The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia


The Business Trip by Jessie Garcia
Publisher: St. Martin’s Publishing Group
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by Ginger

THE BUSINESS TRIP is the gripping, page-turning debut from author Jessie Garcia.

Stephanie and Jasmine have nothing and everything in common. The two women don’t know each other but are on the same plane. Stephanie is on a business trip and Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship. After a few days, they text their friends the same exact messages about the same man—the messages becoming stranger and more erratic.

And then the two women vanish. The texts go silent, the red flags go up, and the panic sets in. When Stephanie and Jasmine are each declared missing and in danger, it begs the questions: Who is Trent McCarthy? What did he do to these women— or what did they do to him?

Twist upon twist, layer upon layer, where nothing is as it seems, The Business Trip takes you on a descent into the depths of a mastermind manipulator. But who is playing who?

This is an entertaining read. The narrative unfolds through the perspectives of various characters, instead of one or two main characters, and it adds an intriguing layer of mystery and tension in the whereabouts of Jasmine and Stephanie. I was so drawn into the narrative that I did not concern myself with whether the methods used were believable; the author made them sound plausible, so I just went with the flow without questioning anything. My focus was solely on what was happening in the story.

Jasmine has deep issues, which I found sad, and I felt compassion for her. She had a difficult upbringing and tried to attend beauty school to improve her life. Her abusive relationship with Glenn was leading her nowhere, and I admire her for taking charge and leaving him. I wanted her to have something good in her life; however, as we learn from Jasmine, envy can be deadly. Jasmine’s troubled past and her desperation to have more and better evoke a side of her that can be very costly.

There are themes of jealousy, identity theft, and suspense, along with a host of memorable characters who are genuinely concerned for Jasmine and Stephanie’s well-being. Several times, I found myself frustrated with Stephanie’s assistant news director, Bruce, because he was so naïve, while I cheered for Lucy, who was perceptive enough to realize something was wrong. I enjoyed the relationship between Stephanie and her neighbor, Robert; it felt genuine and had a best-friend vibe. I cannot forget to mention Trent J. McCarthy. His character is so true to life, even if he was a nuisance to be around.

I appreciated how the different points of view came together to maintain suspense, and the second half of the book revealed what had happened. I did not expect the surprising ending which, while a bit far-fetched, was a creative addition from the author that I appreciated.

The novel’s suspenseful pacing and unexpected twists make it a thrilling read. I highly recommend to readers that enjoy suspense, and an intriguing puzzle where the characters lay down their own piece and then later all the pieces start to connect.

Little Aiden – A Big Kid Book for Toddlers by Albert Choi


Little Aiden – A Big Kid Book for Toddlers by Albert Choi
Publisher: Mytogo Publishing
Genre: Children’s (0 – 6 y.o.), Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Join Little Aiden on an exciting journey as he transforms from a tiny tot into a daring adventurer! Bursting with curiosity, he’s eager to conquer the world solo. As Aiden grows, he embraces the role of a big kid, confident and ready to take on the world with newfound independence. This heartwarming story of growth and discovery is perfect for family story time.

Big kids get to do so many more things!

One of the things I appreciate most about this series is that it was written in plain, simple language to appeal to toddlers. There is no additional layer of meaning included for adults, and while I also enjoy picture books who take that approach it was refreshing to see the world from a little boy’s perspective who was just beginning to understand why his parents did certain things. Childhood logic is wonderful, and it’s what makes these tales so much fun to read.

I would have liked to see more time spent exploring the consequences of Aiden’s choices. Whether he was being naughty, helpful, curious, or silly, there was space here for him to talk about what he was doing and why he was doing it. If that had happened, I would have happily chosen a five-star rating as his adventures are adorable.

What a gentle story this was. Aiden’s parents were patient and loving with him no matter what was happening in their lives. This included a few amusing scenes of the main character getting into mischief the moment he was left alone. I laughed as I learned about the silly things he did now that he was able to climb and reach higher places than he ever had before. What a true glimpse this was of how toddlers slowly change into preschoolers.

This is the third instalment in a series that can be read in any order.

Little Aiden – A Big Kid Book for Toddlers made me smile.

Foreword Fraud by S.E. Babin


Foreword Fraud by S.E. Babin
Publisher: ‎ Oliver Heber Books
Genre: Cozy Mystery, Contemporary
Rating: 5 stars
Review by Snowdrop

Welcome back to Silverwood Hollow! Where the books are plentiful and the crime is cozy!

When a shady business owner winds up dead, I’m once again under the investigative spotlight of a handsome detective with nowhere to run…

After sitting in on a lecture given by a rare book trader, I’m excited to look into expanding Tattered Pages. But when the trader winds up dead the same day Cole and I attend her lecture, suspicion turns to those I care about the most.

Of course, I’m too busy running a store and caring for my grumpy Persian cat to murder anyone, but no one believes me and now I have to put on my investigative hat and find out whodunnit.

Turns out the business owner had dealings with the town’s handsome and very eligible news reporter, Cole. And Cole isn’t too happy about her leaving him in the lurch after promising him a scoop for the ages.

But Cole couldn’t possibly be guilty.

Right?

I had a lot of fun with this cute cozy. I will admit I love any story that has a bookshop in its setting. This particular bookshop, Tattered Pages, is owned by an amateur sleuth named Dakota. I use the description sleuth because it hasn’t been that long since she solved another murder.

One thing I have to say about the author is that somehow, she pulled off writing a cozy with all of the “elements” that cozies have and yet didn’t make this sleuth seem like another nosy parker was snooping into a murder. How she did that is difficult to explain. Her friend was the most likely suspect, but that isn’t unusual. She didn’t like the victim, but that’s not unusual. Somehow, being asked to help and being expected to help by the citizens of Silverwood Hollow fell normally into place.

I just hate it when a cozy is written like a carbon copy of all the others. That just isn’t true of Forward Fraud. I’m not sure I’m even explaining the reason well, but I do know you should read the book. I really enjoyed it.

Forward Fraud is Book 2 of a series titled “A Shelf Indulgence Cozy Mystery”. There are a lot of books in the series. What a great thing to discover when you like the first book you read.

Days Like Shadows Pass by MS Morris


Days Like Shadows Pass by MS Morris
Publisher: Landmark Media
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 4 stars
Reviewed by Fern

Myth. Mystery. Murder.
DCI Tom Raven’s hopes for a few quiet days with his daughter, Hannah, are shattered when a shocking murder plunges him into a macabre mystery in the nearby coastal town of Whitby.

In the hallowed grounds of the ruined abbey, a man lies lifeless: drained of blood and marked by the symbol of a dragon.

As rumours of a vampire-like killer echo through Whitby’s cobbled streets and his own daughter becomes entwined in the town’s dark legends, Raven is forced to play a twisted game of life and death, navigating a deadly maze of myth, mystery and murder.

DCI raven has finally managed to take some well-earned leave and he’s excited his daughter, Hannah is finally able to come and visit him. Only a bizarre case drops in the lap of his team and Raven’s boss insists he take the lead. A local Goth festival has the small coastal town crammed with tourists and costume wearing visitors. One of the regulars has been murdered by having all his blood drained. Can DCI Raven and his team figure out what’s going on?

I’ve been enjoying this Yorkshire series and this book in particular was an excellent addition. I found the murder mystery interesting and complicated enough to really hold onto my attention. All the regular police team characters were there but I found Raven’s daughter, Hannah, to be an excellent addition. Young and interesting but also not really a member of the team I enjoyed her input and felt her character really added a fresh and different twist to the story. I also really enjoyed her open mindedness and hope we might see more of her in some of the future books.

Readers who like British police procedural mysteries should find this an excellent book and not be too worried by the slower pace of the plot. Personally, I find the knottier mystery plots and slower pace complicated enough to maintain my interest and this style of smaller town setting a real bonus in the stories. I’m looking forward to the next in this series.

Death Walking – Dream Journeys into Death, Forgiveness, and Healing by Julie Winifred


Death Walking – Dream Journeys into Death, Forgiveness, and Healing by Julie Winifred
Publisher: Self-Published
Genre: Non-Fiction, Contemporary
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

I have cherished the dreaming world for as long as I can remember, and wanted to add my thoughts to all that information that is already out there. I wanted to have my say, and hoped that others might get something from my insights, just as I have done so from many other writers. I have focused upon the way I have dreamed with the dying and how this has guided me towards forgiveness and healing. And I hope I have also illustrated something of the sheer wonderfulness of dreaming life and the many gifts it can bring.

Grief is a journey that everyone must eventually take.

Dream logic doesn’t always translate well to real life. I smiled as I read about the author’s more abstract dreams and her attempts to make sense of them once she woke up. In some cases, it took her a while to come up with theories about what they were trying to tell her, but her interpretations ultimately made sense to me as she delved more deeply into her difficult childhood and the struggles she had as a result of it.

As interesting as it was to read about the author’s dreams about the loved ones she had lost, I struggled with the slow pacing. Some of the descriptions of the dreams and her interpretations of them were so detailed that they further disrupted the pacing as well. This is something I’m saying as someone who loves talking about dreams and what they might mean, and I wish I could have given this book a higher rating given the thought-provoking subject matter of it.

Some of my favorite sections were the ones that discussed how dreams can assist the healing process. When a death is sudden or tragic, it can be even harder than usual to adjust to the loss of that person or pet for those who are still here in the land of the living. A peaceful dream about the deceased can go a long way in helping someone to make peace with what has happened and move on with their life as much as possible.

Death Walking made me want to update my dream journal more often!

A Kiss Under the Northern Lights by Susan Carlisle


A Kiss Under the Northern Lights by Susan Carlisle
Publisher: Harlequin
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Nymphaea

A CONNECTION TO STAY FOR?

When Dr. Trice moves to the far north of Iceland, she’s looking forward to immersing herself in her job and getting away from her painful past. She’s nervous, but her temporary colleague Dr. Drake Stevansson is happy to show her the ropes. Drake has the looks of a real-life Viking, and a way of making Trice feel safer than she ever has before. Their snow-melting desire is undeniable, but Drake is leaving. So what happens when stolen glances turn to fiery kisses that threaten to derail both of their plans?

Two doctors who deserve a happy ending surrounded by gorgeous vistas.

I love the work of Susan Carlisle. She’s one of my favorite authors and I can’t wait for her next book. When I see a new one’s out, I jump. This one was definitely worth the wait.

Dr. Trice and Dr. Drake are a good combination. I loved them from the beginning and rooted for them to get together. They’re developed and well-rounded characters. I could see them as I read the book and got emotionally involved with them. I didn’t want the story to end. It’s a feel good plot and one I want to revisit often.

If you’re looking for a great book for a chilly night, then this one is the one for you.

Aspire To Die by MS Morris


Aspire To Die by MS Morris
Publisher: Landmark Media
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Fern

Lust. Ambition. Murder.
When a beautiful, wealthy student is found dead in her room in Oxford’s most prestigious college, Detective Inspector Bridget Hart is called to investigate. The murdered girl appeared to have no enemies, yet was killed in a brutal and bloody assault.

Haunted and driven by her own personal tragedy, newly promoted DI Bridget Hart has a lot to prove as she leads her first murder case. Her investigation uncovers a tangled web of lies, lust and ambition, and brings her into conflict with powerful interests.

But no one can be above suspicion within the closed and claustrophobic confines of an Oxford college, where students and academics live and work side by side, and a ruthless killer waits to strike again.

When a beautiful, wealthy student is found dead in her room at one of Oxford’s most prestigious universities, DI Bridget Hart is called to investigate. Newly promoted, DI Hart is determined to do her best, only there’s no real evidence and no clear enemies who wish ill upon this young student. Can Bridget sort through what really happened in time?

While I have been enjoying the Tom Raven series by this author this book is the first in a different series revolving around DI Bridget Hart in Oxford. Fast approaching middle age with a teenage daughter I found Bridget to be an enjoyable and relatable character. I feel it’s clear the author is well versed in the location of Oxford and the University setting was both interesting and well integrated into the murder mystery.

I do feel the pace of the story was a little on the slower than usual side. Partly this was because the main characters and other team members really needed to be introduced and they all had to settle in a bit together – so I understand how important that is – but equally there felt to me to be quite a few viable and understandable lines of inquiry that the police team needed to investigate. While a lot of this ended up as red herrings I do feel the author should be commended – at no time did I feel like the story was being padded out and nor did it feel like DI Hart or the team were chasing their tails or falling for false leads.

The plots all felt legitimate but upon reflection it did seem like a larger than usual amount of mess and false leads. I thought this book had loads of atmosphere, good and strong characters and a thoroughly relatable storyline and easiness to be read and binged on. I was a little over half way through the book when I ordered the next one and I’ll happily read that when it arrives. A good new series I am eager to sink my teeth into.

Vow of Revenge by P Rayne


Vow of Revenge by P Rayne
Publisher: Avon Books
Genre: Romance, Contemporary, Dark Mafia Romance
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Nymphaea

Mirabella La Rosa
When my father arranged for me to marry the heir to the Costa crime family, I swore I’d do anything to escape that fate. I have more to offer than being some man’s arm candy and producing heirs. Marcelo Costa might be my fiancé, but he’ll never be my husband.

So when he and his father are killed in a car bombing, I consider myself lucky. No longer will I have to go from being a mafia princess to becoming a mafia wife, I can now attend the Sicuro Academy—a private college created for mafia children like me.

But all my plans come to a screeching halt when Marcelo shows up on campus alive and well, seeking revenge on those that crossed him.

Marcelo Costa

The look of shock on my fiancée’s face when I walked into the classroom pleases me more than it should. Mirabella made it clear she didn’t want to marry me, but at the moment I have a bigger issue on my hands—revenge on whoever killed my father. Once I mete out my own particular brand of justice, I’ll remove Mirabella from campus and make her my wife.

And no amount of pleading on her part will change my mind.

Two opposites who shouldn’t attract, but do.

Mirabella and Marcelo are two people who shouldn’t get together because she isn’t interested in being his wife. Until she has no choice. She heads off to college and wants to move forward with her life after the death of her father. She doesn’t want to be a mafia wife. He can’t see her as anything else.

I liked the combination of the two characters. She’s just as strong-willed as he is and determined to not be with him as much as he’s determined to have her. I liked that they were thrown together, but I wasn’t a fan of the almost insta love aspect. It’s not my favorite, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great story. Others will absolutely love it. I also had a hard time with her being so young–fresh off to college–and in such a position with Marcelo. She had moments of such maturity, then it switched. This story wasn’t as dark as I’d expected, either. Those looking for a dark romance might want to keep that in mind. If you’re new to dark romance, this is a good one to dip one’s toes into.

If you’re looking for two characters that aren’t what they seem and show growth throughout, then this might be the story for you.

My Only Friend, the End by Steven Owad


My Only Friend, the End by Steven Owad
Publisher: Paper Angel Press
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Contemporary
Rating: 4 Stars
Review by Astilbe

Surviving was easy. The hard part—living alone—starts now.

For Owen Bale, life in Great Falls, Montana, is good. He has a loving wife and son, a career as a writer, and plenty of reasons to get up in the morning.

The charmed existence ends one sun-kissed day when everyone in town—maybe everyone everywhere—drops dead. Owen is left alone in a city on fire.

The options now: sit tight and wait for help or seek out survivors. One thing’s certain: if Owen doesn’t move—and move fast—the stresses of the flash extinction will swallow him whole.

He sets out in search of people—and of the cause of the devastation. Cosmic cataclysms. Pandemics. Bio-warfare. Earth has been through five mass extinctions. How do they differ from what’s happened now? Maybe God was behind the carnage. Or little green men. Whatever the answer, why was Owen spared? And if he’s alive, it stands to reason others survived, too. If all people everywhere are in fact gone, will there be any point in going on?

Staying sane and strong in a hostile landscape filled with unexpected dangers would be easier if Owen’s own inner demons weren’t along for the journey. Finding the post-civilization promised land will take every ounce of courage and self-knowledge he can muster.

Survival comes in many forms.

I can’t remember the last time I read a book that was about only one person, and I was curious to see how the author used the smallest cast possible to explore this world. Even the most introverted and shyest among us eventually need companionship, after all, so Owen was dealing with something humans aren’t well-equipped to handle in the long term. Other readers should find out for themselves how this conflict was explored, but it was a breath of fresh air to this longtime fan of the genre.

From the perspective of an invested reader, it would have been helpful to have more details about why everyone died. Obviously, I wasn’t expecting a character who had no scientific or medical background to discover everything there was to know about these mass deaths and why they affected humans in particular, but I was a little disappointed by the answer that was eventually given due to how much time was spent pursuing it. For example, was this something that was likely to happen again or was it a tragic one-time occurrence? Was it a worldwide phenomenon or did it only affect North America? Having a few more answers here would have propelled this into a five-star read for me.

One of my favorite themes involved how Owen looked after his mental health – or, in some scenes, absolutely did not look after his mental health – after everyone died off. He had already experienced a horrible tragedy in his life, so he started off from an even more emotionally difficult place after everyone around him died than someone with a happier past would have had. The raw honesty of these passages was an important part of getting to know this character and understanding what motivated him to keep going as he tried to figure out what happened to all of the dead people around him and what he was going to do next.

I’d recommend My Only Friend, the End to fans of literary and post-apocalyptic fiction alike. These two genres are rarely blended together, so this was a treat!

Cross My Heart by Roxy Sloane


Cross My Heart by Roxy Sloane
Publisher: Avon Books
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Nymphaea

“Oxford, England. The city of dreaming spires, dark secrets… And desire.”

Anthony St. Clair. The future Duke of Ashford. A reckless enigma… and my greatest temptation.

I’ve come here, to Oxford University, on a mission—to uncover the truth about what happened to my sister—no matter the cost. Until I meet him…

Saint is my passport to a sensual world of wealth and privilege, but something wicked is lurking behind these ivy covered walls. Secrets these people will kill to protect.

Loyalty is everything to them… but will it be my ruin?

Full of twists and turns!

She wants to know what happened to her sister. Then she meets Saint. Her world gets turned upside down and it’s spicy.

The characters are developed and interesting. I have to admit, Saint wasn’t what I expected. Then again, the whole story wasn’t one I expected. I’ve never read a book considered dark academia, but I did like the atmosphere evoked. It was heavy and dark, but yet intriguing. Now, back to Saint. I wasn’t sure what I expected—stodgy maybe, but he’s certainly a ladies’ man. I liked his unabashed quality. Tessa, on the other hand, wasn’t my favorite character. I hoped she’d be stronger in many ways. I can’t put my finger on it, but I just thought she could have more backbone. That’s not to say it’s a bad read. It might not be my cuppa, but it could certainly be others. It’s hot and steamy.

One note, it does end on a cliffhanger, so be warned. The other note is that this is the first book in a trilogy, so answers may certainly come from the second and third books. I’m glad for that.

If you’re looking for a sexy read for a cold evening, then this might be the one for you.