Showing posts with label murder mysteries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label murder mysteries. Show all posts

Friday, December 25, 2020

Dark Streets Shineth, a Christmas murder mystery

 


Dark Streets Shineth, a Say a Prayer whodunit
Clare Revell
PBGroup Holiday Extravaganza novella, December 1, 2020, 102 pp
 
Buy on Amazon 
Barnes and Noble
Ebook Currently on sale for 99 cents
 
About the Book
YOU'D BETTER WATCH OUT. YOU'D BETTER NOT CRY. SANTA CLAUS IS GOING TO DIE...DCI Boaz Matthias isn't a Christmas person. He never has been. Not since he discovered the truth when he was seven. Christmas is a lie and a con and nothing is ever going to change his mind. Being given a temporary six week assignment isn't helping his mood either—as it means Christmas with the family. Only good thing is the accidental meeting of someone he thinks he could grow very fond of.
DC Isabel York loves Christmas. So much so that she decorates her desk with lights, tinsel, and a novelty advent calendar. When her boss is called away, his replacement is the last person she's expecting to see—her fledgling boyfriend.

In the middle of a nasty case, Isabel is nevertheless determined to show Boaz the real meaning of Christmas. The only problem is that work and pleasure just don't mix—at least not according to him.
 
My Review
I loved these characters throughout the Say a Prayer series. They’re intentional short segments of murder investigations at a particular police station in England. They are well-researched and populated with all-too-real people. Isabel hasn’t been a DC all that long, but her intuition and ability to connects dots has had other officers in her department…shall we say jealous? While most of the problem people were shifted around to other departments or fired, a few officers are still afraid of her and try to make her life miserable. Things get a little worse when their favorite boss  has a family emergency and the temp is a grinch. Not just a grinch but the fellow who Isabel had started dating prior to his new assignment. The new temp, Boaz, walks in on an already-in-progress murder investigation. Someone is killing store Santas, and as it’s Isabel’s case, she’s in charge, much to the chagrin of the remaining problem parties in the department. Isabel’s got a lot to deal with this Christmas amid a boyfriend who hates her favorite time of year, numbskulls who whine at work even as Isabel continues to develop her self-confidence on the job, and a morgue filling up with bodies. Where can a person find a cup of Christmas cheer with all this mayhem?
 
Join the party as Isabel and Zander and their new friend, Boaz, take on the holi-craze. Told through Isabel and Boaz’s eyes, this holiday romantic thriller is just the perfect bite-size book for a take-me-away moment this Christmas.
 
About the Author
Clare is a British author. She lives in a small town in England with her husband, whom she married in 1992, and her three children. Writing from a early childhood and encouraged by her teachers, she graduated from rewriting fairy stories through fanfiction to using her own original characters and enjoys writing an eclectic mix of romance, crime fiction and children's stories. When she's not writing, she can be found reading, crocheting or doing the many piles of laundry the occupants of her house manage to make.

Her books are based in the UK, with a couple of exceptions, thus, although the spelling may be American, the books contain British language and terminology. The first draft of every novel is hand written.

She has been a Christian for more than half her life. She goes to Carey Baptist where she is one of four registrars.

She can be found at:
http://www.revell124.plus.com/clarerevell/
https://www.facebook.com/ClareRevellAuthor
https://twitter.com/ClareRevell
http://telscha.blogspot.co.uk/


Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Thrilling conclusion to Prayer Slayer murders with Clare Revell

Say a Prayer Whodunit Crime Thrillers by Clare Revell

Serial, 4 books

c. 2020

Pelican Ventures LLC

Ebooks, $5.99

Print, $15.99

 About the Author

Clare is a British author. She lives in a small town just outside Reading, England with her husband, whom she married in 1992, their three children, and unfriendly mini-panther, aka Tilly the black cat. They have recently been joined by Hedwig and Sirius the guinea pigs. Clare is half English and half Welsh, which makes watching rugby interesting at times as it doesn’t matter who wins.

Writing from an early childhood and encouraged by her teachers, she graduated from rewriting fairy stories through fan fiction to using her own original characters and enjoys writing an eclectic mix of romance, crime fiction and children's stories. When she's not writing, she can be found reading, crocheting or doing the many piles of laundry the occupants of her house manage to make.

Her books are based in the UK, with a couple of exceptions, thus, although the spelling may be American in some of them, the books contain British language and terminology and the more recent ones are written in UK English.

The first draft of every novel is hand written.

She has been a Christian for more than half her life. She goes to Carey Baptist where she is one of four registrars.
She can be found at:
http://www.revell124.plus.com/clarere...
https://www.facebook.com/ClareRevellA...
https://twitter.com/ClareRevell
http://telscha.blogspot.co.uk/
https://uk.pinterest.com/ClareLRevell/
https://www.instagram.com/clarerevell/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B005NZT2O2
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005NZT2O2
http://pelicanbookgroup.com/ec/index....

Soul to Take, book #4

Buy on

Amazon 

Barnes and Noble

Pelican book store 

About the Book

Just when things couldn't get much worse, they suddenly do. With DS Zander Ellery in jail, his partner DC Isabel York fights to clear his name. Not an easy task when she is suspended from duty and the evidence against him is compelling.

Finally, pieces begin to fall into place, but to catch the Prayer Slayer once and for all, both officers must walk down a dark path where their very souls are at risk of being taken.

My review

In this final chapter of the Say a Prayer murders in the English village of Headley Cross, Detective Isabel York knows she’s on the victim’s list. The only person who believes her is her partner, Detective Zander Ellery, who’s in jail accused of the murders, and she’s been suspended from the case. But that doesn’t mean she can’t be sneaky about continuing her investigation from…home.

In this serial murder case of the victims being chosen by extremely tight circumstances and eerily similar habits, Isabel attempts to break the mold and hopefully distract the murderer—before he can kill anyone else, let alone her. A secret from her past has caught up to her, preying heavily on her vulnerabilities. News that should be happy smells decidedly rotten. And again, since Zander is jailed with extremely ripe evidence as to his part in the murder plot, Isabel is on her own, up against a gruesome murderer…who can’t possibly be Zander...could it?

Secrets abound as both Isabel and Zander come to grips with revenge, brutal lies, and graphic crimes committed to satisfy a wholly unwholesome appetite. It’s personal when the killer gets to family and close friends. Everyone is under suspicion, even church friends, and the tension may force them all to reconsider whether vengeance truly belongs to the Lord, or whether He needs some help carrying it out.

All the stories are told through Zander and Isabel’s perspectives, deftly done so that intuition and thought processes serve to illuminate and distract as these able detectives work diligently to solve a disturbing serial murder case.



Tuesday, August 18, 2020

Book 3 of Prayer Slayer with Clare Revell

Say a Prayer Whodunit Crime Thrillers by Clare Revell

Serial, 4 books

c. 2020

Pelican Ventures LLC

Ebooks, $5.99

Print, $15.99

About the Author

Clare is a British author. She lives in a small town just outside Reading, England with her husband, whom she married in 1992, their three children, and unfriendly mini-panther, aka Tilly the black cat. They have recently been joined by Hedwig and Sirius the guinea pigs. Clare is half English and half Welsh, which makes watching rugby interesting at times as it doesn’t matter who wins.

Writing from an early childhood and encouraged by her teachers, she graduated from rewriting fairy stories through fan fiction to using her own original characters and enjoys writing an eclectic mix of romance, crime fiction and children's stories. When she's not writing, she can be found reading, crocheting or doing the many piles of laundry the occupants of her house manage to make.

Her books are based in the UK, with a couple of exceptions, thus, although the spelling may be American in some of them, the books contain British language and terminology and the more recent ones are written in UK English.

The first draft of every novel is hand written.

She has been a Christian for more than half her life. She goes to Carey Baptist where she is one of four registrars.

She can be found at:
http://www.revell124.plus.com/clarere...
https://www.facebook.com/ClareRevellA...
https://twitter.com/ClareRevell
http://telscha.blogspot.co.uk/
https://uk.pinterest.com/ClareLRevell/
https://www.instagram.com/clarerevell/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B005NZT2O2
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005NZT2O2
http://pelicanbookgroup.com/ec/index....

Before I Wake, book #3

Buy on

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Pelican book store

About the Book

With trouble on the streets, DS Zander Ellery is under even more pressure to solve the case of the Prayer Slayer. His partner DC Isabel York is convinced she is being targeted, as all the postcards the Slayer sends are addressed only to her.

With Zander and Isabel pulled in different directions, the body count escalates, until the case explodes in a direction no one could foresee—Something that will test everyone to the limits of their experience and faith.

My review

Murder in Headley Cross, a typically quiet community in the English countryside has everyone on guard. The police don’t seem to be able to not only find the killer, they can’t seem to figure out how he seems to be playing the detectives on the case. Isabel and Zander, the assigned detectives, know the lines of the prayer and speculate on the number of murders the killer plans based on other evidence of stolen artwork, but deaths that don’t fit the pattern throw everything off.

Answers to questions about Isabel’s past creep from home life directly into work, and when other pieces of the puzzle begin to point in her direction as a target for murder, she struggles to convince anyone of her suspicions. Worse yet, Zander seems to be out of control, the whole case spins in a direction that surprises the readers. Following the clues first one direction, then another, will have mystery lovers tied up in knots waiting to see how the author deftly pulls it all together. Told through both Zander and Isabel’s eyes, we grow suspicious as each detective begins to piece the evidence and motives together in different angles. The story comes to a conclusion in book four.

 


Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Prayer Slayer Soul to Keep with Clare Revell

Soul to Keep

Say a Prayer Whodunit Crime Thrillers by Clare Revell

Serial, 4 books

c. 2020

Pelican Ventures LLC

Ebooks, $5.99

Print, $15.99

About the Author

Clare is a British author. She lives in a small town just outside Reading, England with her husband, whom she married in 1992, their three children, and unfriendly mini-panther, aka Tilly the black cat. They have recently been joined by Hedwig and Sirius the guinea pigs. Clare is half English and half Welsh, which makes watching rugby interesting at times as it doesn’t matter who wins.

Writing from an early childhood and encouraged by her teachers, she graduated from rewriting fairy stories through fan fiction to using her own original characters and enjoys writing an eclectic mix of romance, crime fiction and children's stories. When she's not writing, she can be found reading, crocheting or doing the many piles of laundry the occupants of her house manage to make.

Her books are based in the UK, with a couple of exceptions, thus, although the spelling may be American in some of them, the books contain British language and terminology and the more recent ones are written in UK English.

The first draft of every novel is hand written.

She has been a Christian for more than half her life. She goes to Carey Baptist where she is one of four registrars.

She can be found at:
http://www.revell124.plus.com/clarere...
https://www.facebook.com/ClareRevellA...
https://twitter.com/ClareRevell
http://telscha.blogspot.co.uk/
https://uk.pinterest.com/ClareLRevell/
https://www.instagram.com/clarerevell/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B005NZT2O2
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005NZT2O2
http://pelicanbookgroup.com/ec/index....

Soul to Keep, book #2

Buy on Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Pelican Store

About the Book

As the body count increases and more paintings are recovered, DC Zander Ellery and his partner DC Isabel York are under increasing pressure to catch the killer the press have dubbed the Prayer Slayer.

A few tenuous links are all they have between the deaths of three young, pretty women. The new Chief Superintendent is only adding to the pressure and seems to be picking on Isabel more than any other officer.

Torn between his urge to protect his partner and his need to solve the case, Zander sits his sergeant's exams, hoping once they are over, he won't be so distracted. But a rocky relationship with his girlfriend and one more murder only adds to his stress.

My review:

In the continuing serial crime thriller by Clare Revell, Headley Cross is still under attack by a murderer who seems to be choosing his victims based on a prayer and paintings that represent famous scripture. Since the media got ahold of the case, they’ve named the murderer the Prayer Slayer, giving attention the police don’t want him to have. But they’ve held back certain pieces of information, especially clues that Isabel is uncovering.

There’s more to life for detectives Zander and Isabel than solving this murder, and when life begins to get in the way; namely Isabel’s past abusive boyfriend and current living situation, and Zander’s girlfriend justifiably demanding his time, the line between work and home begins to blur. A new voice is added to the mix of misogynist police folk, and Isabel isn’t sure she can continue to work well when few people respect any progress she seems to make.

The partners have determined the pattern the killer follows, but no matter how fast they work, the killer dodges their every move. In a strange twist, the deeper Zander delves into the case, the more unhinged he begins to sound. Told in alternating viewpoints from Zander to Isabel, the tension mounts. The story continues in book three.


Tuesday, August 4, 2020

New Murder series with Clare Revell



Say a Prayer Whodunit Crime Thrillers by Clare Revell

Serial, 4 books

c. 2020

Pelican Ventures LLC

Ebooks, $5.99

Print, $15.99

About the Author

Clare is a British author. She lives in a small town just outside Reading, England with her husband, whom she married in 1992, their three children, and unfriendly mini-panther, aka Tilly the black cat. They have recently been joined by Hedwig and Sirius the guinea pigs. Clare is half English and half Welsh, which makes watching rugby interesting at times as it doesn’t matter who wins.


Writing from an early childhood and encouraged by her teachers, she graduated from rewriting fairy stories through fan fiction to using her own original characters and enjoys writing an eclectic mix of romance, crime fiction and children's stories. When she's not writing, she can be found reading, crocheting or doing the many piles of laundry the occupants of her house manage to make.


Her books are based in the UK, with a couple of exceptions, thus, although the spelling may be American in some of them, the books contain British language and terminology and the more recent ones are written in UK English.

The first draft of every novel is hand written.

She has been a Christian for more than half her life. She goes to Carey Baptist where she is one of four registrars.

She can be found at:
http://www.revell124.plus.com/clarere...
https://www.facebook.com/ClareRevellA...
https://twitter.com/ClareRevell
http://telscha.blogspot.co.uk/
https://uk.pinterest.com/ClareLRevell/
https://www.instagram.com/clarerevell/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B005NZT2O2
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005NZT2O2
http://pelicanbookgroup.com/ec/index....

Down to Sleep, book #1

ebook, 286 pages

Published May 7th 2020 by Pelican Book Group

ISBN13 9781522302773

Amazon 

Barnes and Noble 

Pelican book store 

About the Book:

DC Zander Ellery isn't sure which he dislikes the most: New partners, rookie female officers, or cases he can't solve. Right now he has all three.

DC Isabel York is fresh out of uniform and out of the proverbial frying pan into the fire as her personal and professional lives clash with her first case—ten stolen works of art.

When a postcard arrives addressed to Isabel with a cryptic message on it, it's just the beginning. The mystery deepens as the first of the stolen paintings is found alongside a dead body—bound and gagged and left posed in prayer at the place depicted in the postcard.

Are nine more murders coming? Can Zander and Isabel find the missing paintings and solve the murder before another victim falls?

My review

It’s always a little crazy jumping into a new series, but with Revell’s thrillers, you’re at home in Headley Cross, a place in the English countryside her fans have come to know and love well. Revell tackles a dark series of murders based of all things on a prayer tied to frightening imagery supposed to represent the bedrock of faith in gruesome artwork. Learning the ins and outs of British police departments is almost as intriguing and frustrating as trying to dig newly promoted Isabel York’s in-basket. No longer a beat cop, she’s a detective assigned to work with male colleagues who are a bit unsure of themselves and act out inappropriately. One prank they play is stuffing her desk mail with dozens and more junk, making it a chore to paw through. Missing a crucial piece of evidence makes it harder to start on a long and irksome, challenging case to beat a killer who is always one step ahead.      

Alezander Ellery, Zander for short, is in need of a new partner, though he hopes not for long as he studies for a test that will give him a career boost and a potential move to a new department. He’s willing to give Isabel a chance, but eventually learns that trust and respect have to be mutual to work. Things are going so well, and the pressure is on when the victims become people they know.

Told in alternating viewpoints, readers get an inside look at the pressure of solving a case of serial murders in a small community. This is a true series, and plays out over four books.

 

 


Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Dharma A Rekha Rao Mystery by Vee Kumari

_Dharma VBT social media graphic .png

Dharma by Vee Kumari

Paperback: 302 pages
Publisher: Great Life Press (March 2020)
ISBN-13: 978-1938394423
$4.99  Ebook
$14.95  Print


About the Book:
Rekha Rao, a thirty-something Indian American professor of art history, is disillusioned by academia and haunted by the murder of her father. She believes police convicted the wrong person, and moves away from her match-making family.

She’s focused on managing her PTSD and healing her heart, broken by an abusive boyfriend. She gets entangled in a second murder, that of her mentor and father figure. The murder weapon, an idol of the Hindu goddess Durga, is left behind on the body. Detective Al Newton asks her to look into the relationship, if any, between the meaning of the statue and the motive for the murder.

Rekha is attracted to Al but steers clear of him because of her distaste for cops and fear of a new relationship. The two constantly clash, starting a love-hate relationship. Meanwhile, her family sets her up to meet a suitor, an Indian attorney. When police arrest one of her students and accuse her mentor of idol theft, Rekha is left with no other choice but to look for the killer on her own.

Despite admonitions from Al and bodily harm caused by an intruder, Rekha finds the killer, and in the process, emerges from the cocoon of a protected upbringing to taste the prospect of romance and discover her true identity.

Vee Kumari shares about her work
"How much research went into Dharma and how I went about it"

I had to do quite a bit of research to ensure the facts presented are accurate. I
hope I haven’t erred by omission. As a former neuroscientist, I was used to
research.

  • Excavation in India

The story of the discovery of microliths, 35,000-year-old stone tools in Jwalapuram in the state of Andhra Pradesh in central India, is true and comes from an article I came across in the journal, Antiquity (Volume 83Issue 320, June 2009, pp. 326-348), written by first author Chris Clarkson. I wanted to connect Faust and Davidson with an excavation in India where the Durga could be discovered.

Certainly, no idol was reported to have been unearthed among the Jwalapuram finds, but I used my creative license to invent that. I wrote and obtained permission from the first author to do this. Any reader who notices the discrepancy in the timeline – excavation of the microliths published in 2009 and the beginning of my story in 2017 – will hopefully forgive me.

  • The Durga as the Mahishasura Mardini

I knew the basics about this re-incarnation, and how Durga herself was created from parts of the Trinity, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. However, I checked the facts against known texts and made sure to depict the battle between Durga and the buffalo demon, Mahishasura in accurate terms. Two books by Carmel Berkson, “The Divine and The Demoniac, Mahisha’s Heroic Struggle with Durga” published in 1995, and “Ellora Concepts and Style” published in 1992 were most valuable resources.


Again, I’m unclear how I came up with the name Faust for the murdered professor. But it provided a source for the verse that Neil’s mother included in the book she left for him. I Googled the verse innumerable times to make sure that it would bring up the original text and it did. The idea of Neil’s mother leaving a cryptic message for him came from a less well-known mystery novel by P.D. James, “An Unsuitable Job For A Woman”, in which a private detective, Cordelia Gray, embarks on a journey to find the killer of the son of a prominent scientist.

  • Other resources

Contacts at Massachusetts Document Retrieval provided information about the registration of births, adoptions and deaths by suicides in Massachusetts. Harvard Archives Reference office helped me with information on graduate student registration process in 1996-1997.

My Review
Couched within a murder mystery is a woman seeking self-identity while maintaining her cultural heritage.

Rekha Rao, an art history professor, has been forced to redo her life while in her early thirties when a poor choice of a boyfriend blew up, and the ill-advised pursuit of a killer which cost her tenure-tract and respect. Kind of a practice reincarnation. And that’s before this mystery opens with the gruesome death of another loved one.

Professor Rao is tapped by the local police when a strange artifact is involved in the murder of a beloved colleague. The circumstances are bizarre, almost as if the victim had undergone a personality change, and Rao is determined to understand why anyone would have cause to hate the gentle, kind, and fair professor, a renowned archaeologist.

As the story unwinds, Rao reckons with her overly loving family who tries to help her overcome her single status with a suitable suitor. Trouble is, she’s attracted once again to the wrong sort—a detective investigating the case. During the course of the story, Rao struggles with belief in herself and others as she practices the gentle art of listening. As she gets closer to the truth behind the professor’s murder, she learns more about herself, and all the things that went wrong after her father’s murder only a few years prior.


I enjoyed the bits of Indian culture, history, food, fashion, and angst that Kumari weaves throughout this contemporary mystery set in California academia.

About the Author
Vee Kumari Headshot.jpgVee Kumari, Actor, Producer, and Author of Dharma: A Rekha Rao Mystery, grew up in India. She loved to read, and often used it to avoid her mother, who might want her to do a chore or two. It was her mother who directed her to use the dictionary to learn the meanings of new words and construct sentences with them. Vee wanted to become an English professor but went to medical school instead.

Upon coming to the US, Vee obtained a doctorate in anatomy. She became a faculty member at the UC Davis Medical Center, where she worked for over 35 years, and later worked for the Keck School of Medicine for five years. Teaching neuroanatomy to medical students became her passion. She published many scientific papers and won several teaching awards.

When she retired in 2012, she took classes from The Gotham Writers' Workshop and UCLA Writers Program. Dharma, A Rekha Rao Mystery is her debut fiction that incorporates her observations on the lives of Indian immigrants and Indian Americans in the US.

Vee lives in Burbank and is also an actor who has appeared in TV shows, including Criminal Minds and Glow, and produced and was the lead in a short film, Halwa, which garnered the first prize in HBO's 2019 Asian Pacific American Visionaries (APAV) contest.

She is at work on her next novel about an Indian immigrant family whose American dream shatters when one of their twin daughters goes missing. Author website: veekumari.com

Facebook: @veekumari
Instagram:  @vee6873hollywood
Twitter: @veekumari1


Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Historical detective mystery from Sabrina Flynn

image

From the Ashes
Sabrina Flynn
c. 2014
A Ravenwood Mystery, book 1 of a 3-book series
Historical detective, California history, 1900

$4.99 eBook
$15.00 Print

Buy on Amazon 

About the Book:
Atticus Riot took a bullet to his head the day his partner was killed. Three years later, Riot returns to San Francisco to put his ghosts to rest, but the abduction of an heiress snags his attention. Two ransom demands are delivered, and the husband of the abducted Isobel Kingston is hiding the truth. 

The clock is ticking. Can Riot find Mrs Kingston in time, or will she become one more regret among many? 


My Review:
I have to admit I always pick up review requests for self-published books with a jaundiced eye but I was more than pleasantly surprised by Flynn’s book. I was enthralled and wanted to immediately purchase the next two in the Ravenwood Mystery series posthaste, no matter how large my review pile. And that’s saying a lot for me.

Of course it helps that I love the era and genre, historical detective novels. Atticus Riot is a wonderfully developed character. We’ve obviously come in the rebirth end of things, for Atticus as well as the newest adventure he steps into. Thus, the title, well-fitting for this first book in a series. Riot returns to San Francisco from a sojourn in Europe to put an end to the former business he and his dead partner ran, the Ravenwood Detective Agency, conveniently located just up the block from Pinkerton’s. However, his manager, Tim, talks him into just one more case before he officially retires. An heiress has been kidnapped.

Throughout the case Riot is visited with the ghostly advice of his late partner, for whose death he cannot forgive himself. He’s haunted by past cases where he hasn’t been quick enough to prevent death and makes it a goal to see it doesn’t happen this time. As the body count rises, however, Riot’s last case may become a lost cause.

There is so much rich history in the era and area that Flynn could have easily lost us in detail. She does introduce a quirky cast of characters who have taken over the Ravenwood mansion and then drops them, but I hope we’ll see more of them in the future. The pacing is perfect, and the twist is that the reader is treated to events of the crime in a back-and-forth catch-up chase until one day time equals out.

Surprises, not exactly cheat-the-reader moments but very subtle hints and clues will keep readers who adore this type of fiction on their toes. Told in multiple viewpoints from Riot and the victim’s points of views, well-researched. Near flawless writing shows the care the author took with her book.
A review copy was provided through VoraciousReadersOnly.com

About the Author:
Sabrina lives in perpetual fog and sunshine with a rock troll and two crazy imps. She spent her youth trailing after insanity, jumping off bridges, climbing towers, and riding down waterfalls in barrels. After spending fifteen years wrestling giant hounds and battling pint-sized tigers, she now travels everywhere via watery portals leading to anywhere.




Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Julianna Deering and Dressed For Death


A recency-ero costume party should be no more than an amusing diversion, but it seems, wherever Drew Farthing goes, mystery--and murder--are on the guest list.


Drew and Madeline Farthering arrive at a Regency-Era house party at Winteroak House, excited to be reunited with old friends, including Drew’s former Oxford classmate Talbot Cummins. Tal is there with his fiancée, Alice Henley, and though many present seem worried about the couple, nobody is prepared when Alice dies from an apparent overdose. Tal refuses to believe she’d taken the drugs intentionally, and a dark question arises of whether the death is an accident or murder. The police have their own information though, and Drew is shocked when they arrest someone he’s trusted and admired since his childhood—someone who’s been smuggling drugs into the country for years. Stunned by what has happened, Tal begs Drew to get to the bottom of everything, but Drew’s never felt more unsettled. Questioning his own ability to see people as they really are, Drew doesn’t know who to trust, and he’s not ready for the secrets he’s about to uncover—or the danger he’ll bring down on everyone he holds dear.

PURCHASE


About the author:

JULIANNA DEERING has always been an avid reader and a lover of storytelling, whether on the page, the screen or the stage. This, along with her keen interest in history and her Christian faith, shows in her tales of love, forgiveness and triumph over adversity. A fifth-generation Texan, she makes her home north of Dallas with three spoiled cats and, when not writing, spends her free time quilting, cross stitching and watching NHL hockey.