Tag: #thriller

Book Blitz and Book Review: The Doll Collector by Joanna Stephen-Ward

 

 

Hi, everyone!

Today is my turn on the book blitz for THE DOLL COLLECTOR by Joanna Stephen-Ward. Below you will find a book blurb, my book review and the author’s info.

This book was not exactly what I was expecting. It starts out with you following a truly despicable and twisted serial killer, but then it twists into something else. At times darkly funny, sometimes sinister and at times I had to put it down. I believe this will be one of those books everyone will have differing opinions about when they are done.

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Book Blurb:

Murders that look like accidents. An accident that looks like murder.Book 

A couple and their young son burn to death in a house fire.

A girl dies from a nut allergy.

A woman falls under a train during the rush hour.

An accountant falls down the steps to his basement.

Their deaths appear to be accidents but Gloria knows they were murdered because she murdered them. And every time Gloria kills she buys a doll.

But how many dolls will she need to keep her satisfied?

When Gloria takes a room as a lodger her behaviour starts to spin out of control. Gloria wants love and happiness and friendship and she will do anything she can to get what she wants…

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My Book Review:

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

THE DOLL COLLECTOR by Joanna Stephen-Ward is a psychological thriller that is twisted and not exactly what I was expecting. You start by following a despicable and vile serial killer, but then the story twists.

Gloria is a jealous, amoral, and sadistic serial killer. If she believes you have more than her, criticize her or just don’t agree with her, you could end up dead and a doll purchased in your honor to add to her collection. She has been evil since she was a child.

Maurice takes Gloria in as a boarder to help with his rent. Maurice does not realize who he has let into his home and Gloria’s delusions have her believing she has finally found a man to love her. But Maurice has secrets of his own and he finds himself becoming more desperate as each situation escalates.

This book started out as I was expecting from reading the blurb, but it quickly turned into more of a psychological thriller with an intertwined second plot-line with more despicable characters that are the cause of Maurice’s secrets and problems. Maurice was pathetic and not in any way heroic. Gloria was emotionally twisted and evil. There are times when I had to put the book down because Gloria and some of her actions disturbed me that much and yet there were also few times when the writing was darkly humorous.

I had a difficult time rating this book. Gloria is a killer to remember and her demise has a twisted justice to it, but then Maurice’s story goes on for a second plot-line resolution. Another ending is added where the second plot-line characters come out ahead or are served justice, but the two endings feel disjointed. I also had a problem with the doll collection. It was a great idea, but I felt it was not utilized enough times by Gloria during the book.

This is a book that I liked, but it had flaws for me. I do believe there will be a lot of discussion/opinions revolving around this book and characters.

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About Joanna Stephen-Ward:

Joanna Stephen-Ward was born in the Australian outback, and grew up in Melbourne. Her school days were spent dreaming about being an opera singer or a writer. To the exasperation of her parents and teachers she spent her final year sitting at the back of the classroom writing a novel set in WW2.

When she left school she went to an opera school where she was taught drama, movement and language pronunciation and had small roles in the workshop productions. She was not good enough to become a professional opera singer, but the seeds of her novel Vissi d’arte were sown.

She left Australia and spent a year travelling around Europe and the UK. While working in outpatients for the NHS she met Peter and they married in 1985. They lived in Richmond Surrey and she worked at The National Archives, an enthralling place for anyone interested in history or crime.

Having been brought up as a lonely only child, she was astonished to discover in 2010 that she was one of eight children. She and her sister had last been together on a verandah in the outback when they were babies. They had a joyous reunion in Cornwall in 2012.

Joanna has written seven novels and is working on her eighth.

 

Joanna’s Social Media Links:
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/joanna.stephenward
Twitter https://twitter.com/OperaLover12 @ OperaLover12
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3020049.Joanna_Stephen_Ward

Blog https://outbackwriter.blogspot.com

Book Review: Shelter In Place by Nora Roberts

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

SHELTER IN PLACE by Nora Roberts had my emotions all over the place, but isn’t that what a good book does? Part psychological thriller, part romantic suspense and part coming of age for a group who survive one of the horrors of present day life, a mass shooter event.

This book starts with a mass shooting perpetrated by three teenage males at a suburban mall.

Simone Knox and her two best friends are in the movie theater. When Simone starts to leave the restroom, she hears screams and gunshots. She returns to a restroom stall and is the first to call 911 as she shelters in place.

Reed Quartermaine waits tables in an Italian restaurant in the DownEast Mall. On his way back from his break, he is confronted by people running the opposite way and pops of gun fire. He picks up a bloodied little boy who appears to be alone and runs for cover.

Essie McVee is a police officer with her partner, dealing with a minor traffic accident in the mall parking lot when they receive the call of active shooters. She is the first on the scene at the movie theater and is able to take down one of the shooters.

From this point on, the story follows the intertwining lives of these three main survivors and how all of the survivors dealt with the trauma of that day and death of their family or friends throughout their lives. What becomes apparent though as time goes on is there is one person who is not finished with that day and is seeking revenge against all of those who survived.

I loved all of these characters! Reed and Simone had such differing ways of coping with their lives after the shooting. Reed is such a strong hero who refuses to let evil win. Essie is the mentor Reed needs at just the right time. Simone runs from the memories at first, but through her art she begins to heal and then begins to memorialize the loved ones lost on that day in the mall. Even all of the secondary characters bring such life to this book. I absolutely loved CiCi, who was the best grandmother character ever.

This book is written covering many years. Ms. Roberts has the characters growing stronger and coming together to fight the evil that has tracked them for execution. I found this book difficult to put down. I love Nora Roberts’ books and characters.

Book Review: Red War by Kyle Mills

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

RED WAR (Mitch Rapp #17) is the newest espionage thriller in the Mitch Rapp series started by author Vince Flynn and now carried forward by author Kyle Mills. This is Mr. Mills’ fourth installment in the series. Red War is another edge-of-you-seat thrill ride with a plausible world crisis and all of the geopolitical intrigue, blood, bombs and action I have come to expect in a Mitch Rapp book.

Maxim Krupin, the Russian president, has been diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. It must be kept a secret as he receives treatment. He plans to eliminate any of his countrymen who could grab power from him if his condition is known and he plans a distraction with worldwide consequences to cover his absence. Two of the men he trusts to keep him in power are Andrei Sokolov a disgraced war criminal, who he places in charge of Russian armed forces and his young personal assassin, Nikita Pushkin, who he sends to eliminate his predecessor, Grisha Azarov.

No one in the U.S. government knows what to make of the new dangerous unpredictability of Krupin. CIA Director Irene Kennedy learns of Krupin’s illness and now understands the world is facing a man who has nothing to lose and psychopathic general, who believes Russia should rule the world.  Mitch and Grisha team up with Scott Coleman and his team to find Krupin and eliminate the threat of World War III and a nuclear holocaust.

I was so excited to be chosen as a Mitch Rapp Ambassador and receive the ARC of Red War from the publisher in advance of publication. I did not want it to end! Kyle Mills has done a great job of continuing the Mitch Rapp character and series. The action, world travel, political intrigue and plot twists just keep coming. I was also very happy to see the return of one of my series favorites in this book. This is a MUST READ thriller series for me. Each adventure can be read as a standalone, but the personal and professional relationships carry forward and add to the interesting backstory that makes the series narrative layered and keeps me coming back for more than just the individual current threat.

This is one of my favorite thriller series and I highly recommend it!

Book Review: Murder Girl by Lisa Renee Jones

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

MURDER GIRL (Lilah Love #2) by Lisa Renee Jones is the second book in this thriller/suspense FBI profiler series and picks up right where the first book’s overall plotline left us hanging for more. You can pick up this book which has a great synopsis of book #1 in the beginning, but the first book was just as well written, so I really do recommend you take the time to read it, too.

Lilah Love is one of the best profilers in the FBI. She can get into the mind of the killers’ she profiles without emotional involvement hampering her job and so the nickname “Murder Girl”. Her present case has her returning home to the Hamptons and her ex, Kane Mendez is waiting for her. Lilah believes in law and order, but is drawn to the dark, while Kane is the bad boy, millionaire business man who could be all bad, but he continually tries to fight the dark for Lilah.

Lilah is piecing together the clues of a series of murders others believe are not connected, but she believes are done by an assassin and are all tied together. Each time she gets another piece of the puzzle, she is taken down another path that may go back years and could connect to a secret in her past and her family.

Lilah has to find the assassin, deal with her continually conflicted relationship with Kane and hopefully keep everyone she cares about alive.

Lilah is a great main character. Foul mouthed, beautiful and seriously devoted to catching killers. Her romantic interest in Kane can go so many ways and I am looking forward to seeing if the author can work out their differences enough to bring them together or if he remains more of a character who helps Lilah and just has benefits. Lilah’s FBI supervisor and the assassin, Ghost, are both going to make future books very interesting, also.

I definitely recommend this book and series. It is well written and a page turner that just keeps throwing new twists and revelations at the reader. Bring on book #3, please!

Thank you very much to Montlake Romance and Net Galley for allowing me to read this eARC in exchange for and honest review.

Feature Post: The Girl in the Moss by Loreth Anne White

   

I am very happy to share this author interview with Loreth Anne White discussing her new book THE GIRL IN THE MOSS and her writing. After the interview, you will find a summary of the story, the author’s biography, links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Enjoy!

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Loreth Anne White Interview

Congratulations on your new release! Tell us a bit about it.

THE GIRL IN THE MOSS is a cold case mystery/thriller that kicks off when a shallow grave in a mossy forest exposes the bones of a decades-old secret that begins to threaten a small community with lethal consequence. Early reviews have described the story as dark, atmospheric, and twisty with a “shocking conclusion”. While it can be read alone, THE GIRL IN THE MOSS is book 3 in the Angie Pallorino series, and the series has a romantic relationship thread playing out over the arc of the 3 books.

A larger philosophical question around cold case detecting also plays throughout this book. As one Goodreads reviewer wrote: “If history allows those in grief to move forward with their lives, trying to breath new life into a cold case threatens to upend everything for survivors. On the other hand, those who have gotten away with murder are eluding justice. Angie clearly represents Justice in this book, even at times when nearly everyone is against her and when some of the opposition’s arguments makes some sense.”

So yes, Angie is dogged, but hopefully for good reason—she knows how vital it was to her own sense of well-being to get to the bottom of her own cold case. She’d like to help others find similar closure.  And justice is something she can believe in.

You just love to put your heroine in mortal danger! Even on vacation Angie is somehow drawn into a missing persons cold case that has her fighting for her life. What is it about romantic suspense that fuels your creative juices?

I’ve always loved to read suspense with intrepid heroines who risk their lives, or who must face impossible odds to survive. It came naturally to try and write what I like to read.

One of the best things about your novels is the careful attention you give to both your couple and the crime that is being investigated. How do achieve this balance?

Thank you! I try to find a way to make the relationship an integral part of the case and vice versa, so that you can’t really pull one part of the story out without collapsing the whole thing.

 Your writing includes some in depth information about police procedures — in the case of this novel how to secure a crime scene. What type of research have you done in order to realistically write these scenes?

I’ve done many workshops with various branches of law enforcement, plus I do lots of reading of homicide investigation manuals which have been written to teach cops.

Even as an ex-cop, Angie often finds herself in dangerous situations. What draws her to the dark crimes she investigates? Is there anything else she wants to do with her life?

 Angie has a passion particularly for helping young women hurt by heinous crimes. This in part is because of her own past, even if she didn’t really know it at first. She’s dead set on running her own PI agency now, where she can pick her cases and still march to her own drum. And because of her reputation, some of those darker cases are going to pick her.

Maddocks has a fine line he must walk — as a homicide detective he has the duty to his squad, but he also feels a pull to include Angie in his work. How does he reconcile these two competing forces?

At the end of this book, they find a happy medium. Angie will work her own PI cases, many of them cold cases. And while there will be times the lines of her investigations cross with Maddocks’s police work, it will be more collaborative.

What can readers expect next from you?

THE DARK BONES is the working title of my next project. It’s an atmospheric mystery/suspense/romance set in ranching country in the B.C. interior, and while it is a standalone, it links to A DARK LURE, which was an Amazon #1 bestseller. I’ve had many, many readers write to ask for a linked book, and I hope THE DARK BONES hits all those same notes that A DARK LURE did. If all goes to plan—and things do yet all have to slot into place—the book will see the shelves early next summer.

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About the Book

Title: The Girl in the Moss

Author: Loreth Anne White

Release Date: June 12, 2018

Publisher: Montlake Romance

Summary

Disgraced ex-cop Angie Pallorino is determined to make a new start for herself as a private investigator. But first, she and her lover, newly promoted homicide detective James Maddocks, attempt a quiet getaway to rekindle a romance struggling in the shadows of their careers. The peace doesn’t last long when human skeletal remains are found in a nearby mossy grove.

This decades-old mystery is just what Angie needs to establish her new career—even as it thrusts her and Maddocks back into the media spotlight, once again endangering their tenuous relationship.

Then, when Angie’s inquiry into the old crime intersects with a cold case from her own policing past—one that a detective on Maddocks’s new team is working—the investigation takes a startling twist. It puts more than Angie’s last shot at redemption and a future with Maddocks at risk. The mystery of the girl in the moss could kill her.

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Author Biography

Loreth Anne White is an award-winning, bestselling author of romantic suspense, thrillers, and mysteries, including The Drowned Girls and The Lullaby Girl, the first two books in the Angie Pallorino series. Winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mainstream Mystery/Suspense, Loreth is also a three-time RITA finalist, plus a recipient of the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the National Readers’ Choice Award, the Romantic Crown for Best Romantic Suspense and Best Book Overall, and a Booksellers’ Best finalist. A former journalist who has worked in both South Africa and Canada, she now resides in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest with her family. When not writing, she skis, bikes, and hikes the trails with her dog, doing her best to avoid the bears (albeit unsuccessfully). Learn more at www.lorethannewhite.com.

 

Author Social Media Links

Website: http://www.lorethannewhite.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Loreth.Anne.White

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Loreth

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/150272.Loreth_Anne_White

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Book Review: Dying Truth by Angela Marsons

RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars

DYING TRUTH (D.I. Kim Stone, #8) by Angela Marsons is a tour de force!

With every book in the Kim Stone series, I have come to love all of the characters more.  I have been intrigued and tricked by the mystery/crime plotlines. In book #8, Ms. Marsons covers the short time period of six days which left me with a severe book hangover and the knowledge that I will remember this Kim Stone book far into the future.

Heathcrest is a prestigious private school for children of the elite in British society. Perfect appearance is everything, but a crime from the past has come back to haunt the children of today. D.I. Kim Stone takes a call of a potential jumper. When she arrives on the scene, the broken body of Sadie Winter is on the ground, but Kim cannot justify what she sees with the testimony of witnesses. Soon after, another child is dead and Kim and her team know they must hurry to find who in Heathcrest is killing the children.

Ms. Marsons covers many emotional hot topic issues in this book. Heathcrest displays the divide between private education for the rich and public education. Scholarship students are accepted, but always know they are different. Peer pressure, bullying and the expectations of parents are laid bare in a forthright manner. The pros and cons of secret societies that last for a lifetime plays a major role in a murder from the past tied to the murders in the present. The topic of “if a child can kill” is also covered candidly.

Beside the riveting and emotional intertwined plots from past and present in this book, I always read this series to catch up on some of my favorite characters. Kim and her team not only have to solve this case, but Kim also has to turn in her personnel evaluations. Kim, Bryant, Kevin and Stacey are each very different and yet when put together make the perfect unit. After eight books, I have watched each character grow and become more vivid, but there is a gut-wrenching shake up at the end of this book. Was it needed? That is for each reader to decide, but in my opinion it was entirely believable when you consider that character’s growth and personality.

I am looking forward to the next book in this series. While I may never get over some of the emotional wreckage from this one, I want more!

Thanks very much to Bookouture and Net Galley for allowing me to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.