Tag: crime fiction

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Blog Tour: I Am The River – Kelly Romo

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I am the River copy

Welcome to the tour for I Am the River by Kelly Romo. This is the bone-chilling sequel to Dead Drift. Read on for more details!

I am the river Cover

I Am the River (A Whitewater Thriller)

Publication Date: June 15, 2023

Genre: Thriller/ Serial Killer

HE is the river. HE takes who he wants and releases who HE wants.

Ashely Covington struggles to raise her three young daughters on what little life insurance is left from her husband’s death while fighting a woodland fire. Her family does not have the resources to help her, so they pressure her to move on to find a new husband and a father for her girls.

Emmy Jenkins knows what it feels like to have a serial killer come after her. She escaped HIM twice. Emmy and Brian must start over in a new town, away from the tragic events and the killer’s family. Unfortunately, HE escapes custody. The authorities think the killer committed suicide by drowning himself in the river. They do not locate his body, but they do find a girl drowned in Elk Lake. Her death is ruled an accidental drowning, but Emmy knows HE is still alive. And HE is coming for her.

To prove himself worthy of immortality, HE follows the river to its source in the Cascade Mountains, where HE will accept whatever the headwaters offer. Suddenly, his destiny is revealed when the perfect nymph with three little girls appears on the shore.

Now Available Here

Dead Drift Cover

Dead Drift (Whitewater Thriller #1)

Publication Date: May 15, 2022

Genre: Thriller/ Serial Killer

Two teenage girls on the run with fake IDs and a beater car…what could go wrong?

Emmy has always been impulsive. She is no longer a minor and has aged out of foster care. When her best friend, Amber, is the target of a perverted uncle who lives in the basement of her group home, they plan her escape.

They head for Canada, where Amber will be safe, and the foster care system can no longer control their lives. When they come across a whitewater rafting brochure, they decide to take a detour for one last adventure before leaving the country. Emmy and Amber have no idea it will be a decision that will forever change their fates.

The rafting town is so far in the middle of nowhere that Emmy’s car radio catches nothing but static. They consider turning around until a truck pulls up, loaded with hot whitewater rafting guides and rubber rafts–just the fun they were looking for. Ignoring every instinct, they turn off the pavement and follow the truck down an isolated dirt road. They end up in Lodell, the town where a girl went missing the previous summer…and she will not be the last.

Purchase Here

About the Author

Kelly Romo Author Photo

Kelly Romo grew up in California but has lived in Oregon for over twenty-five years. She teaches writing, literature, and social studies. She is the mother of three grown children: Brittany, Brennan, and Ryan. She is an avid outdoorswoman who loves to kayak, hike, and fish.

Kelly has a Master of Fine Arts in Writing (Fiction) and a Master of Arts in Teaching, both from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon USA.

For more information, please visit Kelly’s website at http://www.kellyromo.com

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Book Tour Schedule

June 26th

http://rrbooktours – Kick-off

https://www.instagram.com/jenalreads/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/niveditha_preeth – Review

https://ilovebooksandstuffblog.wordpress.com – Feature

http://ramblingmads.com – Feature

https://christinebialczak.com/ – Feature

https://readsandreels.com – Feature

June 27th

http://blackcoffeebrowncow.blogspot.com/ – Feature

https://www.instagram.com/brandikaedesigns/ – Feature

https://www.instagram.com/creepylilbookworm/ – Review

https://onemoreexclamation.com/ – Review

https://latishaslowkeylife.com/ – Feature

https://www.instagram.com/latishaslowkeylife/

https://ontheshelfreviews.wordpress.com – Feature

June 28th

https://www.instagram.com/2manybooks2littletime/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/katierichardauthor/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/ninas_booknook/ – Review

http://www.thefaeriereview.com – Feature

https://lshadowlynauthor.com/ – Feature

https://www.instagram.com/samanthainfantasyworld/

https://samanthainfantasyworld.wordpress.com/ – Feature

https://bookwormbunnyreviews.blogspot.com/ – Feature

https://www.instagram.com/shelbe_reads/?igshid=ZDdkNTZiNTM%3D – Feature

June 29th

https://www.instagram.com/BookBaddies4Life/ – Review

https://mayisuggestblog.com/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/nicmedia/

https://www.instagram.com/itputs.the.book.upon.the.shelf/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/suzanhlarson/ – Review

https://www.thesexynerdrevue.com – Feature

June 30th

https://www.instagram.com/calhoun.crew/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/author.rowan/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/booknerd_jen22/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/laura_cover_stories/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/mels_booksandhooks/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/elinasbookstagram/ – Feature

Book Tour Organized By:

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R&R Book Tours

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Blog Tour: Death in the Highlands – Fliss Chester

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There’s a dangerous killer lurking by this loch… and only canny Cressida can track them down.

Scotland, June 1925. Socialite Cressida Fawcett has been invited to cast her interior design eye over the Stirling family’s new seat, Ayrton Castle, up in the Scottish Highlands. Thrilled to be spending the summer at the historic estate, Cressida fills her suitcase with this season’s hunting jackets – and some tartan for her little pug Ruby, of course!

But before the party is ready to tramp through the glens, shocking news puts paid to their plans. Hamish Glenkirk, former owner of Ayrton, has been found dead inside a turret room of the castle. The door was bolted from the inside, and the room is three storeys up, surrounded by impenetrable stone walls… How did the murderer get in? And out?

With Detective Andrews of Scotland Yard at least a day’s journey away, Cressida knows she needs to get to the bottom of this case – and fast. There’s no end of suspects among the hunting party. Could it be the local doctor whose wife left him for a fling with the now-dead laird? Or is the gamekeeper hiding secrets under his kilt?

Just as Cressida is closing in on the truth, a blood-curdling scream echoes through the mist. Another member of the party, and one of the suspects, has been shot. With a wee dram in hand, can Cressida find the killer before the bagpipes play for another victim?

An unputdownable and gripping cozy mystery which fans of Agatha Christie, T.E. Kinsey and Lee Strauss will love.

Amazon

Fliss Chester lives in Surrey with her husband and writes historical cozy crime. When she is not killing people off in her 1940s whodunnits, she helps her husband, who is a wine merchant, run their business. Never far from a decent glass of something, Fliss also loves cooking (and writing up her favourite recipes on her blog), enjoying the beautiful Surrey and West Sussex countryside and having a good natter.

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My thoughts: I do enjoy this series, Cressida, Dotty and Ruby are lots of fun and getting very good at crime solving.

This time they’re in Scotland, for the 12th August, the “Glorious Twelth” when the grouse shooting season starts. Only someone has decided it’s not birds that need to die but a local laird, Hamish Glenrick. Found stabbed in his former home, which just so happens to be where our intrepid detectives are staying, of course.

Once they start putting the clues together, a story of sadness, betrayal and long held grudges starts to emerge. Plenty of people had motive to kill Glenrick, but who is DM and why was he found clutching a blackmail letter?

With police inspector Andrews on his way, Cressida explores secret passages, interviews her suspects and builds up a picture of a deeply unpleasant man, up to his eyeballs in debt, disliked by his children and peers. But the clues, and red herrings, might lead closer to home than Cressida originally suspects. Another cracking case for this flapper detective and friends.

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

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Blog Tour: Not So Perfect Strangers – L.S Stratton

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Two strangers – a Black woman and a white woman – who discover that each has a husband she’d be better off without, find their lives entangled in increasingly sinister ways following one fateful encounter, leading to a shocking and violent conclusion.

Tasha and Madison may live in different parts of the country and have different everyday realities, but they have one thing in common: marriages they need out of. Tasha and Madison want to help each other, but they have very different ideas of what that means…The women are on a collision course that will end in the case files of the D.C. MPD homicide unit. Unravelling the truth of what really happened may be impossible…and futile. Because what has the truth ever done for women like Tasha and Madison?

Combining dark humour with classic domestic thriller tropes, Not So Perfect Strangers offers a fresh take on a classic story, in a brilliantly updated homage to Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. Featuring a cast of diverse female leads living in modern America, L.S. Stratton’s latest release delves into pressing contemporary issues regarding feminism, gender dynamics, racism, and the white saviour complex.  

Fans of Lucy Foley’s The Guest List and Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister the Serial Killer are sure to enjoy this highly anticipated domestic thriller.

Writing under numerous pen names, L.S. Stratton is an NAACP Image Award-nominated author who has written dozens of books across multiple genres from romance to thrillers.

L.S. Stratton is a NAACP Image Award-nominated author and former crime newspaper reporter. She is a member of the Crime Writers of Color organization founded by Kellye Garrett, Walter Mosley, and Gigi Pandian and has written more than a dozen books under different pen names. Her writing varies from thrillers to romance to historical fiction – she enjoys writing just about every genre. She currently lives in Maryland with her husband, their daughter, and their tuxedo cat.

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My thoughts: I really enjoyed this clever thriller, with its unhinged murderer, Madison, Tasha – who really doesn’t want to be involved in Madison’s craziness, and the twists that come out of nowhere and that ending, excellently done.

After a row with her husband, Madison gets in Tasha’s car and begs for a lift. Tasha, already in her own crisis, agrees and sets in motion a chain of events she just can’t seem to stop.

Madison wants to trade their husbands’ deaths, Strangers on a Train style, only Tasha isn’t a killer. And when she doesn’t hold up her end of their “bargain”, Madison becomes threatening. Tasha’s also worried about her son – could be become an abuser like his dad?

But as she tries to warn people about Madison, no one believes her, her life starts to fall apart and she needs to prove that Madison killed her husband. Tasha’s doing everything she can, if only she’d thrown the crazy woman out of her car. One good turn leads nowhere nice it seems.

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

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Blog Tour: The Moose Paradox – Antti Tuomainen, translated by David Hackston

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Out now in paperback from Orenda Books and all good bookshops!!

And in case you’re not sure, I’m resharing my review from last year’s hardback blog tour so you can see what I thought below.

Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen has finally restored order both to his life and to YouMeFun, the adventure park he now owns, when a man from the past appears – and turns everything upside down again.

More problems arise when the park’s equipment supplier is taken over by a shady trio, with confusing demands. Why won’t Toy of Finland Ltd sell the new Moose Chute to Henri when he needs it as the park’s main attraction?

Meanwhile, Henri’s relationship with artist Laura has reached breaking point, and, in order to survive this new chaotic world, he must push every calculation to its limits, before it’s too late…

Finnish Antti Tuomainen was an award-winning copywriter when he made his literary debut in 2007 as a suspense author. In 2011, Tuomainen’s third novel, The Healer, was awarded the Clue Award for Best Finnish Crime Novel and was shortlisted for the Glass Key Award. With a piercing and evocative style, Tuomainen was one of the first to challenge the Scandinavian crime-genre formula, and his poignant, dark and hilarious The Man Who Died became an international bestseller, shortlisting for the Petrona and Last Laugh Awards. Palm Beach Finland (2018) was an immense success, with The Times calling Tuomainen ‘the funniest writer in Europe’, and Little Siberia (2019) was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Readers Awards, the Last Laugh Award and the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger, and won the Petrona Award. The Rabbit Factor, the prequel to The Moose Paradox, will soon be a major motion picture starring Steve Carell.

My thoughts: back to Finland’s maddest adventure park we go. Just as Henri thinks he’s solved all his problems, more appear. There’s shady businessmen/gangsters who seem to be determined to ruin the park, with inferior equipment and a hostile takeover, the staff are in revolt, and he’s not sure about whether to take the next step with the lovely Laura. Just another day’s work at YouMeFun then.

Although we never find out exactly what the Moose Shute does (and some of the other creations of Toy Finland sound downright nuts and beyond dangerous), the lengths Henri goes to to secure it are hilarious. For someone who spends their time calculating risk, he’s prepared to go to extremes for the park.

This book might actually be even more fun and ridiculous than The Rabbit Factor, as chaos lurks around every corner, not to mention the police, furious criminals, the park’s own staff (no one else would hire them) and a blast from the past that could destroy everything Henri has worked so hard for. 

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

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Blog Tour: The Couple in the Photo – Helen Cooper

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From the author of The Downstairs Neighbor and The Other Guest comes a propulsive suspense novel that asks how far you would go to keep a friend’s secret.

Lucy and her husband, Adam, have been best friends with another couple, Cora and Scott, for years. The four are practically family at this point—they vacation together, co-own a beach cottage, and their young children are inseparable. So Lucy is devastated when, while looking at a colleague’s photos of a trip to the Maldives, she spots a picture of Scott, apparently on a luxurious holiday with another woman.

Lucy is determined to protect her best friend from her husband’s seeming infidelity, but when she learns that the woman in the photo has gone missing, she can’t help but fear that Scott was involved. As she searches for answers, she uncovers secrets about her friends and her own husband that could destroy the wonderful lives they have built…and she suspects that everybody around her knows much more about the missing woman than they are letting on. Is Lucy actually the one most in the dark? If so, what are the consequences of discovering the truth?

My thoughts: a glimpse of a photo with a familiar face, but the woman with him isn’t his wife, sends Lucy off down a wormhole into her best friends’ (and husband’s) past. What happened at university, how are they connected to a death in the Maldives and why can’t Lucy just leave it alone?

It gets tenser and tenser as Lucy digs into events that bound her husband Adam to his best pals, Cora and Scott, back when they were students, secrets they’ve been keeping for years, but it seems someone knows what they did, could it be the mysterious Juliet? And it involves Lucy’s newlywed colleague Ruth now in some way.

It gets ugly, and violent, with one of the trio willing to kill to keep the status quo. How much danger is Lucy in? Well, read it and find out. Also, modern children clearly have no curiosity, or at least the ones here don’t, happily playing while their parents argue and discuss murder. I’d have been under the table taking notes, Harriet the Spy style.

Gripping, a bit creepy at times, Scott needs to chill, as does Adam, they’re all a little unhinged to be honest. I rooted for Lucy, but also worried for her safety as she kept hanging around potential murderers. The ending, while not happy, at least meant I could relax, safe that Lucy and her children were out of harm’s way, for now.

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

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Cover Reveal: Upstairs at the Beresford – Will Carver

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Upstairs at the Beresford by Will Carver

Publication date: 23rd November
Formats: Paperback and e-book
Ebook – Print

Hotel Beresford: a grand old building, just outside the city, where any soul is welcome, and strange goings-on mask explosive, deadly secrets. A chilling, darkly funny sequel to Will Carver’s bestselling The Beresford…

There are worse places than hell…

Hotel Beresford is a grand, old building, just outside the city. And any soul is welcome.

Danielle Ortega works nights, singing at whatever dive bar will offer her a gig. She gets by, keeping to herself. Sam Walker gambles and drinks, and can’t keep his hands to himself. Now he’s tied up in a shoe closet with a dent in his head that matches Danielle’s broken ashtray.

The man in 731 has been dead for two days and his dog has not stopped barking. Two doors down, the couple who always smokes on the window ledge will mysteriously fall.

Upstairs, in the penthouse, Mr Balliol sees it all. He can peer into every crevice of every floor of the hotel from his screen-filled suite. He witnesses humanity and inhumanity in all its forms: loneliness, passion and desperation in equal measure. All the ingredients he needs to make a deal.

When Danielle returns home one night to find Sam gone, a series of sinister events begins to unfold. But strange things often occur at Hotel Beresford, and many are only a distraction to hide something much, much darker…

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Cover Reveal: The Beaver Theory – Antti Tuomainen

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The Beaver Theory by Antti Tuomainen, translated by David Hackston

Publication date: 12th October
Format: Hardback and e-book
Ebook – Print

Book 3 in the Rabbit Factor Trilogy

Can everyone’s favourite insurance mathematician, Henri, combine the increasingly dangerous world of adventure parks with the unpredictability of blended-family life? He’s about to find out in the final instalment of the hilarious, nail-biting Rabbit Factor Trilogy.

Henri Koskinen, intrepid insurance mathematician and adventure-park entrepreneur, firmly believes in the power of common sense and order. That is until he moves in with painter Laura Helanto and her daughter…

As Henri realises he has inadvertently become part of a group of local dads, a competing adventure park is seeking to expand their operations, not always sticking to the law in the process…

Is it possible to combine the increasingly dangerous world of the adventure-park business with the unpredictability of life in a blended family? At first glance, the two appear to have only one thing in common: neither deals particularly well with a mounting body count.

In order to solve this seemingly impossible conundrum, Henri is forced to step far beyond the mathematical precision of his comfort zone … and the stakes have never been higher… 

Warmly funny, quirky, touching, and a nail-biting triumph of a thriller, The Beaver Theory is the final instalment in the award-winning Rabbit Factor Trilogy, as Henri encounters the biggest challenge of his career, with hair-raising results…

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Cover Reveal: White as Snow – Lilja Sigurđardóttir

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White as Snow by Lilja Sigurdardottir, translated by Quentin Bates

Publication date: 12th October
Format: e-book and paperback
Ebook – Print

Book 3 in the Arora Investigation series.

Daníel and Áróra hunt a brutal killer when a shipping container with the bodies of five women is found outside Reykjavik, as Áróra continues the search for her missing sister. Book three in the addictive, chilling An Áróra Investigation series.

On a snowy winter morning, an abandoned shipping container is discovered near Reykjavík. Inside are the bodies of five young women – one of them barely alive.

As Icelandic Police detective Daníel struggles to investigate the most brutal crime of his career, Áróra looks into the background of a suspicious man, who turns out to be engaged to Daníel’s former wife, and the connections don’t stop there…

Daníel and Áróra’s cases pit them both against ruthless criminals with horrifying agendas, while Áróra persists with her search for her missing sister, Ísafold, whose devastating disappearance continues to haunt her.

As the temperature drops and the 24-hour darkness and freezing snow hamper their efforts, their investigations become increasingly dangerous … for everyone.

Atmospheric, twisty and breathtakingly tense, White as Snow is the third instalment in the riveting, award-winning An Áróra Investigation series, as crimes committed far beyond Iceland’s shores come home…

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Cover Reveal: Mirror Image – Gunnar Staalesen

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Mirror Image by Gunnar Staalesen, translated by Don Bartlett

Publication date: 31st August
Format: e-book and paperback
Ebook – Print Number 0 in the Varg Veum series

As Bergen PI Varg Veum investigates two different cases, it becomes clear that they are uncannily similar to harrowing events that took place thirty-six years earlier… A gripping instalment of the award-winning Varg Veum series, by one of the fathers of Nordic Noir.

Bergen Private Investigator Varg Veum is perplexed when two wildly different cases cross his desk at the same time. A lawyer, anxious to protect her privacy, asks Varg to find her sister, who has disappeared with her husband, seemingly without trace, while a ship carrying unknown cargo is heading towards the Norwegian coast, and the authorities need answers.

Varg immerses himself in the investigations, and it becomes clear that the two cases are linked, and have unsettling – and increasingly uncanny – similarities to events that took place thirty-six years earlier, when a woman and her saxophonist lover drove their car off a cliff, in an apparent double suicide.

As Varg is drawn into a complex case involving star-crossed lovers, toxic waste and illegal immigrants, history seems determined to repeat itself in perfect detail … and at terrifying cost…

A chilling, dark and twisting story of love and revenge, Mirror Image is Staalesen at his most thrilling, thought-provoking best.

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Blog Tour: Canticle Creek – Adrian Hyland

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Two bodies. One long hot summer. A town that will never be the same.When Adam Lawson’s wrecked car is found a kilometre from Daisy Baker’s body, the whole town assumes it’s an open and shut case. But Jesse Redpath isn’t from Canticle Creek. Where she comes from, the truth often hides in plain sight, but only if you know where to look. When Jesse starts to ask awkward questions, she uncovers a town full of contradictions and a cast of characters with dark pasts, secrets to hide and even more to lose.

As the temperature soars, and the ground bakes, the wilderness surrounding Canticle Creek becomes a powderkeg waiting to explode. All it needs is one spark.

A twisty crime thriller set in small town Australia perfect for readers of The Dry and Scrublands.

Adrian Hyland is the award-winning author of Diamond Dove, Gunshot Road and Kinglake-350, which was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for non-fiction in 2012. His books have been published internationally, including in Britain and the US, and translated into a variety of languages, including German, French, Swedish and Czech.

My thoughts: an excellent addition to the Outback noir genre, with murder and intrigue aplenty out in the bush.

Jesse Redpath is a copper from the hardscrabble Northern Territory, who thinks something isn’t quite right about an apparent murder in Canticle Creek, a small town over the border in Victoria. She knew the accused killer, himself dead in a car accident, and he just wasn’t the type.

So, accompanied by her artist father, and her suspicions, she heads off to investigate. Aided, and occasionally stymied, by the local police officers, she starts to take a closer look, but could be putting herself straight into the firing line.

There’s conspiracies and drug dealers lurking in the Creek, locals put in danger and several near attempts on her life, but Jesse is determined to solve Daisy and Adam’s deaths and put a stop to whatever is going on in Canticle Creek, ideally before a terrible wild fire hits.

Gripping and cracking crime drama here, with an interesting cast of characters and a great protagonist. I hope this is the start of a series of Jesse Redpath novels.

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