ramblingmads

Lady Beatrice should be finalising her wedding vows — not investigating murder.

With just weeks to go before she marries Richard Fitzwilliam, Bea is helping put the finishing touches to Three Lakes, a rehabilitation centre for veterans, when a senior staff member dies in a late-night
lift malfunction.

At first, it looks like a tragic accident. Until the toxicology results suggest otherwise.
With the centre’s opening looming and scandal threatening to overshadow both Three Lakes and her wedding, Bea can’t help getting involved.

While Rich helps with the official investigation, Bea and the others have a few theories of their own. And while Perry obsesses over lift mechanics and Simon
insists he’s staying out of it (he isn’t), Daisy uncovers a clue everyone else missed.

As they dig deeper, they discover buried secrets, old resentments, and a grievance someone may have carried for years.
Some loyalties last a lifetime. So do some grudges.

A warm, cozy mystery with loyal friends, buried secrets, a determined little dog, and exactly the sort of trouble Bea should be avoiding before her wedding.

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Hello. I’m Helen Golden. I write British contemporary cozy whodunnits with a hint of humour. I live in small village in Lincolnshire in the UK with my husband, my step-daughter, her two cats, our two
dogs, sometimes my step-son, and our tortoise.

I used to work in senior management, but after my recent job came to a natural end I had the opportunity to follow my dreams and start writing. It’s very early in my life as an author, but so far I’m loving it.

It’s crazy busy at our house, so when I’m writing I retreat to our caravan (an impulsive lockdown purchase) which is mostly parked on our drive. When I really need total peace and quiet, I take it to a
lovely site about 15 minutes away and hide there until my family runs out of food or clean clothes.

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My thoughts: The final outing for Lady Bea and Perry before she marries Rich and they become full time working Royals, obviously accompanied by Daisy at all times in case snacks attack.

They’re helping finalise things at Three Lakes, a rehab centre for veterans, something close to Rich and Bea’s brother Fred’s hearts as former servicemen. Perry has finally got the decor up to his personal standards and the team is in place to run it – all former Forces themselves.

Then Gareth, one of the management team, is found in the lift, an apparent heart attack. But the autopsy suggests foul play, he took too many tablets and the overdose killed him, but why would he take so many?

As the gang investigate – it appears the whole management team has history.  They all knew each other years ago and may possibly hold grudges. But would someone wait twelve years to take revenge or is it something more recent that caused this? 

Daisy obviously finds the key to the whole case (no pun intended) because she’s brilliant, and probably had the whole thing solved by smelling guilt on the suspects ages ago, but no one ever asks her. 

They do get the case solved and the guilty arrested in time for the wedding though, and as Bea and Rich head off on their well earned honeymoon, with Daisy of course, and Simon and Perry jet off on an American book tour, we say goodbye for now. 

I really like this series, I like this mix of humour and crime solving, Daisy, and the human characters, Bea has definitely grown on me and I think Perry is hilarious.  If this truly is the last book, that’s a shame but I do understand and there is always re-reading the whole series!

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

‘Bridget and Eileen sit like two old friends, except that one is dreaming while the other is dead.’

But when Eileen introduces her new dead friend, Bridget’s dream is in danger of becoming a nightmare.

Life is simpler when Omisha is just grieving for the tragic loss of her father, Harish. Yes, she is hiding away in a dingy coffee shop instead of going back to university. And she is using her best friend’s brother because she is too young for commitment. Oh, and there is the disgusting possibility that her uncle has been getting up close and personal with her mum.

She wishes she could go back to those halcyon days because now, her dad has sent her a message from beyond the grave. A message delivered by complete strangers who she has no reason to trust:
‘He was murdered.’

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Author Bio –
Rita Mistry has been living on the Wirral for a little over a decade, having been drawn to the ‘dark side’ from Liverpool by her wife, Anne. She has had a number of jobs over the years, such as door-handle packing, stationery selling and burger flipping, but she has mainly spent her working days computer programming which is a small departure from her first degree in English Literature.

Having always wanted to ‘be a writer’ and doing nothing about it until beginning perimenopause, she completed her Masters in Creative Writing with The Open University in 2023. With inspiration from
the Bard of Avon, she has finally completed – and is excited to share – her debut work.

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My thoughts: This was a very entertaining read, I liked Bridget and Sally and their adventures into helping solve crime. 

Omisha is the first recipient of Bridget’s new found ability to speak to the dead. Bridget thought she was dreaming but it appears she was visiting her old friend Eileen in the afterlife. When she’s introduced to Harish, it becomes clear that she’s now a conduit to the living.

After delivering her message to Omi, and throwing her entire life into chaos, Bridget has serious regrets but what else could she do? Pretend she didn’t know that Harish was murdered?

Omi buries her head in the sand to begin with, but realises she needs answers in order to get her life back on track. Was her dad really murdered and did her uncle do it?

She decides an (not very) anonymous note will get things sorted out while she finally breaks up with her situationship, Luke. Then she can think about going back to uni.

As her plans unravel a bit and secrets come to light, have Bridget and Sally done the right thing in getting involved? One chaotic meal will tell all. Anniversaries abound as everyone finally gets answers and puts their dead to rest. Unless Eileen has made another friend….

Funny and entertaining shenanigans ensue, making this a delightful debut and hopefully the start of a new series of crime solving with input from the deceased! 

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

A body in the begonias — and a tricksy killer who knows just how to disappear into the foliage. It sounds like a case for the Charity Shop Detective Agency!

When word of Arthur Oliver’s murder reaches Dogs Need Nice Homes Charity Shop, Fiona, Daisy and Partial Sue — the retired trio behind the till — are aghast.

They all loved the handsome retired doctor and his swoon-worthy fitness videos. But someone in the sleepy little seaside town of Southbourne is not a fan . . .

Arthur is found dead at the local garden centre. Stabbed in the back with a pair of designer shears.

The police don’t have a clue whodunit. So now Fiona, Daisy and Partial Sue are on the case — their adorably scruffy terrier Simon le Bon trotting closely behind. The deeper they dig into Arthur’s secrets, the more they realize that no one in this case is quite what they seem.

From jilted exes to bitter rivals, the ladies’ list of suspects is growing by the minute.

The clock is ticking for our sleuths to crack the case.

Before the killer returns for a final round of dead-heading . . .

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After studying to be an architect, Pete realised he wasn’t very good at it. He liked designing buildings he just couldn’t make them stand up, which is a bit of a handicap in an industry that likes to keep things upright. So he switched to advertising, writing ads for everything from cruise lines to zombie video games.

After becoming disillusioned with working in ad agencies, he switched to writing thriller novels (or was it because he just wanted to work at home in his pyjamas?). He soon realised there’s no magic formula. You just have to put one word in front of the other (and keep doing that for about a year). It also helps if you can resist the lure of surfing, playing Nintendo Switch with his son, watching America’s Next Top Model with his daughter and drinking beer in a garden chair.

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My thoughts: The Charity Shop Detectives are back with their latest case, a doctor turned influencer, who’s a hit with the ladies, found stabbed in the back with garden shears at the local garden centre, a place the victim often visited.

Was it a jealous lover, or husband, or is there an angry neighbour lurking behind the hedges?

This series is a lot of fun, although it always makes me hungry!

Partial Sue always makes me laugh, Daisy lives on her own sweet, daffy planet, and Fiona, of course, keeps them on task as much as she can.

As they whittle down the list of potential suspects, they fit in a day out in London, for crucial research (and some strawberries with cream), time to eat a lot of delicious food with their new friend Lolly, and take Simon Le Bon the dog to investigate a few things.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

Individually, the deaths of three elderly people aren’t suspicious. But when DCI Christine Caplan discovers the victims are linked and the truth of their identities twists the investigation ever darker, one question haunts Caplan’s every step: who needs these people dead… and how many names are on their list?

Four siblings. Three dead bodies. One twisted bloodline.

DCI Christine Caplan should be celebrating her daughter’s wedding. Instead, a journalist gives her a lead on a potential murder case with four whispered words: Witness protection. Suspicious death. The dead woman is Juniper Greene — a recluse found alone in her cottage, the doors locked from the inside.

Officially, nobody cares. And since Caplan’s team is days from being shut down, she has nothing to lose by following the faintest trace of evidence. What surfaces is a family that shouldn’t still exist. Four estranged siblings—two buried, two vanished or living under names that aren’t their own.

One by one, these relatives are being picked off.

It isn’t a family tree.

It’s a murder tree.

And someone is chopping it back to the roots. Caplan has to save the survivors. But can she find them before the killer?

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CARO RAMSAY is the Glaswegian author of the critically acclaimed Anderson and Costello series, the first of which, Absolution, was shortlisted for the CWA’s New Blood Dagger for best debut of the year. The ninth book in the series, The Suffering of Strangers, was longlisted for the McIlvanney Prize 2018.@CaroRamsayBooks | caroramsay.com

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My thoughts: DCI Christine Caplan is celebrating her daughter’s wedding when a body washes ashore, possibly linked to an ongoing case, but she’s more interested in the apparent accidental deaths of several elderly people, who when she investigates are in fact connected.

It all seems to link to a care home, and a man there, called Bernie. His carer, Dorothy (Doro) attracts the attention of Caplan and her team, she has a sick child and Bernie has been giving her money, could she be behind this series of deaths?

This was a really clever and compelling case, it was rather fiendish and felt a bit like a Golden Age crime novel – I was completely hooked.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of the book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.

Two brothers. Two daughters. One deadly legacy.

Every family has secrets. Some are worth killing for.

Shiv has spent years trying to leave Peasedale behind. With Mason Tucker finally free from prison and her son, Pip, growing into a happy young boy, the future feels brighter than it has in a long time. Then Hunter Piper appears.

For decades, the Piper name has been synonymous with tragedy, violence and loss. Now Hunter has come back to claim what he believes is his, bringing with him a daughter no one knew existed. Jeanie.

As old wounds reopen and long-buried secrets begin to surface, Shiv finds herself drawn into a deadly conflict rooted in the darkest chapter of her family’s history.

When Pip vanishes, the race to find him leads back to the place where it all began—the shack in the woods.

But some truths should never be uncovered. And some daughters inherit far more than their father’s name.

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Heidi Field was raised in the beautiful countryside of the South of England alongside her parents and two sisters.

Before becoming a writer, Heidi worked as a freelance Sports Massage Therapist and later achieved a degree in Zoology at the age of thirty. She went on to raise two boys and became stepmother to three more children.

In her early forties, Heidi completed a Master’s degree in Creative Writing at the University of Winchester. She began the course hoping to become a children’s fantasy writer but left with a burning desire to write contemporary mysteries and psychological thrillers.

Heidi loves placing relatable people in extraordinary situations, challenging them, pushing them to their limits and watching them fight for their sanity.

She is the author of The Peasdale Woods Killers series, a gripping collection of British psychological thrillers exploring dark secrets, fractured relationships, moral ambiguity and the devastating consequences of one crime.

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My thoughts: This is the last book in this series and now it’s Shiv and Mason’s turn. Released from prison after Shiv and Pip get him exonerated, Mason is hoping to finally have a quiet life, but the Piper family isn’t quite done yet.

When her uncle Hunter and his creepy daughter Jeanie show up on her doorstep, Shiv is immediately on high alert. Nothing good, apart from Mason, has come from her father’s family and the timing feels off. Why now, when Mason is released, why not at any point in her life previously?

She’s also worried about how they immediately start to get their claws into Pip, inviting him to their lake house, and on camping trips, signing him out of school and laughing when Shiv gets cross.

But things are only going to get worse when it becomes apparent that they definitely have an alterior motive. Hunter idolised his brother, and blames Mason for his arrest and death. Can Shiv and Mason protect the people they love from this last vestige of evil Pipers?

Filling in the story of Gunner Piper before his arrest as a serial killer, and laying out the truth about his awful family and terrible childhood, didn’t make me sympathetic, he was still a monster, even if not quite the one the rest of the series showed him to be.

I still felt sorry for Mason, who had been a victim too, and Shiv who genuinely didn’t deserve any of this, we can’t choose our parents unfortunately. When Pip comes close to danger, she’s a lioness, determined to take on her evil relatives to save him, no matter what.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.