Ten years of frustration and heartbreak caring for his son John, born with a catastrophic heart defect, have convinced Rick Morrow that the world is stacked against his family. And on what should be the best day of their life — the day when John will finally get a new heart – an even worse nightmare begins, when the helicopter carrying the heart crashes, destroying the heart and the hopes of the Morrow family.
Rick’s heartbreak turns to rage as he begins to suspect that the accident was no accident at all. His pursuit of the truth puts him on a collision course with the giant Cera Corporation and the powerful family that runs it, who have an agenda of their own and will stop at nothing to make it come true. The escalating conflict threatens Rick’s reputation, his safety and even his marriage. It reaches its gut-wrenching climax with Rick and his wife Mary facing and even more terrible question; will they sacrifice all they believe in to save their own son, at a cost almost too high to imagine?
HEARTLESS by Brian Fitzgerald is a tour de force medical thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end. It takes on so many issues revolving around transplants, family stressors, corruption, money, and personal and medical ethics as you follow a couple with a child who needs a heart transplant. I find it hard to believe this book has not made it on to any must read or book club list.
Rick and Mary Morrow have dealt with frustration, fear, and hope of having one of their young sons on the national heart transplant list for ten years. Right when they believe all hope is gone and their marriage is shattering, a heart becomes available. A decision is made to fly the heart between hospitals in a new experimental container. Rick follows the helicopter from the ground but realizes there is something wrong. It is coming down. Rick was a helicopter mechanic in the service and knows something is not right with the scene.
Rick’s heartbreak turns to rage as no one believes him. He continues to question everyone involved, but he runs onto a wall put up by the conglomerate Cera Corporation and the powerful family with their own agenda behind the scenes. With escalating threats, Rick and Mary face the ultimate question of what they will sacrifice to save their son?
Mr. Fitzgerald drops you into the lives of Rick and Mary with a writing style that pulls you immediately into their story and does not let go. The thriller plot moves at a fast pace with an ever-escalating tension between the truth and the cover-up with plenty of twists and surprises throughout. You also have the dichotomy between the Morrow’s financial situation and the unlimited funds of the Cera Corporation which leads the reader to ethical and moral dilemmas to contemplate. And then you get hit with a personal moral choice that the Morrow’s are cornered into making for their son. This book will stick with you for a long time after you close the cover because you will continue to think about what choices you would have made.
I highly recommend this medical thriller and hope many, many more people read it!
***
About the Author
Over the course of career in marketing and technology Brian made his living through storytelling, communicating in print, online and national broadcast TV. During that time, as head of communications for a billion-dollar information security firm, he had a role in some of the most tumultuous events in cybersecurity including major breaches and global privacy issues. Brian has worked with (and at times been at odds with) the media, academia and even America’s intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. These experiences have informed his fiction writing, as he strives to bring to life the human consequences of advances in technology, medicine and social media.
Christmasville, Maine, is the only place where Kelsey Hendricks has ever felt happy. When she loses both her job and her boyfriend, the move is a no-brainer, especially when she sees a listing for a position as Christmasville’s social media manager. Surrounded by twinkling lights and candy canes and with the perfect job, this tinsel town is working its magic on Kelsey. With two heartthrobs vying for her attention, her life is now just like a Christmas movie.
Except for the murders.
The first one is dismissed as an accident. But after the second, and definitely the third, it becomes abundantly clear that Santa is leaving coal in someone’s stocking this year.
Determined to bring back the holly jolly spirit to the town before tourists begin canceling their reservations, Kelsey must sleuth her way out of a chilling murder mystery and back to a holiday rom-com.
A KILLER FOR CHRISTMAS by Kim Harrington is an entertaining holiday cozy mystery read for all lovers of the combination of Christmas spirit, a possible rom-com holiday romance in cute small-town Maine, and murder. This combination may sound crazy, but you know there is a group of us who are all out here looking for this book…Ho, Ho, Oh no!
Kelsey Hendricks quits her job and flees a bad break-up in Boston to the one place that always brought her joy and happiness, Christmasville, Maine, where it is Christmas every day. She lands the job as the town’s social media manager and checks into a local family-owned inn. It would all be a great start to a new life if she did not continue to come across dead bodies. The first may have been considered an accident by the mayor and police chief, but two, and then three?
Kelsey and her newly made friends must deal with a mayor that will believe anything but the truth to save the town’s tourist income, an on-line troll calling themselves the ChristmastimeKiller, and two men who could either be her rom-com dream or a killer?
This is a fun holiday cozy mystery read with just the right amount of interesting small-town characters and/or suspects, with periods of threat or uncertainty thrown into the mix. Kelsey is a protagonist that is relatable and the dialogue between her and her new friends is fun and believable. I enjoyed the characters, but I did not feel an in-depth attachment to them, except for Kelsey. The murder plot moved well throughout the story after the second murder with a climax I did not see coming. (I like when that happens.)
This is the one, if you are like me, and like a little murder and possible romance to go with your holiday cheer.
***
About the Author
Kim Harrington is the author of A Killer for Christmas, her debut adult mystery coming in 2026 from Crooked Lane Books. She is also known for her teen novels Clarity, Perception, The Dead and Buried, and Forget Me, as well as books for younger readers including Revenge of the Red Club, the Sleuth or Dare series, and Gamer Squad series. Her books have been published in ten countries. She lives in Massachusetts with her family and never leaves the house without a book. Find her online at kimharringtonbooks com.
Major Pierre “Pete” Ortiz was a Manhattan-born and Paris-educated polymath fluent in five languages. An adventuresome French Foreign Legion veteran specifically recruited by “Wild” Bill Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services (the precursor to both the CIA and U.S. Special Forces) upon his enlistment in the Marines, Ortiz was the officer “Wild Bill” instinctively knew he needed and could rely on to complete a string of clandestine missions.
While recuperating from gunshot wounds received during a behind-the-lines excursion into enemy-held North Africa, Ortiz delivered his After-Action Report directly to Donovan in Washington. After reading it, “Wild Bill” scrawled across the top of the report: “Please re-employ this man as soon as possible.” Ortiz’s handlers heeded Donovan’s request. Within a year Ortiz was surreptitiously parachuted into the Haute Savoie region of Occupied France, where he made contact with the resistance fighters who called themselves Maquisards.
By the time he retired as a United States Marine Corps colonel, he received two Navy Crosses for extraordinary heroism in World War II. He was one of the very few U.S. Marines to serve in combat in Europe during World War II, and one of the most decorated Marine officers of the war.
THE PHANTOM: The Untold Story of the American Marine the Nazis Could Not Kill by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin is the biography of U.S. Marine Major Pierre “Pete” Ortiz who was nicknamed “Das Fantom” by the Gestapo during WWII. What an amazing, daring, and patriotic man I knew nothing about.
A multi-lingual adventurer who served eight years in the French Foreign Legion in Northern Africa, was a merchant marine seaman, a lion tamer, a riding instructor, and the chauffer to a bootlegger all before serving in the Marines and the fledgling OSS in WWII. Twice Ortiz parachuted into Nazi held France, once before and once after D-Day to equip and train French resistance groups.
This biography gave me so much new information. While I have read about “Wild Bill” and the beginning of American covert operations previously, I did not realize how many Marines were the backbone of the on-the-ground behind-the-lines operations. I found Ortiz’s life fascinating and very well documented throughout this biography, but I was also hoping for more. There is a good portion of the story spent on the set-up of the OSS and “Wild Bill” Donovan that while interesting, it is not why I picked up this book. While Ortiz’s life is told here, I wanted more focus on him, alone as the title infers.
Overall, a book that gives a good overview of the beginnings of the OSS and espionage during WWII while introducing the reader to an astonishing man of action.
***
About the Author– Bob Drury
The New York Times bestselling author Bob Drury is the recipient of several national journalism awards as well as a three-time National Magazine Award finalist for his reporting from Belfast, Sarajevo, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Darfur among other earthly Edens. His books include THE RESCUE SEASON, A DOG’S GIFT, and, with co-author Tom Clavin, THE HEART OF EVERYTHING THAT IS, HALSEY’S TYPHOON, VALLEY FORGE, BLOOD AND TREASURE, THE LAST HILL and THE LAST STAND OF FOX COMPANY, for which he received the U.S. Marine Corps Heritage Foundation’s General Wallace M. Greene, Jr. Award.
###
About the Author– Tom Clavin
TOM CLAVIN, whose most recent book is FOLLOW ME TO HELL, is a bestselling author who has worked as a newspaper and web site editor, magazine writer, TV and radio commentator, and a reporter for The New York Times covering entertainment, sports, and the environment. He has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, and National Newspaper Association. Six of his books have been New York Times best sellers: THE HEART OF EVERYTHING THAT IS, DODGE CITY, HALSEY’S TYPHOON, THE LAST STAND OF FOX COMPANY, BLOOD AND TREASURE, and FOLLOW ME TO HELL. Other books that have received popular and critical acclaim include TOMBSTONE, WILD BILL, ALL BLOOD RUNS RED, TO THE UTTERMOST ENDS OF THE EARTH, THE LAST HILL, and LIGHTNING DOWN. Tom is also a nationally syndicated columnist and “The Overlook” can be found at tomclavin.substack.com. His next book, THE LAST OUTLAWS, will be published on November 7 by St. Martin’s Press. For more information, go to tomclavin.com
In the 1920s, archeologist Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon of Highclere Castle made headlines around the world with the discovery of the treasure-filled tomb of the boy Pharaoh Tutankhamun. But behind it all stood Lady Evelyn Herbert—daughter of Lord Carnarvon—whose daring spirit and relentless curiosity made the momentous find possible.
Nearly 3,000 years earlier, another woman defied the expectations of her time: Hatshepsut, Egypt’s lost pharaoh. Her reign was bold, visionary—and nearly erased from history.
When Evelyn becomes obsessed with finding Hatshepsut’s secret tomb, she risks everything to uncover the truth about her reign and keep valued artifacts in Egypt, their rightful home. But as danger closes in and political tensions rise, she must make an impossible choice: protect her father’s legacy—or forge her own.
Propelled by high adventure and deadly intrigue, Daughter of Egypt is the story of two ambitious women who lived centuries apart. Both were forced to hide who they were during their lifetimes, yet ultimately changed history forever.
DAUGHTER OF EGYPT by Marie Benedict is an informative as well as an engaging dual timeline historical fiction novel featuring a young English woman in search of the tomb of a female Egyptian Pharaoh and the life of said Pharaoh from research and the speculation of an author whose books continually satisfy.
Lady Evelyn Herbert grew up listening and learning about the wonders of Egyptian archeology from her father, Lord Carnarvon, and Howard Carter, the archeologist who ran Lord Carnarvon’s digs. Evelyn becomes obsessed with Hatshepsut; finding her lost tomb and discovering why she was nearly erased from history 3000 years previously.
In the 1920s, Evelyn is allowed to accompany her father and Carter to Egypt. While there is disappointment in their first attempts to uncover Hatshepsut’s tomb, they finally make headlines around the world with their discovery of Tutankhamun’s intact burial chambers.
In the second timeline, Hatshepsut tells her story and even though she reigned over a time of peace and prosperity, she was nearly erased from all history. Her bold and visionary rise as a female pharaoh took political and religious maneuvering, but not all accepted her reign.
This is a compelling take on the lives of two strong, ambitious women who lived centuries apart. I knew nothing about Evelyn accompanying her father and Carter on the digs, so I found that very interesting. I love reading and learning about ancient Egypt and the pharaohs and I found Ms. Benedict’s resolution to Hatshepsut’s story as acceptable as any others I have read about previously.
Ms. Benedict consistently brings one or both of her compelling female protagonists out of the shadows and to readers’ attention. Overall, this is another entertaining historical novel that taught me something new.
***
About the Author
Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years of experience as a litigator, who found her calling unearthing the hidden historical stories of women. A graduate of Boston College and Boston University School of Law, she is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of DAUGHTER OF EGYPT, THE QUEENS OF CRIME, THE MITFORD AFFAIR, HER HIDDEN GENIUS, THE MYSTERY OF MRS. CHRISTIE, LADY CLEMENTINE, THE ONLY WOMAN IN THE ROOM, CARNEGIE’S MAID, and THE OTHER EINSTEIN. She has also coauthored with Victoria Christopher Murray the New York Times bestselling THE PERSONAL LIBRARIAN, a Good Morning America book club pick, and THE FIRST LADIES, Target’s 2023 Book of the Year — and with Courtney Sheinmel, THE SECRETS OF LOVELACE ACADEMY. All have been translated into multiple languages, and many have been selected for national book clubs. Writing as Heather Terrell, Marie also published the historical novels The Chrysalis, The Map Thief, and Brigid of Kildare. She lives in Pittsburgh with her family.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for AVALON MOON by Michael Amos Cody on this Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an excerpt from the book, the author’s bio and social media links, and a PICT giveaway. Enjoy!
***
Book Description
In Avalon Moon, a local man has gone missing and then is soon found dead in a highland meadow, side-by-side with an unknown woman. When another man and woman go missing and a female deputy is found murdered, Gabriel Tanner, editor of Runion’s weekly newspaper, and Plumer Reeves, a reclusive local hawkshaw working for the niece of the first dead man, suspect a monster is hunting in their western North Carolina mountains. Two extraordinary young women, the Avalon community’s Ariel Anderson and Lonesome Mountain’s Livvy Goforth, join Tanner and Reeves to lead the attempt to discover and stop the killer.
Genre: Psychological Horror, Thriller Published by: Madville Publishing Publication Date: May 19, 2026 Number of Pages: 340 ISBN: 9781963695670 (ISBN10: 1963695674)
***
My Book Review
RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars
AVALON MOON by Michael Amos Cody is an atmospheric Southern Gothic genre mash-up that seamlessly blends horror, mystery, suspense, and crime thriller into a book that captivates and engages.
Gabriel Tanner owns, edits, and writes for the local paper in Runion, North Carolina. As he is putting information about a missing woman in the paper, he is called to photograph a crime scene. What he discovers at the scene are the remains of a man and a woman. At about the same time, a young mountain woman, Livvy Goforth, has asked Plumer Reeves, a local hawkshaw, who finds missing things, including people, to find her uncle, who she knows is dead. More people disappear and the community begins to realize they have an unknow killer in their mountains and everyone must work together before more end up dead, including themselves.
Set in the mountains of Madison County in western North Carolina and featuring a mix of social class protagonists, this author’s writing pulled me right into the intensifying suspense, and beauty of the location. Paranormal elements and folklore traditions are woven throughout the plot, but do not overtake the plausibility of the crime plot.
I am very glad to have joined this book tour, because I probably would not have been aware of this book otherwise and that would have been a terrible shame. I highly recommend this Southern Gothic mash-up genre book and hope many more people discover it!
***
Excerpt
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
ONE
Gabriel Tanner
“Editor of and chief contributor to a country weekly” never made my top ten list of things I wanted to be when I grew up. For the longest time, I had only one item on that list—Rock Star! I toyed with adding a second item, maybe being just a hit-making songwriter, but the songwriting I did throughout the 1980s was so closely bound up with the Rock Star! idea that I couldn’t pull the two apart. If I didn’t become the next Bruce Springsteen, which I didn’t, I was unlikely to become the next Bob McDill—ditto on the didn’t.
So, with the Rock Star! phase of my life gone grumbling into my dreams, I left Nashville in the hot gut of August 1990, retreated, tail between legs, to Runion, my hometown in the North Carolina mountains, and the following January entered Runion State University, where I double-majored in English and Journalism. I took a part-time job as student reporter and all-around grunt for Sheldon Dean’s Runion Recorder. A couple years after I graduated, Sheldon decided he was tired of writing and offered me a full-time position as editor, keeping only the title of “General Manager” for himself. I accepted.
And so it came to pass that on a cold evening in early March, on the darker side of twilight, I drove toward the Lonesome Mountain end of Genesis Road, planning to swing around the back way into Runion. On regular mornings going to work, or any other time I was in a hurry, I drove down to the French Broad end of Genesis and took the river road up a short hill and onto Main Street, but I was dreading two hours minimum of sitting in a meeting at the Madison County Cooperative Extension Office complex, housed in the recently renovated Old Mill on Mill Street, and taking notes for a regular report to appear in next week’s paper. The room would be stuffy with heat and humanity, and to be honest, I was lollygagging.
This year’s March was looking like a lion-lamb version—in like a lion, out like a lamb. We expected to wake up the next morning to some serious snow and ice courtesy of Winter Storm Ulysses. The fields on my left and the woods on my right seemed to hold their breath in anticipation.
I rolled to a stop at the T-intersection where Genesis Road dead-ends at Jewel Hill Road, with Lonesome Mountain ahead and to my left, dark against the sky. My new Honda hybrid sat quietly, and still not used to its workings, I thought it might have died but relaxed when no warning lights appeared. Even though the temperature was in the upper thirties, I opened my windows and—with no other traveler sitting at my bumper and politely honking, as our mountain folk do—sat at the intersection with my eyes closed and my skin alive to the chilly air. I heard a few of last summer’s still-tethered leaves shivering in the boughs overhead and something scurrying through the underbrush in the woods off to my right. I think I could’ve engaged the emergency brake and gone to sleep, but I opened my eyes, suddenly uneasy and unsure why.
The headlights shown across Jewel Hill Road and lit the lower part of a hillside pasture beyond. A few head of cattle midway up the slope stood at the edge of the light and grazed on pale grass.
Not one to be unnerved by a bovine presence in the twilight, I strained my senses to catch and identify what raised hairs along my forearms and around the back of my neck.
To my left, a field rolled away in successive swells toward a wooded ridge standing blackly against the sky. Runion lay on the other side of that ridge, but somewhere between the town and me, yips and cries rose from the gathering dark. These joined together into an eerie howl of various voices that twisted around one another, broke apart, and swelled together again.
Coyotes.
When I was growing up in these mountains, coyotes existed only in old TV westerns. But they were voice-over actors only, strictly behind-the-scenes. They were soundtrack features. Technicians of ambiance. Nothing said a cowboy was alone in the darkening wilderness like the distant howl of a coyote. The cowboy would raise his eyes from the campfire and sit still and listen for a moment, alert to the wild. But it was never the coyote itself that frightened him. Maybe the coyote’s cry was a reminder of his loneliness and vulnerability—that if such a critter could be out there in the dark, then anything could be out there.
But in recent years, coyotes had loped out of the faded glory of Hollywood’s western and into our world, maybe crossing the Mississippi around Memphis and moving steadily east across Tennessee until they reached Appalachia and Runion. They were seen trotting along the edges of regional four-lanes or lying dead on twisting mountain highways. They stole cats and small dogs just beyond the lights of back porches. That evening at the stop sign, they yipped and yapped and cried somewhere out on the verge of a Runion farmer’s field.
Still, I thought, at least they aren’t wolves. Wolves, of course, were a different story. Send up the howl of a wolf into the night, and the cowboy would become focused on the beast, not on loneliness or vulnerability. The wolf’s howl menaced, threatened. Eyes might shine at the edge of the campfire’s light, followed by snarling close-ups. Then enter the legend of the wolf mixed with a man, and the beast achieved cinematic glory, jumping genres from westerns to horror, something coyotes could never quite pull off.
When I pressed the accelerator, the Honda whispered to life, and I turned left toward town. If I sat there much longer, I would be late for the extension meeting, during which one item on the agenda just happened to be related to the beasts of my T-intersection musing. . . .
***
Author Bio
Michael Amos Cody is author of the 2017 novel GABRIEL’S SONGBOOK and the 2021 collection A TWILIGHT REEL, winner of the Short Story category in the Feathered Quill Book Awards 2022. His 2025 literary suspense novel STREETS OF NASHVILLE won the Thriller category in the 2026 Independent Press Awards. His new novel, released in May 2026, is the psychological thriller AVALON MOON. Cody lives with wife Leesa in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and teaches early American literature and creative writing in the Department of Literature and Language at East Tennessee State University.
THE OLD GIRLS’ NETWORK by Judy Leigh is an emotional roller coaster of a women’s fiction story with romantic elements featuring a trio of septuagenarians; two very different sisters and the man they befriend after hitting him with their car. I enjoy reading these small village British stories to compare and contrast with small town American stories.
Barbara and Pauline are sisters in their seventies who have never been close in location or attitude. Barbara is strait-laced, opinionated, and bossy, while Pauline is a friendly, open-minded, and homey. After a health scare, Barbara tells her sister she is coming to convalesce at her home in the small village of Winsleigh Green. The two soon begin to have trouble with each other.
When Pauline accidentally knocks down an apparent vagrant, Bisto, with her car, she invites him into her home to recuperate. Now as the three get to know each other they learn to embrace each other, let go of the past, and possibly make the changes they need to embrace fresh starts and new loves.
This is a charming story with three protagonists that will make you laugh, cry, and want to hug them all. And while I loved the main characters, the village members were just as eclectic and fun to follow. To read the changes brought on by both pain and/or love in all the characters’ interactions made this heart wrenching, heartwarming and ultimately very satisfying. It was also nice to see these characters in their 70’s find their HEAs and demonstrate that is never too late to change and find happiness and love.
I recommend this delightful women’s fiction.
***
About the Author
I’m Judy Leigh. I’ve lived all over the UK from Liverpool to Cornwall, but currently I live in Somerset. After teaching theatre, writing lyrics for a punk band and setting up Shakespeare Festivals, I completed an MA in Professional Writing. Since then, I have been writing novels and having the time of my life doing it.
I write ‘golden’ stories that feature characters of all ages, but focus on the lives of older people.
These novels celebrate communities, fun and friendship, love and the power of laughter, the belief that everyone should have another chance at happiness.
I also write under the name of Elena Collins, who was my grandmother. These are dual timeline historical stories, slightly spooky. Writing in this genre gives me the opportunity to focus on history and the lives of women then and now. Please take a look at my Elena Collins author page. I love writing in this genre and I know you’ll enjoy the stories.
I also write cozy crime under the name of JR Leigh. The Morwenna Mutton ‘Seal Bay’ series is set in a beautiful coastal town in Cornwall, and Morwenna is a sixty-something sleuth who gets into mischief solving local crimes.
In my second series, set in beautiful rural France, DI Archie Darling and his trusty Dalmatian companion Juno set off in their camper van to explore the surrounings, but uncover more than they expect.
.Please check out these books – I know you’ll love them.
When I’m not writing, I’m often on the beach or on the moors, walking, doing yoga or travelling. I’m a Reiki healer, a vegan, an interpreter of dreams and an animal lover. I have three black cats and I enjoy sunshine, conversation, laughter, travelling, live music, theatre and football.
