Category: books

To all appearances Joanna Emerson is a fully qualified, gold-medalled graduate of the world’s finest college of Nursery Nurses. No sooner is she engaged as a nanny to Benedict, newly born heir to a vast cosmetic fortune however, than she becomes caught up in a complex kidnap plot.

But the enigmatic portrait painter, yachtsman and former spy, Johnson Johnson is never far away – and he knows the dangerous game she’s playing.

Before long, bullets are flying, and most of them in Joanna’s direction.

Dorothy Dunnett (1923-2001) gained an international reputation as a writer of historical fiction. She later turned to crime writing with the acclaimed Dolly books, aka the Johnson Johnson series. She was a trustee of the National Library of Scotland, and a board member of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. In 1992 she was awarded an OBE for her services to literature. A leading light in the Scottish arts world and a renaissance woman, Dunnett was also a professional portrait painter and exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy on many occasions.

My thoughts: another brilliant outing from Johnson Johnson and his marvellous yacht Dolly, this time we’re off to the Croatian coast, although it’s still Yugoslavia at this point in time.

Joanna is one of those practically perfect in every way nannies, graduate of something similar to Norland (they’re the ones in the smart brown uniforms hired by celebrities, the very wealthy and royalty), with every possible event prepared for and never a hair out of place. She can sail a yacht through a storm, while also looking after a baby, two unconscious men, some seasick kidnappers and making soup.

She’s also a crack code writer, working for the British government in the form of her father. And someone has a very important, very secret document that was encoded by her and now they want her to decode it. Kidnapping Joanna and her three month old change, who has horrible parents, might just be the way to force her hand. She’d never let the baby come to harm. Good thing Johnson is around though, she needs a spot of assistance escaping and capturing the kidnappers.

With bullets whizzing about, millionaires having affairs and behaving badly, is it any wonder she’s starting to question her vocation – maybe being a nanny is not for her.

Another hilarious and action packed book, the second to last sadly, in this tremendous and highly entertaining 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.

Four girls close their eyes. Only one wakes up.

Leah and her three best friends get changed into their pyjamas, eat pizza and argue about what film to watch. They laugh together until the early hours. But the next morning, Leah blinks open her eyes and sees three empty sleeping bags. The other girls are gone.

Twenty years later. In her small hometown, still-haunted Leah has never been able to shake off the rumours and whispers. How could she have slept through it all? She must know what happened.

Now, a documentary is being made about the night Leah’s best friends disappeared. Is the truth about to come out?

Then an anonymous email arrives in Leah’s inbox. ‘Stop them’.

Somebody out there knows what happened the night of the sleepover. Is Leah in terrible danger? And will she ever find her missing friends – or are some secrets meant to be kept forever?

An absolutely addictive psychological thriller with twists and turns that will make you gasp. Anyone who loves Lisa Jewell, Shari Lapena or The Perfect Marriage won’t be able to put this down.

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Kerry Wilkinson is from the English county of Somerset but has spent far too long living in the north. It’s there that he’s picked up possibly made-up regional words like ‘barm’ and ‘ginnel’. He pretends to know what they mean.

He’s also been busy since turning thirty: his Jessica Daniel crime series has sold more than a million copies in the UK; he has written a fantasy-adventure trilogy for young adults; a second crime series featuring private investigator Andrew Hunter and the standalone thriller, Down Among The Dead Men.

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My thoughts: I used to have sleepovers when I was a teenager, luckily I never woke up to find all my friends missing, although I did once see my sister crouched on the floor eating the leftover popcorn we’d discarded and she definitely wasn’t invited!

But that’s what happened to Leah, at a sleepover at her friend Vicky’s house, she wakes up and her 3 friends are just gone. Not in another room, not playing a prank, just gone. And 25 years later, she still doesn’t know what happened. But someone out there does.

The brother of one of the other girls is making a documentary about the case. The police still have no answers, and he wants to find out whether anyone remembers something, a lead the cops didn’t follow perhaps.

Leah’s getting strange emails from “a friend” telling her to shut the film down or else. But she doesn’t know why they’re threatening her, she doesn’t know what happened. Or does she?

Kerry Wilkinson specialises in plots with twists and turns that you just can’t see coming and this one is no different. Just as you think he’s handed over the answers, it goes off in a different direction entirely and made my head spin. I have no idea where the sequel will go, this was so shocking.

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

Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge is bestselling author Spencer Quinn’s first novel in a new series since the meteoric launch of Chet and Bernie — introducing the irresistible and unforgettable Mrs. Plansky, in a story perfect for book clubs and commercial fiction readers.

Mrs. Loretta Plansky, a widow in her seventies, is settling into retirement in Florida while dealing with her 98-year-old father and fielding requests for money from her beloved children and grandchildren. Thankfully, her new hip hasn’t changed her killer tennis game one bit. One night Mrs. Plansky is startled awake by a phone call from a voice claiming to be her grandson Will, who needs ten thousand dollars to get out of a jam. By morning, Mrs. Plansky has lost everything. Law enforcement announces that Loretta’s life savings have vanished, and that it’s hopeless to find the scammers behind the heist.

First humiliated, then furious, Loretta Plansky refuses to be just another victim. In a courageous bid for justice, Mrs. Plansky follows her only clue on a whirlwind adventure to a small village in Romania to get her money and her dignity back — and perhaps find a new lease on life, too.

Spencer Quinn is the bestselling author of eight Chet and Bernie mystery series, as well as the #1 New York Times bestselling Bowser and Birdie series. He lives on Cape Cod with his wife Diana and dogs Audrey and Pearl. Keep up with him by visiting SpenceQuinn.com.

My thoughts: this was great, I want to be Loretta Planksy when I grow up. She could have just sat there and given up when her life savings are stolen in a telephone scam. One of those horrible ones that you hear about every now and then targeting the elderly. My own grandparents have received similar phone calls, though not this exact one, in the past and as my parents get older I worry about them too – these scammers are smart.

But not Mrs Plansky, she’s not taking this nonsense and when law enforcement don’t seem too keen to push to go after the gang who took her money – she buys a plane ticket to Romania and goes hunting.

She’s an active seventy-something and not afraid to get stuck in, the American Embassy in Bucharest try to send her straight back to Florida, but instead she rents a car and drives off to the small town she’s heard back in the States from an slightly more loose lipped FBI agent, than he should be.

This is a funny, wry revenge thriller with an incredible protagonist in the brilliant and determined Mrs Plansky, culminating in a chase through the Carpathian mountains to save two young men and a journalist from thugs.

I want Mrs P to start her own detective agency, helping other older people who’ve been targeted by scammers and con artists, or who just need someone to help them when officialdom fails. I think she’d be fantastic at that. She’s not afraid of action – climbing out of windows and sneaking around secret tunnels. I reckon she’d do a better job than some of the cops out there.

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