Category: books

Thirteen-year-old Ava Bonney is unlike other children. Exceptionally bright, she has an obsessive interest in the rate at which dead animals decompose. The motorway she lives by regularly offers up roadkill, and in the dead of night Ava likes nothing better than to pull her latest discovery into her roadside den so she can study it. But one day when she arrives she stumbles across the body of fellow pupil, Mickey Grant. DI Seth Delahaye is given the case, one of the most challenging of his career. But Ava is not the sort of person who will step back and let someone else take charge when children like her are dying. She uses all her unusual skills and deep local knowledge to try to track down the serial killer in her community.

My thoughts: this was so good, dark and twisted and with an incredible protagonist in teenager Ava, a young woman with a passion for science and pathology in particular. She’s checking on one of her research projects late at night when she finds the body of a schoolmate, a bully, but someone she knows. He’s been brutally murdered, and Ava decides to investigate.

I loved Ava’s relationship with DI Delahaye, despite her being so young the detective trusts her instincts and her understanding of the area and other teenagers. Ava is incredibly smart and has read books on so many subjects and seems to have memorised all the things she’s learnt. Her mum doesn’t see how brilliant she is, in fact most of the adults around her don’t, just Delahaye, her dad and her best friend John’s Grandpa, who keeps an eye on their investigation.

I hope there’s a sequel with a grown up Ava putting all her scientific knowledge to use solving crimes for the police, either as a detective or as a CSI.

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

A body in a hospital isn’t so unusual. Unless they’ve been murdered!

1916, London: Keen to support the war effort, bookshop manager and sometime amateur sleuth Hannah Merrill has taken a volunteer role in the library of the nearby military hospital. But arriving at
the hospital one cold winter’s morning, she is horrified to find the body of a dead soldier in the library.
What’s more, a beautiful young nurse confides in Hannah that she thinks she’s being followed, and then she abruptly disappears. Hannah can’t shake the suspicion that the two cases are connected,
but she can’t solve the case alone. She’ll once again need to call upon her delightful, demanding, only-occasionally devious aunt, Violet. The two women know they must find the missing nurse before it’s too late… but they don’t realise they’re now both in the killer’s sights.

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Anita Davison is the author of the successful Flora Maguire historical mystery series. Previously published by Aria, she is writing a new cosy mystery series for Boldwood, the first title of which,
Murder in the Bookshop will be published in August 2023.

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My thoughts: when Hannah opens up the hospital library where she volunteers, she doesn’t expect to find a body there, but she does. One of the patients, not a popular man, so there’s plenty of suspects to be had. And then a potential witness, one of the nurses, vanishes. What is going on?

Hannah doesn’t need much of an excuse to do some investigating, Aidan doesn’t think it’s connected and to begin with he doesn’t believe the nurse, Alice, is really missing. So much for Scotland Yard! So Hannah, and Aunt Violet, look into the young woman themselves. She thought someone was following her, and everyone they talk to, her landlady, her aunt, her friend, seem to be hiding things. Anyone of them could have been involved.

Unravelling the murdered soldier’s somewhat sordid tale does give a few clues to the missing heiress too, she might have seen something that could be dangerous. But threats come from another angle as Hannah, Aunt Violet, Aidan and Darius visit Lowestoft, the most easterly town in England, to get some answers.

Set amid the worries of WW1, and threats in the North Sea, this is a smart, entertaining and enjoyable crime read. 

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

Westleham Village 1948

As Valentine’s Day rolls around, Martha Miller finds herself unusually melancholy at the state of her own love life. With husband Stan still missing and with her growing feelings for Vicar Luke still
shrouded in secrecy, there’s only one place Martha can go – famous local beauty spot, Lovers’ Leap.
Legend has it that those with a broken heart throw themselves off the bridge that spans the river, but Martha is certainly not about to do such a thing! But it looks like someone else has had other ideas…. Because there in the river, Martha finds a body. But is this misadventure, a moment of lovesick madness, or is foul play afoot? Martha knows one thing…the villagers of Westleham have another crime to solve! Let the investigation commence! Find out if Martha and Luke can catch the killer in a brand new Martha Miller mystery from bestselling author Catherine Coles.

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Catherine Coles writes bestselling cosy mysteries set in the English countryside. Her extremely popular Tommy & Evelyn Christie series is based in North Yorkshire in the 1920’s and Catherine herself lives in Hull with her family and two spoiled dogs.

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My thoughts: in the middle of WW2, in a small English village, a young man is found dead in the water beneath the Lovers’ Leap, where legend has it, two young people, forbidden to be together, leapt to their deaths. Is this history repeating or is it something else entirely?

Out walking her dog, Martha finds the body, and after getting covered in mud too. It looks like a tragic accident but the autopsy reveals it’s murder. Could it be related to a strange incident in the village shop a few days before?

With the vicar, Luke, helping out, along with her gossipy friends, Martha thinks she can solve this one for Ben, the local Detective Inspector, and her future brother-in-law, if Ruby says yes.

Martha’s own feelings for Luke are threatening to boil over, if only missing husband Stan would either be found dead or alive and willing to agree to a divorce, then they could all move on, but no such luck. So for now the two of them will tiptoe around each other and focus on murder and not romance.

Uncovering a scam taking place right there in the village, one that might be connected to two deaths now, and involve Luke’s estranged father, a newcomer to the village, will hopefully provide distraction.

There’s lots going on and I couldn’t see how it was all connected until Martha laid it all out. She’d spotted the killer and quickly linked all the clues together, no wonder Luke finds her so fascinating, she’s rather brilliant. Setting up a trap for the murderer to walk into and getting it all very neatly resolved for the police to be able to charge the right people. Unfortunately not everyone ends up happy, but that’s life I suppose. A charming, clever and enjoyable read.

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