 that strips away people’s identity. Numbers – whether the tattooed numbers or the statistics strip away people’s faces and dehumanize them.  This is why the posters of individual people on October 7th were so important. Statistics need to be personalized.  6 million cannot even be comprehended. When I do talks, I personalize by saying how “my father and Anne Frank were born weeks apart in 1929. My father died of natural causes at the age of 87 in Sydney Australia because one person with a moral conscious saved his life, while Anne was stripped of her life at the age of fifteen in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. 

EC: Next book?

LMR: It is a prequel. The backstory 1939-41. It touches on Rachel’s grandmother, Felka as a young woman arriving to Australia in 1941 and settling in Bondi Beach, a meeting place for the Jewish people. (deleted a sentence) Most, like her, are (deleted a sentence) refugees who found the beach provided comfort, safety and a place to gather and belong with their own. The whole last act of my prequel is the family, having escaped the Holocaust in 1940, settling there with Felka, (the grandmother from the first book in 1968) spreading her arms in the ocean saying, ‘this feels like freedom.’ The settings go from Warsaw, to Japan, to Australia, following the family’s flight. I am also considering writing a sequel book following Rachel’s journey in her future. 

THANK YOU!!

***

BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.

Friday Feature Author Interview with Elise Cooper: She Thought She Was Safe by Terri Parlato

Book Description

After the double blow of divorce and her mother’s death, Emma Shrader receives an invitation to meet her estranged father for the first time. Alex Spencer is a wealthy, renowned author who had a brief fling with Emma’s mom, then disappeared. Now he’d like Emma to come stay at his beautiful home on Cheshire Lake in Maine.

The Spencer house is a towering Victorian steeped in history and lore, from its ornate turret to the little cemetery nestled in adjoining woods. It should be an inspiring place for Emma to finish working on her own novel, especially with Alex’s guidance. But when a neighbor is found dead under strange circumstances, the surroundings begin to feel less idyllic and welcoming. Not everyone is happy about Emma’s arrival, either—especially not Alex’s other daughter, Sunny.

There are things Emma keeps to herself about her chaotic childhood and ex-husband, but Cheshire Lake harbors secrets too—some recent, some decades old. What exactly has been going on in this quiet, close-knit community? And how much of it has to do with Emma’s arrival?

As Emma learns of other disappearances and mysterious deaths, what seemed like a fresh start begins to fill her with unease. Emma thought Cheshire Lake held the home and family she’s long been looking for. Now she wonders if she’ll ever be allowed to leave alive . . .

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Elise’s Thoughts

She Thought She Was Safe by Terri Parlato has the author venturing away from her series with Detective Rita. This is a stand-alone thriller shows how people are not whom they seem and monsters lurk behind facades.

The plot has Emma realizing she needs a new start. After the unexpected death of her mother and the collapse of her marriage, Emma is looking for a place to escape to. She discovers the identity of her father, something her mother had kept hidden. Emma contacts her biological father, Alex Spencer, a wealthy and famous author of historical mysteries. After a DNA test confirms she is indeed his daughter, he invites her to stay at his secluded Victorian home on Cheshire Lake in Maine. Emma is looking forward to getting to know her father better and enjoying the peacefulness of the lake.

But her arrival is anything but peaceful. Emma’s arrival is met with hostility from Alex’s other daughter, her half-sister, Sunny, who manages his career and is fiercely protective of him. Sunny makes it very clear; she isn’t thrilled about Emma’s sudden appearance. Then there is the mystery behind the death of her father’s sister Mary. Emma begins to feel a strange connection to her along with a growing curiosity about what really happened.

Then a neighbor is found dead and another one disappears. She also begins to experience buried memories, leaving Emma to question if she has stepped into a nightmare she may never escape.

The setting also plays a role with its isolation of the property. The setting around Cheshire Lake felt eerie and almost gothic at times, leaving readers to wonder if something is not quite right. She realizes her survival depends on recognizing red flags. Emma realizes she is in immediate danger because those around her want to make sure secrets are kept.

Readers will be hooked from page one. The tension created adds to the unease of Emma whodoes not know who to trust.

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Author Interview

Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?

Terri Parlato: My editor told me not to write a detective Rita book, so I went back to my family’s roots back in New England.  I wanted to do a small-town murder mystery in Maine with some gothic vibes. My husband and I traveled to Boston and Maine.  I thought I wanted to write a story about family, incorporating that with my love of history by having the main character, Emma’s father, a best-selling author of historical fiction. All these came together for the story.

EC: How would you describe Alex, the writer father?

TP: He is spoiled, people make excuses for him, self-centered, can turn his emotions off and on, strong-willed, spoiled, a narcissist, someone who enjoys money, and thinks himself as an optimist.

EC: How would you describe Emma?

TP:  A librarian. Feels like an outsider to her new family.  Faces adversity head on. She is somebody that is looking for some stability and a family.

EC: What about Sunny, Emma’s half-sister?

TP: I have stepsisters and brothers, half sisters and brothers, but none of them are anything like Sunny. She feels superior, is mean, confrontational, possessive of her dad, and wants everything to center around her and her family. She feels superior to Emma and is not supportive. She feels threatened by Emma and does not want her to have any relationship with her father. I see her as a villain through and through. 

EC: What is the role of Emma’s ex-husband, Ben?

TP:  He was the reason Emma left her life behind. There were some things that happened that she wanted to get away from.  She is a woman in her thirties who recently lost her mother and has her husband turning out to be a total jerk. She needed a new start and here comes her dad who is willing to help her out.

EC: What was the role of Alex’s sister, Mary?

TP:  Even though Mary is dead Emma feels a sense of kinship with her. She connected to her.

EC: Next book?

TP: It is not a Detective Rita book.  I am writing it as we speak and sending portions to my editor to see if he likes it. The story is set in the Northeast, right outside of Boston. It is very different from this book. It is about a group of forty people who have been friends since elementary school.  After this horrible thing happens, they are the only survivors. I try to write a different book each time. 

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.