Review: Winter Lost

Winter Lost by Patricia Briggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mercy hasn't recovered from what the artefact known as the Soul Taker did to her, although she is trying to conceal it from her friends and mate. In addition, the vampire Bonafrata is stalking her and torturing innocents while he forces Mercy to listen on the phone.

To top it all, Mercy's half-brother Gary arrives on the pack's doorstep, incoherent and malnourished. Mercy calls Zee and Zee calls local frost giant Ymir who concludes it is a curse, but only his brother Hrimnir can release Gary because it is his magic.

In a quest to find Hrimnir, Adam and Mercy travel to Montana in Winter, to the ranch where Gary was working where they learn that Gary stole a precious artefact from Hrimnir and left it in a local resort which is guarded by a water spirit and Hrimnir cannot enter. In retaliation, Hrimnir has brought a snow storm on the mountain and vowed no-one can leave the resort until his stolen artefact is returned.

So now Mercy and Adam have to battle a blizzard, find an artefact AND persuade an angry frost giant to release his spell on Gary. Throw in a whole host of fae and other creatures and a ritual that must be performed on a certain day and its just business-as-usual for the pair of them LOL. Oh, and some of Adam's men have been attacked in South America and the three other dominant males in Adam's pack are struggling to find a way of working together.

As always, I looooooved this. But (also as always) I have questions, why was he(view spoiler)[Hugo (hide spoiler)] him(view spoiler)[Garmr (hide spoiler)]? Why did he(view spoiler)[Coyote (hide spoiler)] do it in the first place? And why did the other he(view spoiler)[Hrimnir (hide spoiler)]do that(view spoiler)[make Hugo (hide spoiler)]?

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: Under a Summer Skye

Under a Summer Skye by Sue Moorcroft
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first in a new series featuring adopted sisters Valentina, Esmeralda and Altheadora Wynter. This first one features Thea, the youngest.

Thea was a gardener at a venue which was part of a reality TV show when she was involved in a car accident which had life-changing consequences for Fredek Kowski, the cyclist who was hit by her car, even though he was totally at fault by texting in the middle of the road just around a blind bend. Although Thea initially did everything she could to help him, including appearing in his road-safety videos, the dissection of her life by social media trolls and trial by the internet forced her to withdraw entirely and she ended up as gardener at Rothach Hall on the isle of Skye where her sister Ezz is HR manager for a wealthy Norwegian couple who have restored the Hall and gardens. But Thea's life is about to be overturned, Fredek is gathering a social media following as an influencer and he wants Thea to help boost his numbers, with or without her help.

Deveron Dowie had been co-proprietor of a sports news business until his business partner over-extended them, crashed the business and ran off with Dev's girlfriend. In an attempt to claw his life back from the brink, Dev accepts a commission piece for a clickbait celebrity website which is running a 'Where Are They Now' series. His job is to write about Thea, who is also the adoptive daughter of two relatively well-known musicians who died tragically when she was only a teenager. Dev travels to Skye and gets a seasonal job working as under gardener for Thea, but soon realises he wants nothing to do with the article. If only it were that simple.

I've said this before, I love Sue Moorcroft's Middledip series but when she leaves there I struggle. Unfortunately, this book fell into that camp too. I can't quite put my finger on what I don't love, maybe I found Thea a bit 'wet' for a forty-something year old woman, I could better understand her actions and behaviour if she were twenty-something. Also I found Dev's reasoning for not coming clean to be even weaker than it usually is in such circumstances - again something more forgivable in a twenty year old than a forty year old.

Overall, this was a pleasant enough, fade-to-black, romance set on the beautiful isle of Skye.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: Last to Die: A totally gripping Scottish crime thriller

Last to Die: A totally gripping Scottish crime thriller by Doug Sinclair
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The second outing for DS Malkie McCulloch.

On a cold Edinburgh night Malkie is called out to a fatal stabbing in a park, following a trail of blood drops he is led to a house, but after calling for back-up he hears an altercation inside and sees a burly man creeping up behind an elderly woman, he calls out to warn her but gets knocked out for his pains. When he awakes the house is empty.

The elderly woman, Lilibeth Crosbie, was a retired police officer. Worried for her safety the police set out to find her, only to find that two missing persons reports had already been filed for her, 45 years ago by someone called Ben Hutchison. Digging further back into the archives, it appears that Crosbie's career had effectively been terminated after she realised a female prisoner from custody on New Year's Eve 1977 on her cognisance and the girl apparently got lost and froze to death.

Something, or someone, has stirred up memories of that night and one by one the officers who were on duty at that police station that night are being hunted down and killed.

I really enjoyed this book, less graphically gory than the first book (my taste tends more towards police procedural and cosy than thrillers), I recognised the link between the way in which the victims were killed. However, sitting here writing my review a scant five minutes after finishing reading I have lots of questions - some of the 'what came first, the chicken or the egg?' variety. (view spoiler)[Why/how did Crosbie disappear? Presumably Megan was totally corrupt from the start, but why would Ben work for the woman who tortured him? And how did Ben work for her when he was in the Waverley Church Mission for 45 years? Why did Megan order Crosbie murdered now? Why did Crosbie send the 'gifts' after all these years? Was Ferguson's knitting a red herring? (hide spoiler)]

Read my spoilers in my Goodreads review, here.

So overall, really enjoyed it but I now have questions and I'm not sure if I didn't read it properly or if the plot doesn't really hold up to scrutiny.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Also available on Kindle Unlimited.

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Review: Six Motives for Murder

Six Motives for Murder by Frances Brody
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

This is the second in a series although it can easily be read as a standalone.

Its 1969, Amanda Chapin, daughter of local landowner Lancelot Chapin, is getting married at the lcoal church with the reception at the family home Brackerley Manor. The women from Brackerley Open Prison have been invited to cater the wedding breakfast and the whole village is invited. Amanda's mother died when she was only six years old and her father remarried a much younger woman, Penny, who has been more of a sister than a mother to Amanda. Indeed, it is a local woman, Gloria Thwaite, who looked after Amanda when she was a child, and as a result she and her husband are given the honorary titles of auntie and uncle.

But at the wedding reception one of the inmates, Linda, goes out looking for another who has been on break for too long and finds Mr Chapin slumped on a bench, stabbed through the heart.

it seems as though there is no shortage of potential suspects, with rumours of infidelity, money problems, secret babies, unpopular property development plans, fortune hunters, and suicides which could all be motives for murder (and there's six of them). Added to which, three residents of the local old people's home, also part-owned by Mr Chapin, appear to doing their own version of The Thursday Murder Club and have dragged Nell Lewis, newly appointed governor of the prison, into their investigations.

it is down to DS Angela Ambrose to piece together the witness statements, wedding photos, and other evidence and uncover the murderer.

I haven't read the first book in the series (although I did recently take advantage of a 99p offer and will be reading it shortly) and so i was expecting Nell to be the 'detective' in this series but while her personal and professional life do feature strongly, she was definitely on the periphery of the investigation.

I did enjoy this, once the murder happened. Prior to that there seemed a lot of explaining, presumably to set up each of the potential murderers. It kept me guessing to the end.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: Love in Provence

Love in Provence by Jo Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you ever wondered what happened to Del and Fabien and their lavender farm in Provence, wait no longer because here it is.

Things are going pretty well, Henri and Rhi are travelling the world together while Del manages their restaurant Henri's, she and Fabien are busy, although his brocant is not as busy as they would like. Then the infamous mistral descends leaving behind it a literal trail of destruction and some tragic news. Afraid she might be holding Fabien too close, Del encourages him to go on tour with his old band when one of the band members injures himself, but that leaves her alone to manage the lavender harvest and the itinerant pickers at a time when her brain feels totally foggy.

AS Del lurches from one crisis to another her livelihood and her romance appear to be at risk, can she, her friends, and a bunch of misfits here for the lavender picking make everything right?

I enjoyed this, but I felt some of the drama was a bit manufactured, I would have enjoyed seeing Del and Fabien again without the angst.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: Not Another Love Song

Not Another Love Song by Julie Soto
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gwen Jackson plays violin for the Manhattan Pops orchestra and plays at weddings to supplement her meagre earnings. One day a last minute wedding at a huge mansion creates a drama - the bride wanted a cellist, Gwen has played cello (a very little) but wouldn't call herself proficient, and her music is for the violin. To add to the disaster, one of the guests, Alex, lends her his cello - Alex is none other than Xander Thorne, first cello in the same orchestra and member of the hugely successful electric strings band Thorne and Roses, who Gwen may have had a crush on, until he joined the Pops orchestra where his contempt for the other musicians and the musical arrangements made his look like a jerk. But here he is, watching her butcher the music on his cello.

Xander can't believe his eyes and ears, this woman admits to not being a cellist but is sight translating the violin music into cello music, and doing a pretty good job, when he hears that she is also in the Pops orchestra he can't believe he hasn't noticed her before.

After the wedding Gwen seems to see Alex/Xander everywhere, she can only think he is mocking her, trying to get her to embarrass herself so that he can expose her somehow. But the truth is, Alex is mesmerised by someone who is truly a musical prodigy, not just the product of intense training since he was three years old. Dominated by controlling father figures, Xander has lost interest in composing, until the day he met Gwen, since then there's a melody running through his head which he can't get rid of. But when professional rivalries spill over and lines are blurred will their burgeoning romance be able to withstand the truth?

I loved Forget Me Not so when I saw this cover and realised it was by the same author I jumped at the chance to read it. Whilst being a totally different story it had the same vibe, or maybe its just the FMC struggling while the MMC is hugely successful. Anyway Ama and Elliot also make an appearance, they are involved in the wedding where Alex meets Gwen properly.

Loved it, loved it, loved it. Rock star meets pop orchestra, meets poor little rich boy meets poor musical genius.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: Summer Romance

Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ali Morris isn't coping well after the death of her beloved mother and the collapse of her marriage, showering, washing her hair, trousers with a zip, emptying the dishwasher etc are all beyond her most days. The irony is that she is a professional organiser (like those two women who scream a lot on that TV show).

Then whilst walking her dog in the park he introduces her to this gorgeous guy, by peeing on his foot! Nevertheless he seems interested in Ali and asks her on a date, which seems to be going swimmingly, until he suddenly becomes a bit 'off' and seems to lose interest.

Despite the unhappy ending to their date, Ali is bubbling over with new feelings. Until she discovers that her date, Ethan, is none other than her best friend's irritating little brother Scooter. Scooter lives a three hour drive away and is very clear that he never wants to return to his home town, his parents still think he's unreliable and his big sister thinks he's a loser whereas he has created a new life for himself upstate where he is a valued member of the community. Ali can't leave town, all her memories are here and she needs to be close to her ex-husband for when he deigns to take their three children (if he isn't busy doing something else).

But with those clear parameters set, there's no harm in a summer romance is there? The trouble is, Ethan makes himself indispensable to Ali and when the summer ends will she be able to let him go?

I love Annabel Monaghan, I love her heroines and they truly deserve the wonderful heroes she gives them and this was no different. Loved it, loved it, loved it.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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