The House At Saltwater Point Colleen Coble

Published: Thomas Nelson
Date: 3rd July 2018
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 352
Genre: Mystery/Romantic Suspense
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Rating:
     

Ellie Blackmore is making a name for herself as a house flipper. But when her sister Mackenzie disappears, Ellie can’t focus on anything but uncovering what happened. Her only clue is the bloodstain on the deck of Mackenzie’s boat. Ellie knows her sister isn’t on the best of terms with her ex-husband, Jason, but he wouldn’t kill her—would he?

Coast Guard intelligence officer Grayson Bradshaw believes Mackenzie faked her own death after stealing a seized cocaine shipment. The problem is convincing Ellie, who seems to view him as the true enemy.Both Ellie and Grayson want truth, but truth—and family—is often more complex than it first appears.

The House at Saltwater Point is the first book I have read by the author Colleen Coble.  It is a fairly fast paced suspense with plenty of crime and dead bodies littering the pages.  I did wonder though at how some characters were viciously killed off but the main protagonists seemed to not be treated in the same way.  

Ellie is a renovator - Hammer Girl is her blog name and the name that Grayson Bradshaw - coast guard officer likes to call her.  As they both search for her sister - Mac, and try to unravel what has happened to her they start to find they are really attracted to each other.

Who is Mac working with, what drives her, is she somehow mixed up with a crime ring or something even more sinister?  Who is friend and who is foe? I began to feel very few could be trusted! Ellie has always cared for her sister but possibly her blind spot has hidden from her some of Mac's characteristics. 

Grayson is dealing with some family issues, it turns out he is more linked to this town than he thought, and Ellie too has issues of her own from her childhood. ( Well who doesn't! However hers is a little more than most of us have to deal with).

While this is #2 in Colleen Coble's Lavender Point series, it is also a stand alone, I hadn't read #1 but enjoyed meeting the characters from that book.

This is a Christian fiction book, with a few God references that possibly are a little unnecessary, at times the story felt a little over the top, but no more than any fast paced adventure movie!! 

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Bayou Midnight Emilie Richards

Published: Emilie Richards   2nd Edition
Date: 15th July 2018
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 305
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Source: Author

Homicide detective Sam Long is determined to solve his latest case, but he can’t move forward without help. His best witness to arson and murder is a little girl, and whatever she saw on the night of the fire is safely locked away in her mind.

The last thing Sam wants is to consult with anyone, especially Dr. Antoinette Deveraux, a beautiful psychologist trained in hypnosis. He’s certain there’s no place for someone like compassionate Antoinette in a murder investigation. But when she unlocks the child’s memories, Antoinette unlocks something primal and compelling in Sam’s own heart.

Bayou Midnight is the second book in the New Orleans trilogy by Emilie Richards. It is a revised and updated version of a previously published book. These books are set in New Orleans before hurricane Katrina changed it up so much.

As a reader not familiar with this part of the world I have to say I was fascinated by the setting that Emilie Richards describes so well.   I was on my computer researching who cajuns are and their history.  I know the author dearly loves this place, myself I'd be a little nervous, but it certainly is unique.

This is a romantic story about Antoinette - a psychologist and Sam the policeman. We met both in the previous book, and Sam was  someone  I really didn't like. He was a very suspicious and prickly man, although very loyal and once a friend - always a friend.

In this book he has all these same qualities, plus we see a gentle compassionate side, and that same prickly veneer. He is totally against getting involved and yet very attracted to the lovely Antoinette. I liked her very much, although she has one foible that could lead her into ill health if she kept it up.

The suspense part is that someone is trying to blow up an oil rig and damage an oil company who have been poor employers.  Sam is on the case, but he doesn't seem to get anywhere until suddenly it is very close to home.

I loved the writing and the descriptions in this book and of course really the characters are just so adorable.  I am so waiting for Night Magic which is Skeeter's story - a friend of Sams.  This will be a totally new story because back in the bad old days of publishing they thought he was too much of a bad boy to have a book. Oh my! Little did they know then. For my taste he has been cleaned up a bit too much in Book 2 so I hope he still has his attitude when his book now comes to life next month. We shall see!

The Woman Left Behind by Linda Howard

Published: William Morrow
Date:   6th March 2018
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 400
Genre:Contemporary Romantic Suspense
Source: Publisher via Edelweiss
Rating:
                               

Levi Butcher is singularly devoted to his work. As team leader for the GO-Team, his unwavering focus is on the mission. Levi knows all too well that one minor distraction can hold deadly consequences. But with the soothing, sensual voice of “Babe,” the team’s communication expert, constantly in his ear, keeping his concentration on the dangerous work at hand is becoming extremely difficult.

Jina Modell definitely doesn’t feel like a “Babe,” especially when she’s working with the gruff, no-nonsense Levi. When the base where she’s stationed is attacked, Jina manages to escape but the rest of the team, working some distance away, is exfiltrated, thinking Jina died in the explosion—leaving her stranded. To survive, she’s got to figure out how to get back to safety before she’s discovered by the enemy.

I thoroughly enjoyed this military like romantic suspense novel - The Woman Left Behind by Linda Howard. It was pure escapist reading, that kept me up reading two nights in a row. 

Jina or "Babe" as her team name her to her disgust, is a gritty, sassy and very able young woman who just cannot quit. Her brothers have given her the basis for that and now when she finds herself thrown into a entirely new and different experience, she does not give up.

The team is a little like a Seal team, they train hard and they go on missions that involve stealth and secrecy. They might be government approved but they are not 'official'. The team is led by Levi or Ace as he is known to his team, on the first day that Jina turns up for training with a new group, they draw her out and make sure they train her. Its gruelling stuff, not for the fainthearted. However Jina is not one to take any nonsense and she has a mouth on her and the ability to stand up to them.  And very soon bonds are formed and they are moving towards trust. I loved the whole team aspect and the guys on the team. The training period takes up a good deal of the story, and I liked that - all the challenges and the final one of parachuting which Gina finds really difficult.

Then they are out on missions and Gina is out with them, its her job to operate a drone that surveys the field while the team carry out there task - which usually involves weapons. And then one time things go really wrong and Gina is left on her own and lets just say it rocks her world.

A romance is obviously brewing - Gina and Levi are attracted to one another, but because they work on a team together they can't let it go any further. Watching the two sidestep each other was very entertaining - right through to the final resolution.

Action, romance, a little suspense and team comradeship. Now and then its just the kind of read I find perfect.

Promise Not to Tell Jayne Ann Krentz

Published: Hachette Aus/Piatkus
Date: 2nd January 2018
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 338
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Source: Hachette Australia via NetGalley
Rating:
                  

Seattle gallery owner Virginia Troy has spent years battling the demons that stem from her childhood time in a cult and the night a fire burned through the compound, killing her mother. And now one of her artists has taken her own life, but not before sending Virginia a last picture: a painting that makes Virginia doubt everything about the so-called suicide - and her own past.

Like Virginia, private investigator Cabot Sutter was one of the children in the cult who survived that fire... and only he can help her now. As they struggle to unravel the clues in the painting, it becomes clear that someone thinks Virginia knows more than she does and that she must be stopped. Thrown into an inferno of desire and deception, Virginia and Cabot draw ever closer to the mystery of their shared memories - and the shocking fate of the one man who still wields the power to destroy everything they hold dear.

Promise not to Tell by Jayne Ann Krentz is #2 in her Cutler, Sutter and Salinas series. This one is about Cabot Sutter, one of three men, who as a boy was rescued at a crime scene and adopted by their rescuer.   

Has the mad cult driven Quinton Zane returned? Why has a woman gone off a cliff? And so the mystery and the suspense begins.  Virginia and Cabot combine to follow the clues.  Virginia was also there that horrible night when fire almost engulfed them as children, she now runs an art gallery and has had contact with the artist who is now dead after going off the cliff. 

Virginia and Cabot are a great couple. They have been together as children, suffer from the same horrific experience in their childhood, so they understand each other and the way they still suffer from that now in adulthood. Each was very compassionate towards the other. As they work on the case, they grow in their relationship. I liked how there was no false parting and then reuniting due to some mistaken issue. 

I really enjoyed as well Cabot's issue with his family, his grandfather disowned his mother when she went off to do her own thing, but now he is dead, and there is some new happenings. Greatest of all a surprise visit from one relative - one who soon became very much part of the story.

The mystery kept me guessing, I thought it was all clear early on, but no - plenty of twists and turns and a very good set up for the next book as well. The plot moved along at a great clip, moving from one event to another with speed, which kept me turning the pages.

The kind of suspense I like - not too graphic in the gory detail, and characters who worm there way into my heart. I am certainly looking forward to the next one in the series.

A Distant Heart Sonali Dev

Published: Kensington
Date:  26th December 2017
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 352
Genre:Contemporary Romance/Suspense
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley
Rating:
                   

Her name means “miracle” in Sanskrit, and to her parents, that’s exactly what Kimaya is. The first baby to survive after several miscarriages, Kimi grows up in a mansion at the top of Mumbai’s Pali Hill, surrounded by love and privilege. But at eleven years old, she develops a rare illness that requires her to be confined to a germ-free ivory tower in her home, with only the Arabian Sea churning outside her window for company. . . . Until one person dares venture into her world.

Tasked at fourteen years old with supporting his family, Rahul Savant shows up to wash Kimi’s windows, and an unlikely friendship develops across the plastic curtain of her isolation room. As years pass, Rahul becomes Kimi’s eyes to the outside world—and she becomes his inspiration to better himself by enrolling in the police force. But when a life-saving heart transplant offers the chance of a real future, both must face all that ties them together and keeps them apart.

As Kimi anticipates a new life, Rahul struggles with loving someone he may yet lose. And when his investigation into a black market organ ring run by a sociopathic gang lord exposes dangerous secrets that cut too close to home, only Rahul's deep, abiding connection with Kimi can keep her safe—and reveal the true meaning of courage, loss, and second chances.

A Distant Heart  takes up the story that was started in a Change of Heart.  Now the focus is on Rahul the police officer chasing down a criminal ring who steal hearts on the black market. 

Rahul has suffered much loss in his life, he comes from a poor family and has always fought his way courageously through life. Growing up he made friends with Kimi, a young girl who has severe immune problems She's locked up in her safe  "tower".   Eventually it will lead to heart failure and the need for a new heart. 

The book moves between their younger lives together and their lives now. I found that a little disconcerting, yet it filled in the background of both of them. Kimi is much loved, her parents take great care of her in their way, but is their way best? Her father - Kirit,  has told Rahul that Kimi can never be his, and even though Kirit knows Kimi sparkles around Rahul he will not give his blessing.

However Kirit is being blackmailed and the person who was shot in the last book and severely wounded is now more or less up and about and out to do damage to Kimi and Rahul.  

Kimi has many challenges to face down, many truths to come to grips with, and the way she does tells how strong she is and how wise. Rahul  because of all the losses he has experienced has learned to act often out of fear, to dampen down his feelings and live within a self imposed wall. Can he become a whole human being and learn to live with a heart that accepts that fear is not the way for living.  

I enjoyed reading the book, seeing the case solved, justice meted out and Kimi and Rahul finding their happy for now.

Edge of Darkness. Karen Rose

Published: Headline/Hachette Australia
Date:  2nd November 2017
Format:e-ARC
Pages: 608
Genre: Suspense/Crime
Source: Hachette Australia via NetGalley
Rating:
        

Homicide detective Adam Kimble is no stranger to battling demons. But Meredith Fallon is a different kind of weakness: one that could actually be good for him, if only he would let himself depend on her. Meredith has loved Adam for a year, and seeing how hard he's worked to deal with his PTSD makes her feelings only stronger, but she respects his needs. Her work keeps her busy anyway: she counsels sexually abused women like Mallory Martin to help them reintegrate into the world.

But someone doesn't want Meredith helping women like Mallory, and Meredith finds herself the target of a very determined killer. Adam would risk anything for Meredith, but they'll soon find out the killer is just a little too close to home...

Edge of Darkness by Karen Rose is one of those books that I just had to keep reading. By rights I shouldn't even like it, it is full of crime, nasty crime and so many killings. However its the fight of good against evil and I know the evil is going to be eventually overcome.

I've only read two other books in this series but I want to go back and read all of them! Some day! In the meantime this was perfect and while it is part of a series it can stand alone, although it doesn't hurt to have met the characters before.  Yes there are quite a few of them. The first time I read a book in the series I jotted down names and how they are related, and hey presto now there is "no problemo".

This is the story of Adam Kimble - detective and Meredith. We'd seen Adam withdraw from his family and friends - they didn't know why and neither did the reader. In this book all is revealed as Adam becomes centre stage. Adam and Meredith are always seeking to do what is right for others, they are both wounded people and are coping with their own dysfunctions. Yet their hears are full of love, loyalty and courage.

The story ranges over about a week - it is told from the viewpoint of many - Adam, Meredith, the perpetrator of the crimes and some of the victims. For a long while we don't know who is behind the shocking things that happen and when we do find out it is to discover that greed, jealousy, callousness and evil are alive and kicking in the heart of the person who has caused such devastation.

What draws me to these books are the strong bonds that exist between all the detectives, the people who help victims as does Meredith, the newspaper team and the IT team. Bonds of loyalty, support and love are strong. I loved Meredith's grandfather, I want to see more of Diesel the IT newspaper guy who walks a fine line in terms of the law and Dani the doctor - sister of one of the detectives.  The little cameos of fun and humour don't hurt either.

Fast paced, full of tension, fantastic characters and a plot that took me away from my world into another. Can't ask for more.

Over the Teacups - Short Reviews #2

I read a number of books I don't fully review, so I have decided to start acknowledging them here in short reviews - which lets face it - are the best!

Why? It's part of a series I am addicted to. When I met this series I read the first five I think straight one after the other. Then I had to wait like the rest of the fans for each one. This is #11. Published July 2017. Auto-buy and auto-read.

Plot  Lt Sam Holland and her extended family are picked up from wherever they are and put into lockdown. Somebody is threatening them, especially the children.  Needless to say Sam is grumpy about that as she is in the middle of a case involving an unknown body floating in the river. Then there is an even more significant dead body and let the ride begin!  Set in Washington DC.

What Appeals to me? Every time there is usually the mystery of a dead body for Sam and her team. I love the team dynamics and the various characters, many of whom have had a book with some focus on them. Then there is Sam's family and the people who work for her and her husband Nick. And... Nick and Sam - what a dynamic, romantic couple.

Each book leads into the next, I couldn't imagine not reading the previous ones first in order, but I guess it could be done but I wouldn't advise it.

And so.... I sat up and read this book one evening and then the short story that followed and then... the first chapter of Fatal Chaos which comes out early next year.  I never, I repeat never, read a first chapter in a coming book. I broke my rule this time!!  Fatal Chaos - February 2018, you are in my calendar. And I might add I have pre-ordered it.

Why? This is the third book in a trilogy. A contemporary fiction book by J. R. Ward. I like all her books but love her contemporaries best. I have been waiting a whole year for this book!  As soon as it arrived on my doorstep I started reading.

Plot The Bradford family have money, or they did until their father embezzled all of it and left them in big trouble. Now he is dead and big brother Edward is saying he 'did it'. All four of the Bradfords are traumatised by their upbringing at the hands of a sadistic father. They've mucked around but now with new responsibilities and their beloved momma Aurelia dying it is time to front up.

What Appeals to me?
I came to love these very flawed characters and the bonds that still hold them together. I liked their bid to overcome the challenge before them and their ability to look at their lives and see what they really value. It is a little mystery and lots of soap drama. I did think it was a little rushed at the end - but still - so worth the wait. I felt perhaps there was untold things about Max's story, maybe...

And so... I think this is it, no more! It all kind of was sorted with no big cliff hangers at the end. However I can hope for more contemporary work from J. R. Ward.  Also these three books are certainly on my keeper shelf and will be a reread for sure at some point.

Why? I fell in love with the small town in the first book in the series Blessings by Beverly Jenkins.
Plot
The book takes up the stories of the various children who have been fostered. Amari wants to join the July family as a fully fledged member and must undergo a spirit journey. Preston is worried his foster parents might split, Crystal is turning into everyone's counsellor. A new teacher turns up in town with Eli who has an attitude which doesn't wash in this town.
What Appeals to Me?
This book is so warm hearted and the characters so loveable and the story lines are heart warming. They are a little beyond the real, but it is if everything was in an ideal world, and who wouldn't go for that. It is full of humour, plus characters face challenges and grow... or leave town one way or the other.  It was  a sit down and relax read almost done in a day kind of book.
And so...
I've ordered book #3 in the series Something Old, Something New.

Seeing Red. Sandra Brown

Published: Grand Central
Date: 15th August 2017
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 432
Genre: Romantic suspense
Source: Publisher via NG
Rating:
                     

Kerra Bailey is a television journalist on the rise, and she's hot on the trail of a story guaranteed to skyrocket her career to even greater heights: an interview with the legendary Major Trapper. Twenty-five years ago, the Major emerged a hero from the bombing of the Pegasus Hotel in downtown Dallas when he was photographed leading a handful of survivors out of the collapsing building. The iconic picture transformed him into a beloved national icon, in constant demand for speeches and interviews--until he suddenly dropped out of the public eye, shunning all members of the media. However, Kerra is willing to use any means necessary to get to the Major--even if she has to wrangle an introduction from his estranged son, former ATF agent John Trapper.

Still seething over his break with both the ATF and his father, John Trapper wants no association with the hotel bombing or his hero father, and spurns the meddling reporters determined to drag them back into the limelight. Yet Kerra's sheer audacity and tantalizing hints that there's more to the story rouse Trapper's interest despite himself. And when her interview of a lifetime goes catastrophically awry - he knows he must keep going.

Seeing Red by Sandra Brown was a really good suspense/mystery/thriller book. One of those books you look at the time and realise its way past your bedtime and you still have to read on to see who is the good person and who is the evil one, and how did it all go down.

Kerra is a news anchor and a good one, she wanted and got an interview with Major Franklin Trapper, and she has an ace up her sleeve that is going to helped her achieve that. What she doesn't realise is that all hell is about to break loose and it sure does. She is lucky to get away with her life intact.

John Trapper is Franklin's son and a badass - or is he?  He has hated all the fame a famous rescue that Major Trapper accomplished has brought the family. His life was changed forever the day his father rescued people from a bombed hotel. Plus now John believes there was more to that bombing than people are letting on about and he wants to root around and get to the very depths of it. So far it has lost him his job at the ATF and made him look a fool. But the thing about Trapper is he is very persistent and most of the time is one step ahead of the enemy - whoever that might be!

When the interview results in a shocking event Trapper steps in and kidnaps Kerra - for her own good of course. And so the ducking and diving begins. Who is the enemy is always the question. We are given little cameos of the perpetrators but never the full picture. It's very fortunate that Trapper does not trust easily, is very perceptive and while he resents the fame and the impact it has had on his relationship with his father, there are still bonds of love there.

I really enjoyed this story, the mystery and suspense, the wonderings about who was the person or persons behind the various killings. Trapper and Kerra grow as people throughout the story, the relationship of Trapper and the Major develops well and other relationships are called into question. And of course there is some hot romance happening between Kerra and Trapper.