Tag: crime fiction

Forty years ago

It should have been the happiest night of her sister’s life. When she was crowned Miss Sunshine Sands.

But nothing was ever found except her pink satin sash that washed up on the shore.

Now

Journalist Zoe Kincade arrives in the rundown seaside town of Sunshine Sands to report on this year’s talent show. The motionless Ferris wheel blurs into the dark sea beyond and polystyrene chip trays bounce along the pavement.

She checks into the Forget-Me-Not hotel, a faded Edwardian terrace that has seen better days.

The last place her beautiful older sister Jane was seen alive.

Zoe has spent forty years trying to block out the pain. Any chance of a happy marriage and living in some kind of peace were shattered because of that night.

She was only a little girl when Jane disappeared. She just remembers how much she looked up to her big sister.

Now Zoe is determined to find out the truth.

And no amount of glitter and sparkle can hide the dark truth of that night.

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Sally-Anne grew up in a small village just outside Sheffield. Her mum was a beautiful homemaker with numerous practical skills and talents, who kept the home going. Her dad on the other hand was not at all domestic, he was an avid reader of true crime books, lover of Carry On films, political scandals and wine. Sally-Anne takes after her dad.

Much to her parent’s disappointment, at 16 years old Sally-Anne left a promising job in the advertising department of the Derbyshire Times to pursue a performing arts course. This led to many jobs, few of which involved acting. She has tended bars, worked as a film and television extra and provided care in one of the last Victorian asylums in England.

Coming from a working-class background, her writing is inspired by those women who are constantly left on the side-lines and ignored. She takes the underdog and gives her the freedom to do what she wants (good or bad) and see where that takes her. With a diet of Hammer House and Tales of the Unexpected as a child, along with a love for the ridiculous, it is no surprise that her books have chilling themes with a hint of dark humour.

After living all over the UK and USA, she is currently residing back in the North of England and living alongside a menagerie of animals, including five pet pigs.

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My thoughts: Two things that are always a bit seedy, faded seaside towns and beauty competitions combine in this clever and dark read.

Decades after her older sister vanished after winning the Miss Sunshine Sands competition, journalist Zoe heads back to the tatty B&B they stayed in before to document the latest incarnation of the competition and look for evidence about her sister’s disappearance. What she finds is darker and more disturbing than she could have imagined.

Full of twists and creepy moments, with unreliable and untrustworthy people all around, both in the flashbacks and in Zoe’s present, this is a clever and compelling 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.

PUT THE KETTLE ON AND DISCOVER AN UTTERLY CHARMING MURDER MYSTERY SET IN A SLEEPY ENGLISH SEASIDE TOWN.

It’s a perfect summer’s day in Southbourne. And Partial Sue’s in one of her rare generous moods. She wants to treat all the ladies of the Dogs Need Nice Homes charity shop to supper.

But before the ladies can shut up shop and head to the chippie, the air is filled with the strains of ‘Greensleeves’. And a clapped-out old ice-cream van lurches into view. The gang can barely believe their eyes. Especially when they see who’s behind the wheel. Daisy’s daughter Bella.

Newly divorced Bella’s only just rid herself of her rotten husband. Now she’s landed herself in an even stickier situation. This banger may be stocked with sweet treats, but its freezer once held something much more sinister — the dead body of its former owner!

Everyone in the village knows the van’s sinister history. Except poor Bella. The culprit slipped away without a trace. But the village folk all say it’s just a matter of time until the Vanilla Killer strikes again!

When Bella starts receiving poison pen letters, the ladies can’t help but worry. What if their beloved Bella’s next?

There’s only one thing for it, the ladies agree over a steaming pot of tea. They need to put the Vanilla Killer on ice . . . before anyone else dies.

Fans of Richard Osman, Robert Thorogood, Janice Hallett, Simon Brett, Ian Moore and Sarah Yarwood-Lovett will adore this exciting new talent in cozy crime.

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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: After Daisy’s daughter Bella buys an old ice cream van at auction, which the gang recognise as having been the scene of its previous owner’s death, they get embroiled in the town’s mysterious underbelly. Is there an ice cream mafia as Partial Sue keeps saying or is it something else?

The three most unlikely detectives start looking for the Vanilla Killer, and whoever it is that has the local ice cream sellers running scared.

You wouldn’t expect a cosy seaside town to be so crime-ridden, but the Charity Shop Detectives always manage to find the worst of the local community. Although, that could just be Sophie from the other charity shop!

This series is funny, wry and very entertaining. This book made me laugh and I do enjoy Partial Sue’s deeply unusual view of the world.

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

Meet Detective Sophie Allen. She’s an expert on murder and violent crime. Her brilliant mind works tirelessly to put the most vicious criminals behind bars, but conceals dark secrets from her own past.

A dark, wet night on a lonely road in west Dorset. Bryony O’Neil stops her car when she spots a distressed young woman by the side of the road. But all is not as it seems . . .

The following day, keen rambler Robin Pryor sets off along the clifftop path from the pretty seaside town of Lyme Regis — and never comes home.

The subsequent search reveals a badly beaten body hidden in the undergrowth beside the path.

It’s the third time that week the police have been called out to the quiet little town. First an attempted car-jacking. Then a break-in — where nothing was taken. And now murder.

Detective Barry Marsh’s instincts tell him that a particularly callous killer has descended on his patch. And their timing couldn’t be worse. His boss and mentor, Detective Sophie Allen, is still in hospital, recovering from the injuries she sustained in their last case. Not that she’d let that stop her!

Then a second body is discovered, a few miles further along the coastal path. And the case takes a terrifying new twist . . .

Discover a captivating crime mystery which will have you gripped from start to finish.

If you like Joy Ellis, Ann Cleeves, J.D. Kirk, J.M. Dalgliesh, or Pauline Rowson, you will love this thrilling crime mystery.

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I try to write thoughtful, contemporary crime novels and include several plot layers in my books. The adult novels feature DCI Sophie Allen and her close-knit team of detectives. I don’t write simple whodunnits, nor violent, all-action, gun-toting thrillers

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My thoughts: When a woman is forced off the road in a nasty accident, followed by the disappearance of one of her colleagues and a break in at another’s home, the police start to think there might be something very weird going on. All three work at a company developing an eco park for a South American country, one that clearly has some objections. And not from local protesters but dangerous criminals.

Sophie Allen is in charge of the team, but currently in hospital, where she meets the first victim. It also allows her to gather some evidence the victim hasn’t shared with the police. As they dig into the company and it’s new project, they uncover an international conspiracy, which calls in Sophie’s old friend, the Home Secretary and the consulate. People are at serious risk and there seems to be someone on the inside. Can they team crack the case before anyone else gets hurt?

This was so clever, totally gripping and intense, lots of twists, red herrings and  moments where you just can’t guess what they might uncover next. Totally had me hooked from the first page.

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

Two perfect families. Two beautiful homes. A one-way trip to hell.

When two families organise a house swap, it seems like the perfect holiday arrangement.

The Browns will exchange their London townhouse for a stunning chateau in the south of France, the perfect place to relax and rekindle their flagging marriage.

And the Lesters are looking forward to showing their son, Rafael, around their old haunts in the British capital.

Sounds wonderful. Except for one thing – both families are hiding dark secrets, and secrets have a way of coming out…

In France, there’s a mysterious break-in at the chateau. Then the Browns discover that a woman who lived there disappeared and was never seen again. Instead of feeling rested and relaxed, they now feel isolated and vulnerable.

Then, in London, 17-year-old Rafael vanishes without a trace.

As the tension mounts to an unbearable pitch, both couples are forced to face their darkest demons. Someone won’t be coming home…

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Miranda Rijks is a writer of fast-paced, twisty psychological thrillers many of which have been Amazon bestsellers. She has an eclectic background ranging from law to running a garden centre. 

After surviving bone cancer, Miranda turned to writing and is now living the dream, writing suspense novels full time. 

She lives in West Sussex, England with her Dutch husband and two black Labradors and spends as much time as she can in the Swiss Alps.

This is her twenty-third psychological thriller with Inkubator Books.

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My thoughts: I’m not sure I’d want to do a house swap, although a holiday in Provence would be great (although not in December). But the two families in this book swap a falling down French villa for a Kensington town house, apparently to see if it’s a viable prospect for Elodie’s business to expand into.

However some of the people involved have ulterior motives and the supposed Provencal idyll is far from it, the house is damp, smelly and has builders working on it. The neighbours seem nice, but they don’t get on with the usual residents, so they too might have their own reasons for being chummy.

Meanwhile in London, the Lesters aren’t having a good time either, their marriage is teetering on the edge and Piers learns a huge secret that could destroy everything, and that’s before their son Raf goes missing.

The perfect holiday starts to become the perfect nightmare for both couples.

Miranda Rijks’ books are always really fun and the twists are always total surprise, as it is here. I didn’t see some of them coming at all and the connections between the two families were a shock. I was hooked from the beginning, partly because swapping houses is just not something I would ever do, strangers rummaging through my stuff – no thanks. Really enjoyable, intelligent and full of suspense.

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