Review: Conflict of Interest

Conflict of Interest by C.G. Macington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Preston York is the brilliant second York son, always viewed as the dilletante, the clothes horse etc while all the dynasty's expectations fall on his older brother. When goaded by his father and brother that he wouldn't last five minutes in the ER he takes that bet - although being Preston he has his scrubs tailored and still wears ridiculously expensive shoes (Gucci loafers).

Dr Lucas Silva is from the other end of the spectrum financially speaking, but through hard work he has worked his way up to Chief Resident at St Jude's hospital, he's not going to let the Chairman's entitled son swan his way around the hospital pretending to be a doctor - he's going to give Preston every scut job he can. In the meantime Preston is determined to prove everyone wrong.

This is a lovely opposites attract, finding your calling romance. My only gripe would be it was a teensy bit too similar to the first book.

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Review: In Her Own League

In Her Own League by Liz Tomforde
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reese Remington is now the first female owner of a major league baseball team, having been passed the ownership by her grandfather. There was a delay in her taking over (due to her sleazy ex) and her grandfather made some expensive decisions in the meantime which means that Reese has to make a lot of budget cuts to try and claw the team back into the black. First on her hit list is the team's manager Emmett Montgomery, his current salary might be ludicrously small, but as one of the most successful managers in the league with his contract due for renewal that is about to change. Also, her grandfather pandered to him to a ridiculous extent, refurbishing the team plane to accommodate his daughter when she was nannying for their star pitcher etc.

Emmett thinks his new boss is sexy AF, but she seems to hate him and constantly brings up the fact that SHE will be negotiating his new contract. He is finally happy, doing a job he loves with his daughter settled, and the two players he considers to be pseudo-sons in close proximity. The last thing he wants to do is move elsewhere.

This is a fantastic enemies to lovers, forbidden romance with lots of politics with the advisory board not wanting a woman running the team etc. My only issue was that it felt very similar to Irresistible You by Kate Meader, just substitute hockey for baseball and veteran player for manager. Nevertheless, a very enjoyable romance with a wonderful MMC who 100% supports the FMC once they get on the same page. A single Dad, father-figure and all-round nice guy, no wonder readers wanted him to have his own book.

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Review: Abby Offsides

Abby Offsides by Anna McCallie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When Abby's fiancée cheats on her, then leaves her for the other woman shortly before their wedding she knows she has to leave Boston and her job at the Red Sox, on a whim she moves to Liverpool to be with her BFF Amina and applies for a marketing job with Mersey FC, the joke is she knows absolutely nothing about football (or soccer as she calls it).

On the day of her interview Abby has a jokey encounter with a stranger who later turns out to be Lachlan Ramsay, Mersey's latest signing, a world-famous footballer from Scotland. There is an instant vibe, even a connection, but Abby has been told in no uncertain terms that the job is not a stepping stone to becoming a WAG. Moreover, Lachlan is married, and Abby has just come out of a six-year relationship.

But it's difficult when you find someone who gets your sense of humour, whose face lights up when you enter a room, whose eyes catch yours wherever you go, and soon Abby starts thinking what if?

This was a book of two halves for me (football pun intended). I really liked the start, I liked the banter between Lachlan and Abby and I liked the way in which they tried very hard to keep it professional. However, about halfway through it deteriorated for me, things became repetitive, neither Abby nor Lachlan had the guts to say anything meaningful, and they may not have crossed the line but it certainly looked and felt that way. The book picked up again towards the end but by that point I thought they were both quite immature people.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: Watch Them Fall: A must-read Scottish police procedural from one of tartan noir's greatest

Watch Them Fall: A must-read Scottish police procedural from one of tartan noir's greatest by Marion Todd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

DI Clare Mackay is fighting fires on several fronts. First, her partner Al has taken on a new job which keeps him away from home several days a week. She was offered his old job but wanted to stay true to her roots, which unfortunately means she needs to deal with Superintendent Meakin's disappointment. Second, there is planned protest march on Saturday through St Andrews against an application to build 50 luxury homes in the area. Third, a body has just been fished out of the river, it could just be a tragic accident, someone falling in whilst under the influence, but it could also be murder. And then, the cherry on the cake, Clare gets asked to divert her time to placating a wealthy couple (the ones planning to build the luxury homes) about a house break-in, where nothing was taken. Apparently the Superintendent believes that the couple, Rex and Erika Freeman, may have been targeted by the protestors.

It seems as though the cases might all be connected, but can Clare solve the crimes in time?

I can't believe this is the tenth book, or that it took me so long to start reading it! As usual, the mundanity of home life is interspersed with police legwork, theories, wagon wheels, and politics. Thoroughly enjoyable.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: A Deadly Episode

A Deadly Episode by Anthony Horowitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A producer has decided to film one of Anthony Horowitz's books about the private detective Daniel Hawthorne in Hastings with Anthony and Daniel as consultants. The director has chosen to bring in an external screenwriter who has some unusual ideas, thinking the detective story (about a woman who hits two young children while driving) is the least interesting part of the book and showcasing her own political beliefs.

From the start it appears that the actor playing Hawthorne is almost universally disliked. He has slept with several of the people on set, had the runner fired, treats the actor playing Anthony with contempt, and ignores the director's instructions. Frankly it's no surprise to anyone when he is found murdered, by a sharp Japanese knife in the back of the neck. The Hastings police are not familiar with murder investigations and invite Hawthorne to assist on the case.

I haven't read any of the preceding five books in this series, but I very much enjoyed reading The Marble Hall Murders by the same author earlier this year so I decided to request an ARC when I sat this on NetGalley. This was an odd book for me. A book written by an author which features himself as a character, who is himself being played by an actor in a film about a fictional book which the author is supposed to have written *breathe*.

Horowitz appears to be the bumbling Holmes to Hawthorne's Sherlock, he misses lots of clues, gets the wrong end of the stick, and is being played as an overweight greasy-looking scruff in comparison to the movie star good looks of the actor playing Hawthorne. Generally I am not a fan of Sherlock Holmes (in any of his written or film/TV adaption guises), I find the 'telling' rather than showing (because only he sees the clues) rather wearing. However, I rather enjoyed this, there was a logic to Hawthorne's deductions and most of them weren't too hard to see (in retrospect). I would definitely read more in this series, particularly when they are set in parts of the world that I know.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: The Lone Island Mystery

The Lone Island Mystery by Emylia Hall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pippa Grant is the caretaker on Lone Island nature reserve when she finds the body of a young man, Axel Marks washed up on the shore. The police think it may be suicide, or an accident as there is evidence that he had been drinking heavily, but she is not convinced and calls in Jayden and Ally to find the truth.

Axel had been a soldier in Afghanistan, discharged on medical grounds, he had slept rough and moved around for a few years. Most recently he had been staying in a decrepit camper van parked in the grounds of Porthmerrin House, where his mother had been a housekeeper. Apparently the owner, Edward Grey had asked his son Lucas to find Axel and invite him back. In fact it was Lucas who raised the alarm when Axel went missing.

As Ally and Jayden dig deeper there seem to be lots of secrets and numerous people have motives for (possibly) killing Axel. Can they get to the bottom of things and will DS Skinner and DC Mullins be a help or a hindrance?

This was a hugely enjoyable mystery with lots of red herrings. If you've enjoyed other books in this series then I'm sure you'll love this too.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: The Statistically Unlikely Rebound: A Grad or Die Romance, Book #1

The Statistically Unlikely Rebound: A Grad or Die Romance, Book #1 by Parker Elling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Daisy Zhang-Wainwright is dumped by her boyfriend Ethan only a few weeks before she was due to join him from California at MIT, she'd even shipped some of her belongings to his place.

She has to find a new apartment in a hurry, then discovers that her downstairs neighbour is Ethan's bête noir Professor Lars Berg-Anderson who apparently got caught in a compromising position with an undergraduate in one of the labs, excluded Ethan from a project he had worked on, and is generally a bad egg. But when Daisy actually meets Lars she discovers he might be a bit taciturn but he is also very kind, and the more she gets to know him the less likely it seems that he did all the things Ethan suggested.

Then she discovers at a faculty drinks party that Ethan had been cheating on her with another woman, her first reaction is to pretend that she and Lars are now dating ... and Lars agrees!

I loved this fake dating STEM romance, devoured it!

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: Misery Hates Company

Misery Hates Company by Elizabeth Hobbs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Miss Marigold Manners' world collapses when she discovers that her beloved (if somewhat flaky) parents squandered their money before dying of the influenza. Instead of finishing her degree in classical studies followed a career in archaeology, Marigold has been advised to throw herself on the mercy of friends and distant family to help her eke out her paltry annuity of $100 a year. There is an alternative, marriage to the handsome, debonair, and charming Cab Cox, but Marigold knows that marriage, even to someone she loves as much as Cab, would mean the end of her dreams of independence and travel.

One letter from a previously unknown relative catches her eye. It talks of a great wrong done to Marigold's mother that must be made right and it comes from ... Great Misery Island on the New England coast.

Elizabeth Hobbs says in the author note at the end that this is an homage to the great classic Cold Comfort Farm and I totally see that - in fact for at least the first half of the book I thought it was a barely concealed rip off as Marigold uses modern thinking to coax and cajole her long-lost (semi-feral) family into the 1890s.

But in this book the something nasty in the woodshed is something very nasty indeed, a young girl is drowned, and the one of Marigold's relatives is found dead ... all the signs point to Marigold, can she clear her name and uncover the murderer(s)?

I thoroughly enjoyed this once I got over the Cold Comfort Farm similarities, lots of twists and turns to keep you guessing right to the end.

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Review: Murder After Christmas

Murder After Christmas by Rupert Latimer
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF at 18%.

I gave this a second try, but the writing was so arch I couldn't bear it - nearly 20% in and no murder, although I don't fancy Uncle Willie's chances of surviving to the New Year since so many relatives appear to actively wishing/plotting his death.

Normally I love a Golden Age detective story, I even love parodies but this ... not so much.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: The Edge of Darkness

The Edge of Darkness by Vaseem Khan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Persis Wadia has been exiled from Bombay to the Naga Hills District where she is staying in a crumbling colonial-style hotel. Her lover, the Englishman Archie Blackmore lies in a coma in Bombay, being tended to by his wife. Things are all very quiet, despite the Naga people's rebellious activities in the surrounding jungle, until one of her fellow guests, a prominent local politician, is found murdered in his locked room - decapitated in his bath with his head nowhere to be found!

Given the circumstances Persis is sure that one of the guests or staff at the hotel must have committed the crime. Was it the politician's loyal aide? The American husband and wife missionaries? The American businessman? The Naga woman who owns the hotel? And how did they murder him when the door was locked?

While this took me a long time to get into, once it got going the action was think and fast. Once more, Persis seems to get injured an inordinate amount of times over the course of just a few days, the woman must have a skull of titanium!

I was congratulating myself on guessing the identity of the murderer (albeit not necessarily for the right reasons) but (without spoiling the plot) the ending felt a bit like everything including the kitchen sink.

I enjoyed this, but not as much as the previous book.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

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Review: Deal Breaker

Deal Breaker by Susie Tate
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lady Poppy Sterling is a diminutive ray of sunshine, while organising charity fundraisers for her family's personal foundation she also interviews celebrities on the red carpet and has a reputation as a bit of a party girl, which might have been true when she was just starting out but now she takes her responsibilities seriously.

Rory Wallace is a Scottish rugby player, and Poppy's brother Rafe's best friend. Poppy has had a crush on him for years, ever since he patiently helped a dyslexic Poppy with her homework. Five years ago they became an item and then ... he ghosted her. Pathetically, she still fancies the pants off him and his very presence on the red carpet is likely to turn her into a gibbering wreck.

Rory thought Poppy was the one, but when she deliberately set him up with an interview when he was drunk he realised she was just a scheming aristocrat pretending to slum-it to get a story. He hates her party-girl persona, the drinking, and the partying. Living up to the Scottish stereotype Rory is grumpy and avoids the press at all costs.

Now the two of them are being flung together in a worthy cause, a Guinness World Record breaking attempt as a fund-raiser for Motor Neurone Disease which affects one of Rory's best friends and former teammates.

Will these two get a second chance at romance in this opposites attract, best friend's little sister romance? Or will Rory only see what's in front of his face and listen to false friends? I think you know LOL.

What a wonderful gift Susie Tate gave me - an ARC for Valentine's Day, I devoured it despite having many, many overdue ARCs that I should have been reading instead.

I received an ARC from the author via BookFunnel.

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