Review: What Might Have Been

What Might Have Been by Holly Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Sliding Doors-esque dual POV romance.

Lucy is a planner for a local advertising agency when what she really wants to be is a writer. When she finds out the firm is hiring a new writer rather than giving her the promotion she has been promised she throws her toys out of the pram and resigns.

Sitting in the local pub that night, nursing a Virgin Mary she meets a local photographer called Caleb, they are getting along well when she sees her ex-boyfriend Max walking along the street. She and Max have been broken up for ten years but she always thought he was the one, so she rushes out into the street to chat to him and Caleb slips his phone number into her jacket pocket.

What follows are the lives Lucy might have lived if she chooses Max or Caleb, a glamorous life as an advertising copywriter (I think) with Max in London or writing the novel she always dreamed of writing at home with Caleb. Both versions face similar issues, secrets from the past and family drama. So there is symmetry but also divergence.

I think in these sorts of stories the reader always has a favourite, Holly Martin does a good job of trying to make both male leads likeable characters which helps a lot.

I enjoyed reading this, the impact of choices made, paths followed.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: The Kitchen Front

The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Two and a half stars.

Four women compete in a wartime cooking competition, with the winner getting the chance to be the first female presenter of the BBC's radio programme The Kitchen Front.

Audrey is a young impoverished widow with three sons, working herself to the bone making pies in order to repay the loan her sister gave her. Lady Gwendoline, Audrey's younger sister who married money and now lords it over the countryside as the wife of black marketeer Sir Reginald. Nell is Gwendoline's kitchen maid, extremely shy she is supposedly helping the cook, Mrs Quince, but in reality it is Nell who does the majority of the cooking these days. Finally Zelda, born in poverty in the East End of London, she worked her way up to sous-chef in some of the grandest restaurants in London until she was called up to be head chef at a meat canning factory owned by Sir Reginald.

Each of the women must create a delicious dish, whilst observing rationing, and hopefully utilising some of the food stuffs which were in good supply (like whale meat or powdered eggs).

This was very slow going for me. I was over a quarter of the way through the book before it started to pull together, before that point we bounced from one woman to the next, not really building a story or any connection with the women. Audrey was a bit of a drip, Gwendoline was spiteful, Nell was a mouse and Zelda was aggressive and shouty. I was giving the book one last try , determined to get at least one-third of the way through, when suddenly the book came together.

Some of the chapters are prefaced by old recipes such as potato peel pie. Unfortunately, in Kindle format they don't really add much, I'd rather have seen a copy of the old government leaflets or newspaper cuttings to give historical heft rather than all the recipes looking the same. Also, they didn't really add to the story, because the chapters described the cooking and preparation (although not in depth) so I would have preferred to have them at the back in an Appendix, maybe with a hyperlink in the ebook, rather than cluttering up the novel.

Sadly the biggest issue with this for me was that it read like a text book narrative, you know the way in which school books could take the most exciting and interesting events in history and turn them into dry recitations of facts? Like that. And don't even get me started on the Hallmark style HEA.

I suppose this might be successful as a way to introduce some of the privations of war and the misogyny of the era to school children, sort of an interactive experience, but I didn't really enjoy this faction.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Out of the Blue

Out of the Blue by P. Dangelico
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Blue was an EMT in LA until 'the incident', then she left her job and broke up with her boyfriend. Now she works for a large animal rescue farm. Her BFF works for an agent and when the latest Hollywood megastar goes off the rails she arranges for him to do his community service at the farm - cash for Blue and her boss Mona and lots of photo-ops with cute animals. The only trouble is that said movie star hasn't exited his airstream for days and his surly, overly-protective brother is giving off serious bad boy, don't mess with me vibes.

Can a run-down farm and its animals work their magic on a jaded film star and heal the rift with his brother?

There is some angst, hey it's Paola Dangelico after all, but it has been dialed back, and okay we don't find out what 'the incident' is until quite a way through the book, but it isn't the elephant in the room so I could live with it. Blue was just charming, sweet, unapologetic, and cute. Aidan and Shane are super sexy but also believable.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Coming Home to Winter Island

Coming Home to Winter Island by Jo Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Ruby is on the brink of possible success as a singer when her voice fails her on the night someone from A&R was coming to watch her band. She originally intends to spend Christmas and the New Year at a vocal retreat in Tenerife to rest and recuperate but a mysterious phone call from a solicitor on a remote Scottish Island persuades her to temporarily postpone her plans.

When RUby gets to the island she discovers that her long estranged grandfather (her deceased father's father) has Alzheimer's and needs to go into a nursing home. However, his rather decrepit but still impressive 'Big House' will need to be sold in order to pay the fees. Ruby thinks all she needs to do is authorise the solicitor to sell the house and then swan off to Tenerife, unfortunately there is a sitting tenant, who refuses to move.

Together Ruby and the sitting tenant, Lachlan, must coax her grandfather to remember the secret formula for his award-winning gin, so that the house can be sold as a going concern rather than a White Elephant, and all before Michaelmas, when the promised place at the nursing home will be given to someone else.

Reuniting family, a small island, a lost recipe, a tight-knit community, a taciturn Scot and a deadline, what more could you ask?

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Review: The Do-Over

The Do-Over by Bethany Turner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

McKenna Keaton think she has been summoned to the boardroom in her swanky New York law firm to pitch to become a senior partner, instead she is put on administrative leave without pay accused of embezzling over $300,000 from the firm. In an attempt to salvage her pride (and conserve money) she leases out her apartment and returns home to Durham, North Carolina.

McKenna has always had a life plan, when she was very young she decided to be a lawyer and she has been 100% focused on that goal ever since. Even at school she chose her dates based on whether they would want more time than she was willing to give. In fact, it would be true to say that McKenna is so focused on her career that she misses some pretty big things, like the fact that her nerdy high school rival Henry Blumenthal is now renowned documentary maker Hank Blume and he looks mighty fine all grown up. One look at Henry (sorry, but Hank is such an old-fashioned name in the UK I can't believe Henry chose it in order to make him sound younger!) and McKenna is reduced to a gibbering idiot, something that has never happened to her before in her thirty-eight years.

This book sits uneasily for me on the boundary between slapstick comedy, rom-com, and women's fiction with a side order of pop-culture infusion. On that last point, in my opinion pop-culture allusions really work bets either when they are so iconic that everyone understands them even if they have never seen the film/read the book etc, or where they are so achingly hip that the reader just feels more cultural for having seen them. This fell between the two stools, referencing films and people I'd never heard of or couldn't remember.

Also, a pet peeve, McKenna is thirty-eight but reads like twenty-eight (or younger), it's as if the author wanted her to be pushing for named partner promotion but realised that could only happen in her late thirties so change McKenna's age without giving her maturity, and don't get me started on her youngest sister Taylor!

Overall, I felt it stalled in the middle and I had no idea where the book was going, I'm not even sure of the relevance of the title TBH. It picked up towards the end but relied upon a lucky coincidence (been deliberately vague) to achieve resolution.

I liked it but I didn't love it.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Meet Me in the Margins

Meet Me in the Margins by Melissa Ferguson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Savannah Cade is an Assistant Acquisitions Editor for a small, high-brow publishing company called Pennington Publishing in Nashville. The owner, Ms Pennington, frowns on populist writing such as romance, Sci-Fi, westerns etc, preferring non-fiction titles. Whilst Savannah is very good at her job, she has a secret, she has been writing her very own romance novel! One day, when Savannah retreats to her secret bolt-hole hidden behind a cabinet in the ARC room she finds that someone has read her manuscript and made scathing comments on it.

Savannah's personal life is a bit of a car crash. She broke up with her long-term boyfriend, who promptly asked out her younger, thinner, more successful, more driven sister Olivia and they got engaged within three months. Now Savannah is reduced to renting her sister's spare room and pretending to be happy about house-sharing with her ex. Also her sister is obsessed with exercise and has started an annual Steps-4-Life Step-a-thon to raise money for charity which means she interrogates Savannah about her daily steps.

Then things take a downturn professionally when Ms Pennington's son William leaves his fancy publishing house in New York to run Pennington Pub with his mother, amid rumours that the business is performing badly. Then a well-respected editor of a romance publishing house who had expressed interest in Savannah's manuscript tells her that the novel needs a lot of work before it could be published, and she only has a few weeks before she retires. Savannah is devastated by the news, but the editor's comments are very similar to those made by her mystery reviewer. Can she persuade the mystery reviewer to give her further feedback so that she can whip her novel into shape?

I have commented so many times this year about the number of re-imaginings of You've Got Mail I've read this year, this is in a similar vein. Savannah gets over her dislike/fear of William Pennington quite quickly and they become friends, but she is also drawn to the wit and vulnerability shown by her mystery reviewer, who she thinks is a colleague called Sam, even though in real life Sam never seems to have the spark of his review comments.

This was just lovely, I really loved the mystery reviewer's comment that Savannah can have one character with a fancy name but not both, because its not opera. I can also sympathise with Savannah reading the Word of the Day and then trying to work it into everyday conversation. It's funny, sweet, charming and I read it in a single weekend when I had much more urgent books to read because it was more appealing than the rest of my TBR pile :)

Highly recommended.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Stepping Up

Stepping Up by Sarah Turner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Beth is a teenager trapped in a thirty-one year old's body. She still lives at home with her parents, gets wasted during the week, flits from one dead-end job to another, can't be relied upon for anything, and is prone to calling in fake sick to work after a boozy night in the pub with her best mate Jory. March 15th is just such a day, hungover and with a car that won't start Beth calls in sick and then switches her phone off so she doesn't have to speak to her boss while she deletes all the damning evidence of the previous night's 'high jinks' from social media.

But the unthinkable has happened, Beth's older sister Emmy and her husband have been involved in a terrible car accident on the M5 motorway, her brother-in-law is dead and her sister is in a coma, their wills stated that Beth was to be the guardian of their fourteen year old daughter Polly and four year old son Ted. How can a woman who can't cook, doesn't know how to use a washing machine, and can't get herself out of bed on time for work, expect to look after two heartbroken children? Sometimes it's the really hard things that make you a grown-up.

I was ruminating about this book last night and thinking how some feelings/experiences, like first love, transcend age, it doesn't matter if you are thirteen or eighty reading about first love (especially first heartbreak) really gets you in the feels. Some things however, become less relatable as we get older. So basically I found the concept of a thirty-one year old woman being so completely useless and behaving like a teenager really irritating/off-putting, and I couldn't understand why Jory (who is a responsible adult with his own home and a career as a teacher) still likes Beth or even wants to hang out with her when she gets stupid drunk.

However, once I got over the first few chapters I really got interested in the book, how Beth steps up for Polly and Ted (in her own way) and grows into an adult. I think one of the things I liked was that the journey was long with lots of set-backs, there was no eureka moment halfway through where Beth starts batch-cooking food for the freezer or making exquisite fancy dress costumes for Ted, it's all gradual and more believable. My only gripe is that it is all too predictable, of course we know Beth is going to step up in the end, it's in the title, etc, etc.

I would be interested in reading other books by this author.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: The Last Reunion

The Last Reunion by Kayte Nunn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

This is the story of a young woman called Beatrix Pelham who was brought up in India and joined the Women's Auxiliary Services (Burma), or Wasbies as they were affectionately known, dispensing teas, sandwiches, cake and a reminder of home to Allied Forces in India and Burma. Although it might sound the most English thin possible, this women were close to the fighting and were required to set up camp in the most of basic of conditions, then serve food and drink to up to 1,000 hungry soldiers, day after day after day, moving from one location to another.

Fast forward to 1999 and Olivia, a young Australian art history graduate is interning at a small art dealer in London when her boss gets a call from an elderly widow who wants to sell her husband's Japanese art collection, including a rare Foxgirl netsuke which was reported stolen in 1976. Olivia is sent to assess the collection and determine whether there is provenance for the netsuke, which could be worth tens of thousands of pounds, but falls ill on the woman's doorstep and gets snowed in for Christmas.

Told partly in 1944/5 and partly in 1999 we discover what life was like for young (Bea started in the Wasbies when she was only twenty) girls from sheltered homes who had to endure the heat and humidity of working in a jungle with only rudimentary housing and equipment. How she came to possess the netsuke, how it was lost and how she reclaimed it.

I really enjoyed reading this book, especially because I hadn't heard of the Wasbies before. However, it wasn't without its flaws. First, everything was quite briefly and superficially described, almost like a diary entry, I didn't really get a feel of what it really felt like to open so many cans of tinned meat in a single day that you got blisters or how long they must have spent making sandwiches every day, it was all just touched on briefly. Secondly, it was all a bit predictable, sanitised and happy ever after. So, a good read but not a great one.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Man Down

Man Down by Kate Meader
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gah! I read it, I think I liked it but it's been so long I can't be sure.

Gunnar Bond is a hockey player, former husband and father whose wife and twin children were killed in a car accident. Since then his only respite from the pain of their loss is texting his wife's phone. Then one day someone answers him. After the initial shock Gunnar starts a relationship with this woman on the other end of the phone, working through his pain and loneliness.

Sadie Yates feels she hit rock bottom a while back and now she's just tunnelling further. Her father is (I think) in prison, she's had to leave LA and move back to Chicago to take care of a step-sister she barely knows and a dog she loathes. She's having to finance everything herself, including taking her sister to ice-hockey lessons.

Of course Sadie is the woman who has been assigned Gunnar's wife's phone number, and of course Gunnar is the professional hockey player who just happens to be teaching at the hockey training. Of course they don't hit it off in real life and moan about it to each other via text (what, you say, yet another riff on You've Got Mail? Why yes I would have to agree).

TBH, hot hockey players, stroppy teenagers, unruly dogs, as she said in Jerry Mcguire, you had me at hello!



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Review: The A to Z of Us

The A to Z of Us by Hannah Doyle
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF at 66%.

Alice and Zach meet at an art exhibition, Zach is the artist and Alice is there to support her friend Natalie who put on the evening viewing. Alice and Zach are complete opposites, even their names start at the opposite ends of the alphabet, he's a romantic and she's a cynic about love.

Zach persuades Alice to go on a series of dates, each one starting with successive letters of the alphabet, since they met at an art gallery their second date is at a bookshop etc, etc.

I quite liked Zach, he was a bit sensitive, although he's now ridiculously good-looking he was a shy, nerdish boy and he still suffers from insecurity, especially after he finds out that his girlfriend of eighteen months was actually seeing someone else all the time and that Zach was 'the other man'. On the other hand, I found Alice to be a very annoying character. Her default reaction appeared to be to call the whole thing off, I can't see that it was Zach's fault that his ex-girlfriend was cheating on her boyfriend and lying to Zach, but apparently it is in Alice-world. Ditto when Alice's BFF, the confident famous comedian acts like an aggressive, jealous, competitive douche, it's Zach's fault for being so sensitive (after he invited the tool to the evening for Alice's benefit).

I started this five months ago and recently made a determined effort to get into the book, but it just seems like a series of dates interspersed with Alice breaking up with Zach for various pointless reasons so at two-thirds of the way through the book I'm officially throwing in the towel.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Mr Irresistible: Lost Boys #2

Mr Irresistible: Lost Boys #2 by Karina Bliss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another book which has been updated and repackaged but was originally a Mills & Boon romance and it does show.

Jordan King is a billionaire philanthropist desperately trying to set up a camp for disadvantaged children, but a couple of articles by investigative reporter Kate Brogan have cast him in a less-than attractive light, which has had repercussions on the camp.

When Jordan meets Kate he tries just a bit too hard to make her fall for his charms, which has the opposite effect. The only way he can undo the damage he has done is to persuade her that he is a good guy, and what better way to do that than to take her camping in the New Zealand wilderness with his ex-girlfriend's son, his estranged father and a stroppy teenager!

Everyone has 'issues', Kate has never forgiven her father for his philandering and is pushing that on Jordan, Jordan is trying to make up for growing up poor by showing off his wealth and his toys, etc etc.

A pleasant enough read but not a patch on the Rock Solid series.

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Review: Wild at Heart

Wild at Heart by Zoe York
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Will Kincaid is a model citizen. Head teacher at the local school, former volunteer firefighter, current Search and Rescue (SAR) volunteer, he's the guy that everyone likes, except one, Catie Berton. He can't believe he offered to be in the Batchelor Auction Catie was organising and she turned him down, because he didn't fit the demographic, and he's been nursing the hurt ever since.

Catie is the local hairdresser and estate agent (because Pine Harbour really is that small), she has a love-hate relationship with both Will and Pine Harbour. She thinks he's a stick-in-the-mud who shoots down all her ideas, he's universally adored while she and her mother were the subjects of town gossip. It doesn't help that she also has a massive crush on him!

Catie is keen to try new things and face her fears. so volunteering for SAR sounds like a great idea, if only it didn't mean she has to run the gauntlet of Will's disapproval every week.

Catie and Will might think they are complete opposites but deep down they are more alike than they imagine.

This book is exactly what you would expect of a small-town enemies to lovers romance between the headteacher of the local school and the sole hairdresser. Cute, cosy. wholesome and a bit boring. Honestly I read this and then had to reread the last two chapters in order to write a review because I couldn't remember whether I had actually finished the book! As they say, it's not the book, it's me because this is exactly what I was expecting/dreading so shame on me for requesting a book that I was already conflicted over.

Recommended for those who like wholesome small-town enemies to lovers romances.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Lies to Tell

Lies to Tell by Marion Todd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The third book in the Scottish police procedural series.

DC Clare Mackay is taken to a top secret facility and introduced to an ethical hacker who tells her there is a leak within Police Scotland, which is why so many criminals have managed to get away recently. Warned not to speak of this to anyone, and to assume that everywhere in the St Andrews police station is bugged, Clare cant trust anyone, even her closest colleagues. Added to which, Clare is advised that the wife of a notorious gangland boss is going to give evidence against him at trial and is being kept at a safe house in St Andrews. Now, knowing there is a leak in Police Scotland, possibly in the St Andrews station Clare must take personal responsibility for keeping the witness safe. Oh, and a young Swiss student has gone missing and has been found dead.

This was very satisfying, twisty and turny with lots of subplots and misdirection.

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Review: Play

Play by Karina Bliss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Kayla and Jared got married young, now he's a rock superstar with women throwing themselves at his feet and Kayla thinks she's not good enough, especially since other women refer to her as the 'starter wife'. Jared always thought he was a bit of a loser, sponging off Kayla waiting for his music career to take off, now he's rich and famous he wants to celebrate being a winner, but Kayla doesn't see it quite the same way.

TBH I've read this novella twice and I still can't really get a handle on what happens at the end as it is all too entangled with the events in the other full-length novels. It's okay but definitely not my favourite.

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Review: A Casterglass Christmas

A Casterglass Christmas by Kate Hewitt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first instalment in a new series.

Althea Penryn moved away from the family's ramshackle castle in Cumbria when she went to college, she married young and went to live in Surrey with her solicitor husband and their three children. But now, after twenty-one years of marriage her husband has announced that he is spending Christmas skiing in Switzerland with one of Althea's so-called friends and not with his family. Althea has overlooked multiple infidelities during their marriage but this is a step too far and they have a screaming row and she takes the children to stay with her eccentric parents and youngest sister.

When Althea arrives things are even worse than usual, the roof needs replacing at a cost of at least £200,000 and her seventy-two year old father is talking about selling the castle, where the Penryns have lived for over 800 years.

Can Althea come up with a plan to save the castle, reconcile with her sister, placate her irate teenager, and decide about her marriage?

This is classic Kate Hewitt, cosy, sweet, just like a warm mug of hot chocolate. My only gripe is that this is only the first book in the series, I need the second book STAT.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher Tule in return for an honest review.

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Review: Mr Unforgettable: Lost Boys #3

Mr Unforgettable: Lost Boys #3 by Karina Bliss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Billionaire, former gold medal winning swimmer, Luke Carter is recovering from a painful divorce by throwing himself into building a camp for underprivileged kids in Beacon Bay. Unfortunately, he and his partners got off on the wrong foot with the townsfolk and now every request is being shot down.

Elizabeth Light became mayor of Beacon Bay after her (much older) husband died. She has struggled with her grief and in trying to follow through on all of her husband's plans for the town. She alone appears to be at least neutral about the camp and gives Luke some ammunition to use in his latest application meeting.

Elizabeth is championing swimming classes for children as part of her mayoral role, but she has a dirty secret, she can't swim (which of course is why she is desperately keen for children to learn), Luke offers to teach her to swim in time for a swimathon where she has been 'volunteered' to start the race, in return for games of chess.

I have read this book before but had very few memories of what happened. Suffice it to say that this is quite an old Mills & Boon romance that has been updated but still retains that whiff of innocence.

A pleasant enough read.

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Review: What They Knew

What They Knew by Marion Todd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The fourth instalment of this Scottish police procedural series.

It's New Year's Eve and for one woman it will be her last night on earth, her late night visitor has more than just Bombay Mix and prosecco in mind. When DI Clare Mackay is called in to investigate it looks like a tragic accident, falling asleep in the bath and drowning after too much alcohol. But the neighbour who found the body is convinced that there are several things that are out of character her precise neighbour. Then the SOCO team point out that there is a corkscrew on the kitchen side with a cork, but no bottle of wine or glasses. Then the pathologist mentions another case of drowning with some similarities - could this be a serial killer?

I enjoyed this one, again there were some things which I as a reader picked up on quicker than the police investigation team, but then I'm reading a crime novel and I know the deaths are murders and they are linked!

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Review: The Love Hypothesis: Tiktok made me buy it! The romcom of the year!

The Love Hypothesis: Tiktok made me buy it! The romcom of the year! by Ali Hazelwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Olive Smith has discovered that her best friend Anh is secretly in love with Olive's ex-boyfriend, and the feelings are reciprocated. But girl-code means Anh can't act on her feelings, even though Olive only went out with him for about five minutes, so she lies and tells Anh that she is seeing someone else. Unfortunately, Anh sees Olive in the college lab on a Saturday night, when she should be out on her hot date, so Olive panics and kisses the nearest guy, begging him to be her fake boyfriend. The object of Olive's kiss turns out to be the college's nasty professor Adam Carlson, but rather than shoot her down in flames, he plays along.

Adam might reduce half his students to tears with his scathing comments on their work, but out of the lab he turns out to be a bit of a sweetheart, which is just as well because gossip like a student dating a professor is never going to stay quiet for long.

I love a fake romance, and the professor/student thing was tastefully done, Adam is one of those hotshots who is only a few years older than Olive, and he isn't her teacher. Olive is adorably awkward and Adam reveals his own insecurities. The only thing I wasn't so keen on was the pantomime villain, he was too unsubtle and might just as well have been preceded by big speech bubbles saying 'villain approaching'.

OVerall, a sweet, if predictable, romance.

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Review: In Plain Sight

In Plain Sight by Marion Todd
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A baby with a heart condition is kidnapped at a charity fun run. DI Clare Mackay was one of the runners and it's down to her to find the baby before she needs her next medication. At first the parents are distraught, but then the mother starts being secretive and the family liaison officer discovers she has secreted a burner phone in the house.

Again, this trod a fine line between making some things obvious to the reader before they are discovered by the police and keeping other things a surprise. There's a good cast of supporting characters who have their own personalities and stories, its gritty without being gratuitously violent. Just what I wanted.

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Review: See Them Run

See Them Run by Marion Todd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of the fifth book in this series and I liked it so much I went and bought the previous four books.

Detective Inspector Clare Mackay runs the small St Andrews police station, she had previously been based in Glasgow in the Armed Response Unit, but she chose to move to St Andrews after she shot and killed a young man brandishing a replica gun during a robbery. She is estranged from her boyfriend as a result of the incident and her family and colleagues are concerned about her mental health.

At a wedding celebration the bride's brother is lured outside and deliberately mown down by a car. The murderer reverses over his body and leaves a card with the number 5 on the victim's body. The following night another man is killed in the same fashion, although this time the card bears the number 4. Clare realises very quickly that there could be a serial killer at large with three further victims to come. But what connects them and who wants to kill them?

To add to Clare's woes, the Detective Chief Inspector assigned to supervise the case was close friends with the second victim and his wife!

I enjoyed this police procedural, there were some elements which seemed quite obvious and others which took me completely by surprise which is always a bonus. On to the next one.

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Review: Code of Ethics

Code of Ethics by April White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dallas is a Close Protection Specialist (bodyguard to you and me) at Cipher Security, a former Yukon tracker she now spends her free time in Chicago trailing people for fun. One night she is trailing a hipster in a ridiculous Canada Goose bomber jacket that probably cost $1,000 when she realises he is being trailed by someone else, a Russian guy who tries to rob him.

Our hipster turns out to be Oliver, a potential new client of Cipher Security, who has developed various face-recognition/swap software programs which he has sold for millions. He is developing a program that will expose fake footage (eg where someone's face has been spliced over someone else's body) but someone is trying to stop him from selling the program, by any means necessary. Oliver has got by on life charming everyone, he's always the nicest guy in the room, heck he'd flirt with a mop if there was no-one else in the room, but for some reason his charm doesn't work on Dallas and for some reason he doesn't feel the need to try.

Can Dallas keep this fake charmer alive?

I have to be honest at first I thought Dallas was a bit odd, trailing people around the city for no good reason, but she certainly won me over. I also loved that protecting Oliver didn't mean wearing a slinky dress and high heels to a cocktail party but taking Oliver out to her family's compound in the Yukon, complete with communal outhouse (which BTW I found hysterical) and an irascible grandfather.

Overall, I really enjoyed this addition to the series, enough to start re-reading the previous two.

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