Those clever kitties are joined in their crime fighting by a ghost this time!
Jedediah Biddeford’s skeleton was found in the previous book and now his ghost makes an appearance trying to find out who killed him. Is there any link to the murder of a medium staying at the guesthouse in the present day?
Guesthouse owner Josie is anxious that another mysterious death will put potential guests off staying with her, and bank manager Myron is making her worried that he will recall the loan she needs to complete the renovations and return the hotel to its former glory.
Once again Josie’s mum and friend Millie are on hand to help investigate while the cats stay one step ahead thanks to the information provided by dead Jed.
I enjoyed the extra angle of the ghost and alleged mediums and psychics. The interaction between the cats and the ghost were quite funny at times. I liked the continuity with the previous books although it would work perfectly well as a stand alone book if you haven’t read the others.
As with previous books, it was fun to see the way the cats view situations compared to Josie’s perspective, and how they use their feline skills to suggest clues to their human counterpart.
The narrative is written in a light and humorous way despite the fact the book revolves around murder! The murder is not graphically described and author Leighann Dobbs leaves plenty of clues around to hint and distract both Josie and us as readers.
Book Description:
Fortune tellers and mediums have descended on the Oyster Cove Guesthouse, determined to finally solve the mystery of local seafarer Jedediah Biddeford’s murder 300 years ago. New owner Josie Waters has suddenly got bigger problems than burning the breakfasts: she’s up to her elbows in tarot cards and tea leaves…
When one of the mediums is found dead with an ominous note nearby, everything points to Jedediah’s ghost being the culprit. Suddenly, Josie finds that the fate of her guesthouse depends on not one murder but two, and she’s not going to rely on a crystal ball for answers. Despite the fact that cookbooks and candlesticks keep mysteriously falling off tables, Josie is sure there’s no such thing as ghosts. But guesthouse cats Nero and Marlowe know better…
Aided by her mom and eccentric family friend Millie, Josie sets out to prove the identity of the killer without summoning any spirits. Luckily Nero and Marlowe know the truth about ghosts, ghouls and things that go bump in the night and they are on the case! Can they make Josie realize she is scratching up the wrong tree before the killer strikes again?
From the bestselling author of the USA Today bestselling Mystic Notch series, purrfect for fans of Adele Abbott, cat lovers and anybody who loves to curl up with a page-turning cozy mystery.
Author Bio:
USA Today bestselling author, Leighann Dobbs, discovered her passion for writing after a twenty year career as a software engineer. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband Bruce, their trusty Chihuahua mix Mojo and beautiful rescue cat, Kitty. Her book “Dead Wrong” won the “Best Mystery Romance” award at the 2014 Indie Romance Convention. Her book “Ghostly Paws” was the 2015 Chanticleer Mystery & Mayhem First Place category winner in the Animal Mystery category.
Social Media Links:
@leighanndobbs
Katie is shocked but hopeful when she discovers she is pregnant. Her partner Ian is ready to commit to being a family and organises a new home for the family. But on arrival Katie discovers the house is in a state of disrepair. Unable to turn to her family or friends, she meets Paula in a cafe who offers to help.
Earlier than expected Katie goes into labour and is delivered of her twins. Ian is abroad and misses the event so Katie relies on Paula to help her cope with two newborns. Paula’s influence over Katie increases whilst her relationships with her mother, sister and lover disintegrate as lies are revealed…
The Woman Upstairs is a very dark book. The ways that Paula undermines Katie are awful yet fascinating to watch, playing on her insecurities and exposing the lies that surround her in her other relationships. The development of their relationship is insidious and overwhelming and ultimately very disturbing.
As a mother, I fully understand Katie’s insecurities about her abilities as well as her doubts about her relationships with her partner and family. I’m sure many other people will understand the importance of trust at such a vulnerable time and this emotional reality makes the book believable.
Ruth Heald has written the book in the first person so we are privy to Katie’s muddled and mixed thoughts and feelings that are being manipulated by the volatile Paula. As an outsider, I wanted to shout at Katie to escape Paula’s clutches, and rebuild the relationships that she needs to support herself and her babies.
We also see chapters from the past: a family being devastated by domestic abuse. I had several guesses about the connection of this second narrative with the present day events and the multiple possibilities made the book dramatic and increased my anticipation as I read.
Take a look at my review of Ruth Heald’s The Mother’s Mistake
Author: Ruth Heald
Book: The Woman Upstairs
Publication Day: 10/09/19
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Description:
You’d be lost without her…
She’s the shoulder you cry on when the father of your children disappears.
She’s the person you turn to when he comes back, begging for forgiveness.
She’s by your side when you discover his guilty secrets.
She helps rock your babies to sleep when they cry.
She’s your friend when you have no one else.
She’s the woman upstairs, whose feet you hear treading around as you drift off at night, thankful you aren’t alone.
But what if you’re about to lose everything because of her?
One of the most twisted, shocking, heart-stopping psychological thrillers you’ll ever read! Fans of K.L. Slater, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train, prepared to be kept up way past your bedtime as you race through this addictive page-turner.
Author Bio:
Ruth Heald is a psychological thriller writer from a suburban Buckinghamshire town. She studied Economics at Oxford and then worked in an eclectic mix of sectors from nuclear decommissioning to management consulting.
Seeking a more creative environment, she found a role at the BBC and worked there for nine years before leaving to write full time. Ruth is fascinated by psychology and finding out what drives people to violence, destruction and revenge. She’s married with one daughter and her novels explore our greatest fears in otherwise ordinary, domestic lives.
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This is an utterly beautiful book, powerful yet understated.
A 90-something year old woman in a nursing home reflects on her life, the triumph and the tragedy. Her husband Hugh died during the Second World War but she continued to write to him mouring his loss and that of the life they had planned to share together..
Despite the brevity of their time together, her love endures for the rest of her life. She vowed to avenge his death by tracking down the officer she considers responsible for ordering an impossible mission. Now the truth of the past is close to being uncovered, and in the present day Evelyn needs to use her training to misdirect her family and police in order to protect herself.
My Name Is Eva is an absolutely fascinating and compelling book. Evelyn’s lifestory is revealed to us in a non linear narrative so the past is revealed in tandem with her letters to Hugh and snippets of her life, but not always chronologically.
Evelyn’s strength of character is revealed thtough her responses to the post war devastation she encounters helping refugees in Germany and to the personal trauma she copes with. Her resilience makes her a wonderful character to read about and I absolutely loved the way she acts in the present day to fool her niece and the police investigating the guns and blood stained clothing found in her house.
Historically, I found the book very accurate and moving as it demonstrates the hardships faced by Germans and the liberated concentration camp survivors. Author Suzanne Goldring is not afraid of showing the brutality of mankind and shows through Evelyn’s experience that atrocities were not confined to the war.
Overall, an impressive and deeply moving book, sehr gut!
Book Description:
You can pay a terrible price for keeping a promise…
Evelyn Taylor-Clarke sits in her chair at Forest Lawns Care Home in the heart of the English countryside, surrounded by residents with minds not as sharp as hers. It would be easy to dismiss Evelyn as a muddled old woman, but her lipstick is applied perfectly, and her buttons done up correctly. Because Evelyn is a woman with secrets and Evelyn remembers everything. She can never forget the promise she made to the love of her life, to discover the truth about the mission that led to his death, no matter what it cost her…
When Evelyn’s niece Pat opens an old biscuit tin to find a photo of a small girl with a red ball entitled ‘Liese, 1951’ and a passport in another name, she has some questions for her aunt. And Evelyn is transported back to a place in Germany known as ‘The Forbidden Village,’ where a woman who called herself Eva went where no one else dared, amongst shivering prisoners, to find the man who gambled with her husband’s life…
A gripping, haunting and compelling read about love, courage and betrayal set in the war-battered landscape of Germany. Fans of The Letter, The Alice Network and The Nightingale will be hooked.
Author Bio:
Following an eventful career as a public relations consultant, specialising in business and travel, Suzanne Goldring turned to writing the kind of novels she likes to read, about the extraordinary lives of ordinary people. Two of her novels have been placed in the Winchester Writers’ Conference First Three Pages of a Novel competition. Her novel The Way We Lied, can be read as a serial on her blog site suzannegoldring.wordpress.com. She is currently working on a novel about delusion,deception and death, set in Corfu.
Suzanne drew on her experiences of living in a timbered 14th century house, where she raised two daughters and a variety of livestock, to write Powerless. All her other novels are pure fiction and any resemblance to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Twitter: @SuzanneGoldring
Two families, separated by lies and secrets. His Secret Family opens with a wedding and the collision of the two families with dramatic consequences. We are then taken back to explore how the family situations developed.
Mark was married to Paula but he walks away from her and their daughter Daisy, unable to cope with her autism diagnosis. He returns to Jenny, the woman he had a one night stand with years ago and discovers that he has a daughter he never knew about.
This is a book about regret, redemption and second chances. There is great sadness and it is impossible to read His Secret Family without a rollercoaster of emotions. I felt so angry with Mark and his mother for the way they treated Paula and Daisy. There is teenaged angst as Ava discovers the truth about her father. There is grief for opportunities lost as well as family deaths which are devastating to read.
Despite my anger at Mark and hatred of his actions, I do also have sympathy for him as he loses so much through his decisions and mistakes.
Jenny and Paula are both strong women, determined to to the best for their children whatever the sacrifice required. As a reader, you want them both to find happiness and peace.
Author Ali Mercer cleverly and effectively interweaves the viewpoints of Paula, Jenny, Ava and Ellie to forward the plot and give different perspectives. This allows us to become emotionally attached to the characters and understand their motivations, creating a deeper emotional understanding of their experience of the book’s events. Excellent!
Take a look at my review of Ali’s previous book Lost Daughter
Title: His Secret Family
Publication Day: The book will be published 11/09/19 but official celebrations will be on 12/09/19
Author: Ali Mercer
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Description:
It’s a beautiful day for a wedding. White roses scent the air and the summer sunlight streams in. A spoon chimes against a champagne flute and the room falls silent. And there he is – my husband – getting to his feet to propose a toast. He’s still handsome. His new wife is next to him, gazing upwards, oblivious.
I’m not supposed to be here. All these years in the same town and I had no idea until I saw his name on the seating plan. He lived with me, once. Loved me. Small-town memories are long, but the people in this room don’t want to remember.
They say the healing is in letting go, but after what he did, he needs to know we haven’t gone away just because he’s shut his eyes.
So I take Daisy by the hand and step forward from the shadows. He notices us and his eyes widen. The champagne glass falls from his hand and smashes. Then he sags forward, making a terrible sound – a sort of strangled scream…
A powerfully emotional novel with a dark secret at its heart. This family drama will keep you hooked until the very last page. Perfect for fans of The Silent Wife, Kate Hewitt and Jodi Picoult.
Author Bio:
Ali decided she wanted to be a writer early on and wrote her first novel when she was at primary school. She did an English degree and spent her early twenties working in various jobs in journalism, including as a reporter for the showbusiness newspaper The Stage. She started writing fiction in earnest after getting married, moving out of London to the Oxfordshire market town of Abingdon and starting a family. She has two children, a daughter and a son who is autistic and was diagnosed when he was four years old.
Ali is fascinated by families, their myths and secrets, and the forces that hold them together, split them up and (sometimes) bring them back together again. She always travels with tissues and a book and has been known to cry over a good story but is also a big fan of the hopeful ending.
Author Social Media Links:
For updates and pictures, follow Ali on Twitter (@AlisonLMercer) or Instagram (@alimercerwriter), or on her Facebook page (AliMercerwriter)
