← Older posts
March 31, 2021 · 12:01 am
eBook Contest
Here are the eBooks for this week’s Winning Wednesday contest:
Title: Deep River Promise by Jackie Ashenden
Alaska Homecoming Series Book Two
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Length: 288 pages
Summary:
Welcome to Deep River, Alaska
Damon Fitzgerald takes his responsibilities very seriously. Yet now, somehow, his responsibilities include the tiny Alaska town he inherited from his late army buddy. Damon just wants to get back to LA and his ailing mother, but first he has a promise to keep: looking out for his dead friend’s son. Unfortunately, the boy’s mother just happens to be Deep River’s mayor and the most challenging woman Damon’s ever met.
Astrid James is mayor of Deep River and she intends to do right by the town and her son. The last thing she needs is an arrogant outsider coming in, no matter how attractive he is. But there’s more to Damon than his charm, just as there’s more to Astrid than the no-nonsense mayor she appears to be. Soon the two of them are in deeper than the Deep River itself. But Damon is haunted by a private grief and Astrid has good reasons not to trust; can either of them risk their hearts on finding love again?
Title: When a Cowboy Loves a Woman by Jennie Marts
Creedence Horse Rescue Series Book Two
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Length: 336 pages
Summary:
They both know the pain of loss and how to protect their hearts…but fate has a way of stepping in…
When a kitchen fire forces young widow Elle Brooks to move in with her friend Bryn and her motley collection of rescue animals, she doesn’t foresee ending up in the muscled arms of handsome cowboy and veterinarian Brody Tate. But she can’t deny the feelings that being close to Brody are stirring in her. Spending time with the hunky cowboy and his adorable young daughter as they rehabilitate rescued horses reminds Elle of all she lost in a car crash years ago.
As a widower himself, Brody is devoted to being a good dad for his spirited daughter. He hasn’t let romance even enter his head. But now he’s met Elle. Spending time with her is shaking up the calm he’s worked so hard to achieve, and he can’t seem to get this woman off his mind.
Elle and Brody have both lost people they loved, but their mutual attraction and growing feelings are too strong to ignore. The hope of a future together is a beautiful possibility, but can these two wounded souls take a chance on each other and find the courage to love again?
Title: Dark Mire by J.S. Cook
Kildevil Cove Murder Mysteries Series Book Two
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Genre: Contemporary, Gay, Romance, Suspense
Length: 261 pages
Summary:
A Kildevil Cove Murder Mystery
You never know what trouble will rise from the bog.
When the body of an unidentified woman is found in a Newfoundland bog, Inspector Danny Quirke must scramble his team of investigators to find her killer. But what initially seems like a straightforward case soon becomes mired in a tangled web of lies and deliberate obfuscation.
With the strange mutilation of the body—one eye gouged out completely—evidence seems to lead to a fringe religious group with bizarre beliefs. But while the pathologist indicates mushroom poisoning as the cause of death, Danny thinks circ*mstances point to something more sinister—especially when he begins to receive anonymous messages with links to horrific pictures of damaged human eyes.
Three more bodies join the first, with seemingly nothing to link them but a little girl in a yellow party dress who flits in and out of the mystery like a creature from the old legends. Then an old friend from his childhood reappears, and Danny is forced to confront uncomfortable truths about his own nearest and dearest.
On an island, everyone is a suspect…
Wednesday is contest day on Book Reviews and More by Kathy. Three lucky winners will win the eBook of their choice! Here’s how to enter:
You must Do TWO of the Following:
1. Sign up for e-mail updates (below). One email daily with the day’s posts.
OR:
2. Be or become a fan of Book Reviews & More by Kathy Facebook page
OR:
3. Follow me on Twitter (@BookReviewsMore)
Make sure you have filled out the contest entry form:
4. To be eligible to enter contests on Book Reviews and More by Kathy you MUST fill out the contest entry form (found HERE). This form only needs to be filled out ONCE. Your privacy is important to me, and I will not share your information.
And don't forget to:
5. Fill out the form below by 4 PM Mountain Time Friday afternoon:
CONTEST OVER
* I am the only person who will have access to info that is submitted to me UNLESS a publisher or author has donated an eBook for the giveaway. For a prize donated by an author or publisher, I will forward your e-mail and format selection to the person responsible for distributing the eBook. Please refer to the privacy page HERE if you have questions about how your information is used. In the event the contest form is not working, please leave your book selection in the comments below.*
It’s that easy! The winners will be selected using random.org. I will e-mail the winners the eBook of their choice in their preferred format. The winners will be posted HERE on Saturday.
***The eBooks in this giveaway have been purchased by Book Reviews & More by Kathy.***
2 Comments
Filed under Contest
March 30, 2021 · 12:03 am
Title: Deep River Promise by Jackie Ashenden
Alaska Homecoming Series Book Two
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Length: 288 pages
Summary:
Welcome to Deep River, Alaska
Damon Fitzgerald takes his responsibilities very seriously. Yet now, somehow, his responsibilities include the tiny Alaska town he inherited from his late army buddy. Damon just wants to get back to LA and his ailing mother, but first he has a promise to keep: looking out for his dead friend’s son. Unfortunately, the boy’s mother just happens to be Deep River’s mayor and the most challenging woman Damon’s ever met.
Astrid James is mayor of Deep River and she intends to do right by the town and her son. The last thing she needs is an arrogant outsider coming in, no matter how attractive he is. But there’s more to Damon than his charm, just as there’s more to Astrid than the no-nonsense mayor she appears to be. Soon the two of them are in deeper than the Deep River itself. But Damon is haunted by a private grief and Astrid has good reasons not to trust; can either of them risk their hearts on finding love again?
Add to Goodreads.
Add series to Goodreads.
Purchase Links: Amazon * B&N * Google Play * Apple * Kobo * Bookshop * BAM! * Books2Read
Excerpt
Damon Fitzgerald woke with an excruciating headache and the sense that he was being stabbed slowly but relentlessly through one eye. The headache was familiar—usually a sign he’d imbibed a little too heavily the night before—but the stabbing sensation not so much.
Cautiously, he raised one hand to touch the eye currently being stabbed only to encounter his own eyelid. So. Not being stabbed then. That was a relief.
He was still a little disoriented though, and his mouth felt like the bottom of a birdcage, so it took him some time to realize that the stabbing sensation was coming from the sunlight shining through a gap in the curtains and straight into one eye.
Sun. He hadn’t seen the sun for at least three days, due to the weather being crap, which was strange for LA…
Which was when he remembered that he wasn’t in LA. He wasn’t even in Juneau, where he’d been for the last couple for weeks.
No, it was worse than that. Way worse.
He was in a room over the Happy Moose bar in a tiny, privately owned town called Deep River, smack bang in the middle of nowhere, Alaska. And he’d been stuck here for three days because the weather had been so bad he hadn’t been able to fly out.
Damon lay there for a moment as the realization settled through him, trying to reorient himself, because he’d definitely over imbibed the night before and this hangover had teeth. Then with a sudden start, he remembered that sun was a good thing.
Sun meant the weather was better, which in turn meant he could get the hell out of here and back to LA.
Rolling off the bed, he dragged himself over to the french doors that led onto the room’s tiny balcony, shoved them open, and stumbled out onto the balcony itself, just to check that the sun was real.
Sure enough, though it must have been early in the morning, the sun was actually shining, the sky a bright, almost painful blue, making the white caps of the mountains looming on all sides look extra white and extra sharp.
Ahead of him was the deep, rushing green of the river the town was named for. Deep River. It had been settled during the gold rush at the end of the nineteenth century by the West family, who’d bought the land Deep River sat on and leased out bits of it to anyone who wanted a place to call home.
A quirky little town, as Damon had spent the last three days finding out.
Deep River consisted of a ramshackle series of buildings clustered on the side of the river, connected by a boardwalk that projected out over the water and a narrow street that ran behind the buildings on the land side. They were old, those buildings, the paint on them faded, the wood cracked and worn through long exposure to rain and sun and snow. Not as picture-postcard as the ones in Ketchikan to the south, but there was definitely a certain vintage charm to them. Like a group of elderly ladies whose beauty was a little faded and careworn, they still possessed the ghost of their stunning youth, a certain timeless magic that tugged at the heartstrings.
Houses very similar to those at the water’s edge were scattered up the hill behind the town, and there were a few more buildings along from the boardwalk, huddling against the hill’s side.
A set of wooden steps led down from the boardwalk to a dock where several fishing boats and trawlers were tied up, but since it was comparatively empty, most of the boats must have gone up the river to the sea for a day working the nets.
Damon took a deep breath and then another, the fresh bite of the air settling his headache and cooling his skin, waking him up. He wasn’t a small-town kind of guy, but there was something quite majestic about the mountains and the forested hills that loomed above him. Especially now the sun was shining.
He’d complained about the rain the night before to one of the locals, who’d then informed him of Deep River’s average rainfall, which was some horrendous amount that sounded just wrong to someone from LA.
Still, it did explain the solid three-day downpour and made him feel lucky that it was a beautiful day now.
Movement below him caught his eye, and he glanced down at the boardwalk.
The kid was there again, skulking by the big wooden pole stuck in the boardwalk that had “Middle of Nowhere” painted down the side. A tall, gangly teenager dressed in jeans and a black hoodie.
He always seemed to be in Damon’s vicinity, and if Damon didn’t know any better, he’d say he was being followed.
Though surely it was a little too early in the morning for teenagers? Weren’t they supposed to sleep past twelve or something?
The kid was looking straight at him, though he was too far away for Damon to see what expression was on his face. The fixed way the kid was staring was slightly unnerving.
A woman came suddenly into view. She had shoulder-length blond hair, and it was blowing around in the wind, a bright counterpoint to the plain jeans-and-T-shirt-combo she wore, a parka pulled on over the top, and she moved with great purpose to where the kid stood. She spoke to him a second and then turned her head, and Damon found himself under the intense scrutiny of two people.
His skin prickled, cool air moving across it. Moving everywhere across it.
Aw hell. He’d neglected to dress before stumbling out onto the balcony, and since he always slept naked… Yeah, no wonder both the woman and the kid were staring.
***
Excerpted from Deep River Promise by Jackie Ashenden. © 2021 by Jackie Ashenden. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.
Author Bio
Jackie Ashenden has been writing fiction since she was eleven years old. She used to balance her writing with the more serious job of librarianship until a chance meeting with another romance writer prompted her to devote herself to the true love of her heart – writing romance. She particularly likes to write dark, emotional stories with alpha heroes and kick-ass heroines. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand.
Author Links: Website * Facebook Group * Twitter * Goodreads
Giveaway
Enter for your chance to win 1 of 5 copies of Home to Deep River!
Comments Off on Tour Stop, Excerpt & Giveaway: Deep River Promise by Jackie Ashenden
Filed under Blog Tour, Contest, Excerpt
· 12:02 am
Review: The Path to Sunshine Cove by RaeAnne Thayne
Title: The Path to Sunshine Cove by RaeAnne Thayne
Cape Sanctuary Series Book Two
Publisher: HQN Books
Genre: Contemporary, Women’s Fiction, Romance
Length: 336 pages
Book Rating: B+
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley
Summary:
With the emotional pull of Debbie Macomber, Barbara Delinsky and Susan Wiggs, RaeAnne Thayne brings readers an uplifting, brand newstory told with her trademark charm and heart.
She knows what’s best for everyone but herself…
With a past like hers, Jessica Clayton feels safer in a life spent on the road. She’s made a career out of helping others downsize—because she’s learned the hard way that the less “stuff,” the better, a policy she applies equally to her relationships. But a new client is taking Jess back to Cape Sanctuary, a town she once called home…and that her little sister, Rachel, still does. The years apart haven’t made a dent in the guilt Jess still carries after a handgun took the lives of both their parents and changed everything between them.
While Jess couldn’t wait to put the miles between her and Cape Sanctuary, Rachel put down roots, content for the world—and her sister—to think she has a picture-perfect life. But with the demands of her youngest child’s disability, Rachel’s marriage has begun to fray at the seams. She needs her sister now more than ever, yet she’s learned from painful experience that Jessica doesn’tdofamily, and she shouldn’t count on her now.
Against her judgment, Jess finds herself becoming attached—to her sister and her family, even to her client’s interfering son, Nate—and it’s time to put everything on the line. Does she continue running from her painful past, or stay put and make room for the love and joy that come along with it?
Review:
The Path to Sunshine Cove by RaeAnne Thayne is a heartwarming novel of healing and love. Although this newest release is the second installment in the Cape Sanctuary series, it can be read as a standalone.
Jessica “Jess” Clayton travels around the country helping people de-clutter their homes. She loves her job and enjoys her nomadic life-style. Due to her dysfunctional childhood, she maintains an emotional distance from most people. Jess does not do relationships nor is she looking for romance. Despite her tendency to hold people at arm’s length, she is compassionate and caring. Her newest job takes her to Cape Sanctuary where she is helping recently widowed Eleanor Whittaker decide which items in her large home to keep and which to get rid of.
Eleanor’s son Nate is not exactly welcoming at first, but he soon warms up to Jess once he witnesses how much his mother likes her. Nate is also pleasantly surprised at how much his thirteen-year-old daughter Sophie enjoys Jess’s company. Neither of them expects the sparks to fly between them, but with Jess leaving in a couple of weeks, will they give in to their intense attraction?
The main reason Jess accepted the job in Cape Sanctuary is to visit her younger sister Rachel McBride and her family. While the sisters are not estranged, they do not see each other very often. When they were teenagers, they went into foster care. While Jess remained in a group home, Rachel spent the remainder of her teenage years with a family in Cape Sanctuary. She and her husband Cody are childhood sweethearts with three young children. Rachel remains home with the kids but she is a successful influencer on social media. She is struggling with their son’s recent autism diagnosis. Rachel resents Cody’s long hours from home but she cannot bring herself to admit that she is part of the problem. She has high hopes she and Jess can regain their once close relationship.
The Path to Sunshine Cove is an emotional yet sweet novel. The coastal setting is a beautiful backdrop for this family-centric story. Jess and Rachel continue to carry the scars from their traumatic childhood but their reactions are quite different. Their visit proves to be cathartic as they confront their respective issues. Jess is also fighting her growing feelings for Nate but will she be able to leave the people she loves behind?
Old and new fans are sure to love this latest addition to RaeAnne Thayne’s delightful Cape Sanctuary series.
Comments Off on Review: The Path to Sunshine Cove by RaeAnne Thayne
Filed under Cape Sanctuary Series, Contemporary, HQN Books, Rated B+, Review, Romance, Women's Fiction
· 12:01 am
Review: What You Never Knew by Jessica Hamilton
Title: What You Never Knew by Jessica Hamilton
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery
Length: 304 pages
Book Rating: B+
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley
Summary:
Told in alternating points of view between the living and the dead, Jessica Hamilton’s debut novel will be perfect for fans ofThe Lovely Bones.
Idyllic Avril lsland, owned by the Bennett family, where their hundred-year-old cottage sat nestled in acres of forest. Forty-year-old June Bennett believed that the island had been sold after the summer of her father’s disappearance when she was only twelve years old. It’s months after the shocking death of her older sister May in a fatal car accident, that June finds out that the cottage was never sold. Avril Island is still owned by the Bennett family and now it’s hers.
Still reeling from the grief of losing her sister, June travels back to Avril lsland in search of answers. As she digs, she learns that the townspeople believe her father may in fact have been murdered rather than having abandoned his family in the dead of night, as she was led to believe by her mother. And that’s when she begins to notice strange things happening on the island–missing family possessions showing up, doors locking on their own, unexplained noises in the night, shadowy figures disappearing into the woods. It takes June no time at all to realize that her childhood summers at Avril Island were not at all what they had seemed to be.
Review:
What You Never Knew by Jessica Hamilton is an atmospheric mystery.
Forty-year-old June Bennett is divorced with fourteen-year-old twin daughters. Within the space of a year, she endures two tragic losses. But it is the death of her older sister May that hits her the hardest. Deeply grieving her loss, June is shocked to learn her mother lied when she told them she sold the family vacation home. She decides to go to Avril Island where she discovers unexpected details about her parents, April and Simon. She also reconnects with old friend, Ezra Keen, whose family’s past is deeply intertwined with her family. Upon her arrival, June learns stunning information about her dad, who left them thirty years ago. Will June uncover the truth about her father’s disappearance?
June and May have always been extremely close and her sister’s death hits her hard. Their childhood was dysfunctional before their father left and their mother is never easy to deal with. June’s arrival on Avril Island brings many surprises including the discovery someone has cared for the house and grounds over the years. She is also a bit nostalgic as she revisits her memories of their summers on the island. It is not until she discovers May’s photos that June begins to view their past through a very different lens. She also wants to know what happened to her father, but is June prepared for the truth?
June and Ezra played together as children, but their paths diverge as they enter their teen years. Ezra is still very laidback and easygoing, and they enjoy catching up on each other’s lives. June is surprisingly honest with him about herself and they enjoy romantic evenings together.
June does not always cope well with distressing news and she relies on wine to blur the edges. She also feels very close to May during her explorations and win the house. As she edges closer to finding out what happened thirty years ago, she begins to worry she might be putting her trust in the wrong people. How far will she go to get answers to her questions?
What You Never Knew is an engrossing debut. The storyline is engaging and fast-paced. The isolated setting is a little spooky and on occasion, rather eerie. June begins to understand herself better as she tries to learn why her dad vanished years’ earlier. Ezra is a charming man who is very loyal to his loved ones. With a dramatic plot twist, Jessica Hamilton brings this clever mystery to a shocking conclusion. I greatly enjoyed and highly recommend this fantastic mystery.
Comments Off on Review: What You Never Knew by Jessica Hamilton
Filed under Contemporary, Crooked Lane Books, Jessica Hamilton, Mystery, Rated B+, Review, What You Never Knew
March 29, 2021 · 12:03 am
Title: Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay by Babette de Jongh
Welcome to Magnolia Bay Series Book One
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Genre: Contemporary, Romane
Length: 352 pages
Summary:
An extraordinary new small town romance series from an extraordinary author…
Abby Curtis lands on her Aunt Reva’s doorstep at Bayside Barn with nowhere to go but up. Learning animal communication from her aunt while taking care of the motley assortment of rescue animals on the farm is an important part of Abby’s healing process. She is eager to begin a new life on her own, but she isn’t prepared for the magnetism between her and her handsome, stubborn and distracting new neighbor.
Quinn Lockhart snapped up the foreclosed estate next door determined to renovate and flip the beautiful bayou property. It’s all part of a plan to make a financial comeback and reconnect with his estranged son. Definitely not part of the plan is the noisy petting zoo next door dragging down his property value. But getting rid of it becomes more difficult when he falls for the lovely and passionate Abby and bonds with an abandoned wolf dog who’s mournfully waiting for his family to return. For humans and animals alike, it will take all the courage they can muster to learn to love again. But that’s a journey worth taking—with a little help from their furry friends.
You’ll fall in love right along with Abby as animals and humans alike find unexpected ways to connect, nurture each other, and thrive.
Add to Goodreads.
Purchase Links: Amazon * B&N * Google Play * Apple * Kobo * Bookshop * BAM! * Books2Read
Excerpt
Sweaty and tired, Abby decided shoveling poop could wait until after coffee. She set up the coffeepot and hit the button to perk. She had just removed her boots when a deep bellow of human rage galvanized Georgia, who sprinted across the yard and squeezed under the fence. A second later, her sharp barking joined the new neighbor’s angry expletives. Abby ran barefoot along the hedgerow fence toward Georgia’s hysterical barking.
A donkey’s cry made her heart race. How had Elijah gotten into the neighbor’s yard? Then she saw how. “Oh sh*t.” She climbed over a section of crumpled wire fencing and burst through a thick tangle of vegetation into a scene of mayhem and hysteria.
The new neighbor charged toward Elijah and flung his hands in the donkey’s face. “Shoo. Get out.”
Elijah reared, eyes rolling, ears pinned back. Abby grabbed a stout stick and rushed to defend her aunt’s traumatized donkey.“Stop!You’re scaring him.”
Bawling in terror, Elijah veered around the man’s waving arms and leaped over the crumpled wire fence. Georgia—all thirty pounds of short, snarling protection—stood between Abby and the crazy neighbor.
This mean man would not be getting any of the secret-family-recipe pound cake.
Holding the stick out like a sword, Abby snatched Georgia up one-handed and held her close. While she and the dog both trembled with reaction, Abby glared at her aunt’s new neighbor. “What is wrong with you? You scared that poor donkey half to death.”
The stupidneanderthalcrossed his muscled arms in front of his wide chest. “Me? You’re asking what’s wrong withme?That big moose knocked me down!”
“Moose?Elijah is just a baby! He would never—”
“He stole my granola bar!”
“He stole…what?”
The man glanced at her stick. Like a warrior calculating his advantage in an armed conflict, headvanced,his expression fierce and his blue eyes so wild she could see the whites all around. “Your baby—who is the size of a moose, by the way—came onto my property, knocked me down, bit me on the ass, and stole a granola bar from my back pocket.”
Georgia trembled in Abby’s arms and growled in promised retribution should the man come close enough for her to reach.
Abby clutched the dog tighter. “I’m sorry if he hurt you. But you didn’t have to scare him.”
“Your ass is fine. Mine’s the one that’s been wounded.” He lunged forward and wrenched the stick from her hand, then tossed it aside, ignoring Georgia’s escalating growl. “And yet you’re planning to attackmewith a stick?”
A hysterical giggle tickled the back of Abby’s throat. She bit her lips and patted Georgia. Laughing in the face of an animal-hating psychopath—maybe not the best move. “Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry. I hopeyour…” She smothered an irreverent snort. “I hope your ass will recover.”
His lipstwitched,a quickly stifled smile. “I guess it will, eventually.” He let the smile have its way, and it transformed his face from surly to sexy. Straight white teeth and deep blue eyes contrasted with deeply tanned skin. His sun-bleached brown hair hadn’t been combed this morning; he looked like a man who’d just tumbled out of bed and wouldn’t mind getting right back in, given sufficient motivation.
Not that she was interested in providing any such motivation. Hadn’t she learned her lesson? Hadn’t losing everything—her job, her self-respect, and the child she’d come to love—hadn’t that experience taught her anything?
It most certainly had. She was done with men.Done.
He crossed unfairly muscular arms over unfairly toned abs. “Enjoying the view?”
Her face heated. “Well enough.” She couldn’t deny that she’d been staring. But her appreciation of his well-developed form was purely academic.
“Only fair, I guess.” He swept an appreciative glance from her bare feet to her heated cheeks. His blue eyes shining with humor, he trapped her gaze in his. “I bought this place for the view, but I didn’t know until recently what a bargain I was getting.”
“Oh?” She glanced down at her dirt-smeared attire, a getup not likely to inspire such a flattering comment. Had he seen her yesterday with her robe gaping open?Or worse…Had he seen her skinny-dipping last night?
***
Excerpted from Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay by Babette de Jongh. © 2021 by Babette de Jongh. Used with permission of the publisher, Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. All rights reserved.
Author Bio
Babette de Jongh is an award-winning romance author, professional animal communicator, energy healer, and teacher…saving the world, one happy ending at a time. Visit her anytime at babettedejongh.com.
Author Links: Website * Facebook * Twitter * Goodreads
Giveaway
Enter for your chance to win 1 of 3 copies of Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay!
Comments Off on Tour Stop, Excerpt & Giveaway: Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay by Babette de Jongh
Filed under Blog Tour, Contest, Excerpt
· 12:02 am
Review: Tell No Lies by Allison Brennan
Title: Tell No Lies by Allison Brennan
Quinn & Costa Thriller Book Two
Publisher: MIRA
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 432 pages
Book Rating: B
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through NetGalley
Summary:
The unsolved murder of a young activist leads to the discovery of much darker crimes inNew York Timesbestselling author Allison Brennan’s latest compelling thriller to feaure the young, edgy detective Kara Quinn and the loner FBI agent Matt Costa. This time they work to uncover possible ties to a high-stakes cartel in the Southwest desert.
Something mysterious is killing the wildlife in the mountains just south of Tucson. When a college intern turned activist sets out to collect her own evidence, she, too, ends up dead. Local law enforcement is slow to get involved. That’s when the mobile FBI unit goes undercover to infiltrate the town and its copper refinery in search of possible leads.
Quinn and Costa find themselves scouring the desolate landscape, which keeps revealing clues to something much darker—greed, child trafficking and more death. As the body count adds up, it’s clear they have stumbled onto much more than they bargained for. Now they must figure out who is at the heart of this mayhem and stop them before more innocent lives are lost.
A Quinn & Costa Thriller
Book 1: The Third to Die
Book 2: Tell No Lies
Review:
Tell No Lies by Allison Brennan is a multi-layered mystery. Although this latest release is the second installment in the Quinn & Costa Thriller series, it can be read as a standalone.
FBI Special Agent Matt Costa and the rest of the Mobile Response Team are currently working on a murder case in Arizona. The death of Emma Perez appears to be tied to a copper mining company that might be dumping toxic waste. Agent Michael Harris is working undercover inside the company. Agent Ryder Kim is posing as a college student so he can surreptitiously meet the other agents. LAPD Detective Kara Quinn is on loan to the team and she is working undercover in a local bar. Zach Heller is digging for information that will hopefully provide them with the details they need to put the pieces of this puzzle together.
Costa is working with Joe Molina, the son of the owner of the Southwest Copper Mine. Joe is uncomfortable providing inside information to the FBI. But he wants to prove his father’s innocence. Joe makes no effort to hide his interest in Kara, so she agrees to spend a day with him in hopes of learning new information. Harris is finding it difficult to lie to the workers he is befriending but he continues hoping he will overhear incriminating details from plant employees. Zach believes he might have discovered the key that will break the case wide open, so he feverishly works around the clock to prove his theory. Before her death, Emma confided her suspicions about the toxic chemicals to Frank Block, who dismissed her concerns. He has taken time off from work to see if he can locate the toxic waste site. When their main suspect is murdered, will Costa, Kara and the rest of the team find Emma’s killer?
Tell No Lies is a complex mystery with several twists and turns. The pacing is initially a little slow, but the story soon gathers speed. The storyline is well-developed with story arcs that are quite interesting. Each of the regular characters is likable with realistic strengths and weaknesses. Matt and Kara’s relationship takes a personal turn but their blossoming romance is quite understated. With a shocking plot twist, Allison Brennan brings this intriguing mystery to an edge of the seat conclusion. Fans of the genre will enjoy this newest addition to the Quinn & Costa Thriller series.
Comments Off on Review: Tell No Lies by Allison Brennan
Filed under Allison Brennan, Contemporary, Mystery, , Rated B, Review, Suspense, Tell No Lies
← Older posts
