Review: The Monument Murders

The Monument Murders by Rachel McLean
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

A young black architect, responsible for a new development of luxury apartments overlooking the sea, is found murdered on top of Swanage’s Globe monument with a note saying "Go Home". Is the death race-related? Does the "Go Home" note refer to the fact that he is from London? Are the murderers Nimbys out to stop the development or members of the right-wing Wessex Defence League? Or could this be a more prosaic crime of passion related to his wife Sherry or his business partner Bella?

DCI Lesley Clarke must investigate as well as trying to progress her secret investigation into the alleged suicide of her predecessor DCI Mackie.

My reservations about this series continue. Whilst there is a lot of police procedural there doesn't seem to be uncovering of evidence that points to the guilty party, instead there are various clues and then a great leap where the murderer is identified and the motive is briefly given with no explanation of how it was deduced.

Also my initial suspicions about the person behind DCI Mackie's death, which I discounted after one of the more recent books, are now very much in the frame.

Overall, I am enjoying these books still, but they aren't the intellectual exercise that I was hoping for.



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Review: The Key to Deceit

The Key to Deceit by Ashley Weaver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ellie McDonnell and her uncle are locksmiths and they used to dabble in a bit of safe-cracking until they were caught by Major Ramsay and blackmailed into working for the UK government.

Things have been a bit quiet for a while, then Major Ramsay comes up with a new case, a woman found drowned in The Thames with an unusual cameo bracelet on her wrist. Ellie spots a number of clues about the woman from her clothes that the male detectives had missed, and she manages to open the cameo bracelet. Soon Ellie and Major Ramsay are investigating a German spy ring, racing against time to stop the Germans getting information that could help them bomb London.

From left luggage boxes to safety deposit boxes in banks, Ellie's family extra-curricula skills are tested to the max as they follow the trail, but who is the ring-leader?

I enjoy the detective work, not so much the subtle love-triangle developing between Ellie's childhood friend Felix, Ellie and the Major.

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Review: One Last Day of Summer

One Last Day of Summer by Shari Low
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Four people are on their way to St Lucia, sharing the premium-economy cabin.

Tadgh Donovan is with his brother and bandmate en-route to his destination wedding to his high-school sweetheart. However, a text on his brother's phone could derail the wedding.

Hayley Ford and her husband, a top fertility specialist, are destined for a two week holiday, hoping to get pregnant before yet another gruelling round of IVF.

Bernadette Manson is an A&E nurse, forced to travel solo after her best friend had to look after her daughter who had been injured abroad.

Finally, Dev Robbins has fallen hard for the girl he spent one night with after meeting in a nightclub. He's determined to follow her to St Lucia where she is attending a destination wedding.

These four strangers discover that they have more in common than they might have originally thought when they boarded the plane - but will their journeys be all they hoped?

This is just the sort of thing you want to read on the plane, full of hopes that you could make new friends on a seven hour flight, change your life, and get some free advice.

It might have been predictable, but it was fun and a good read.

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 Boxing Baroness

The Boxing Baroness by Minerva Spencer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Marianne Simpson was educated at an exclusive ladies college, but when it came to getting a job she found that her uncle's circus closed all doors to her, so now she is one of the boxing belles in Farnham’s Fantastical Female Fayre. She is no stranger to gentlemen of the ton gawping at her in her immodest boxing attire (which her uncle isn't averse to dampening down to show off her curves), but she refuses to speak to St. John Powell, the Duke of Staunton, particularly when he mentions her ex, Baron Dominic Strickland who lied to her and staged a fake wedding just so that he could bed her.

But when Staunton buys up thousands of pounds of her uncle Barnabas's debt and offers her a choice between helping him and the circus facing ruin, Marianne has no choice.

Staunton has received word from Strickland, a former school friend, that his younger brother is not dead as previously believed, but is a prisoner in France and can be ransomed for £10,000 and a meeting with Marianne - he'll do anything to rescue his brother even if it means blackmailing a young woman.

Staunton and his two best friends go undercover with the circus as they trek through France on the way to the rendezvous, but as Napoleon escapes his prison on Elba passage becomes fraught with danger.

Romance, war, international intrigue, disguises, spies, and explosive secrets make this a captivating story, even if I did feel that Staunton became a bit of a pussycat at the end.

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

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Review: Before I Do

Before I Do by Sophie Cousens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's Audrey's wedding day, but things aren't going to plan, not least because 'the one that got away' has come as her future sister-in-law's date to the wedding. Told in flashbacks and rolling forwards from the wedding rehearsal, Audrey has to decide whether she wants to marry solid dependable Josh or take a chance on Fred, a man she had one date with six years earlier.

I really enjoyed Just Haven't Met You Yet but I have to say I didn't warm to this book. First, I found Audrey a bit of an unsympathetic character. Second the catalogue of disasters that is the wedding degenerated into slapstick/farce, frankly I would have seen it as a sign that the universe didn't want Audrey and Josh to get married. Third, all the flashbacks and flashforwards meant that every event was forewarned so that by the time the reader got to find out what really happened this reader didn't care. There was too much drama, too many 'quirky' side characters who added nothing but detracted from the plot. I think this book was having a crisis of identity, it didn't know whether it was romance, screwball comedy, or voyage of self-discovery.

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 Rewind Files

The Rewind Files by Claire Willett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Regina (Reggie) Bellows might be the daughter of legendary US Time Travel Bureau agents Katie Bellows and Leo Carstairs, but she is very much a back-office mathematician, specialising in mid-twentieth century history, supporting agents in the field who 'patch' anomalies in history. Working late at night on a weekend, Reggie and her colleague Calliope realise that their agent, who is in 1968, is in grave danger from a time incongruity and the only way to save him is for Reggie to go back and physically bring him back to the present in 2112. Hauled in front of the senior management to justify her actions, Reggie instead identifies that World War III (between the US and China in which 56 million died) is itself an anomaly (or Chronomaly), created by person or persons unknown. However, the sheer scale of the deception, which must have involved someone senior within the Bureau, means that Need-To-Know is limited to a small number of people. One of the key events identified by the Bureau's scanners is centred around Washington DC in 1972, so Reggie is sent in undercover as a junior secretary in the White House counsel's office.

Grappling with archaic customs, misogynist bosses, racism, and tight deadlines, Reggie soon discovers that this conspiracy goes deep and is bigger than she could have imagined.

As a Brit I don't really have much interest in Watergate, heck I'm not even sure what it was all about, although I recognise the names, but this historical spy book was s engrossing I couldn't put it down. Loved it.

Even better I think it is free on Amazon.

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Review: You, Again: The sparkling and witty new opposites-attract rom-com!

You, Again: The sparkling and witty new opposites-attract rom-com! by Lauren Layne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mac Austin is a thoroughly modern woman, brought up by a free-spirited single mother, she doesn't want commitment, or long-term, she's happy with just for now and her man of choice is most definitely a bad boy, tattoos not optional. Mac is more combat boots and a tutu than Louboutins and Botox, more Van Halen than Beyoncé.

Sitting in a local bar, waiting for her no-show date Mac is idly perusing a hook-up app called TapThat (yep, classy huh?). Having let one Ivy League preppy businessman-type roll past, Mac is horrified when the man sitting next to her at the bar strikes up a conversation, making it clear that he was reading her phone over her shoulder. Even worse, he's the guy she just let roll past (the app gives you five seconds to show interest or it moves to the next candidate).

The next morning, Mac is doubly horrified to find that the suit, Thomas Decker (never Tom or Tommy) is her new boss at the upmarket jewellery store where she is a senior graphic designer. Mac has been approached several times to take a more senior role in the business but she has always declined, frankly she's horrified that she has been working for the same company for six years and has a 401K plan, this is not the peripatetic life she was brought up with.

Finally, the universe goes all in on the coincidences, Thomas is the older brother of Mac's BFF Collette's fiancé. Even worse, as Best Man and Chief Bridesmaid Mac and Thomas are in charge of organising a joint bachelor-bachelorette party. Mac just knows anything Thomas organises will involve whisky and very few penis-shaped party favours!

I have loved Lauren Layne's books for many years. However, more recently I had complained that she seemed to be just phoning them in. There seemed to be a New York high-flyer checklist that every book followed and it had become stale and formulaic, the characters ceased to be distinctly recognisable and the books were like candyfloss, easily digested and instantly forgettable. Not this one! Mac and Thomas just leapt off the page, sassy, witty and very kind they were all I love about Lauren Layne's characters and the romance was perfect.

A happy return to form for Lauren Layne.

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 Dead Romantics

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

I was 50:50 on requesting this because I'm not a huge fan of stories involving ghosts but so many cool writers gave it glowing reviews that I took a chance.

Florence Day has had an unusual childhood, since her father is the town's undertaker and until her little sister was a baby the family lived upstairs in the funeral parlour. Also, she and her father can see and converse with ghosts, in fact her father thought it was his duty to assist ghosts to achieve whatever it was keeping them on the earthly plain. But then, after Florence's 'gift' was splashed all over the local newspapers she was determined to leave small-town Mairmont, South Carolina, and leave she did. A decade later Florence has never been back home and she earns a living as a ghostwriter for a famous romance novelist Ann Nicols. But since her last romance imploding in a fireball she's not felt in the least romantic and has, as a consequence, failed to deliver the fourth and final book in the four-book deal Ann signed with her publisher.

The book opens with Florence nervously going to meet her new book editor in her guise as Ann's 'assistant', hoping for a further deadline extension. But instead of the middle-aged woman Florence was expecting, the new editor turns out to be a tall, handsome, man called Benji Andor, who she vaguely remembers as being a colleague of her ex. Benji might be hot but he's not going to accept any excuses and Florence has one day to turn in the fourth and final novel.

Tragedy strikes and Florence returns to Mairmont to be with her family, but she seems to have acquired a ghost, that of her new editor - although he doesn't know he's dead. Can Florence cope with being back home for the first time in a decade, cope with her loss, finish her novel, and assist Benji to the other side?

Despite my initial misgivings, I really enjoyed at least the first half of the book, it was kooky and full of backstory and grabbed my attention. Then about midway it started to drag for me, also I totally sympathised with Florence's family's irritation at her need to do everything herself and alone, refusing help from everyone and not even allowing anyone else to get a look-in, all whilst giving off a whiff of burning martyr and telling everyone 'I'm fine'. Also, Florence talked out loud to Benji all the time, one particular moment in the B&B bar was particularly memorable for me, but no-one seemed to call her out for it.

Overall, it was a unique romance (albeit I realised how it would end quite early on - arguably I should have guessed before I started the book) with some really quirky touches but I felt there was just too much plot, too many backstories, too many side stories for it to work - unless of course this is the start of a series set in Mairmont ...

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

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Review: Great Sexpectations

Great Sexpectations by Kristen Bailey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Josie is CEO of her family's highly-successful business selling sex-toys, lingerie and erotic gifts, she hugely proud of the business they have built up and her former porn-star actor parents (goodness only knows how I'm going to get this review past the B&N review algorithm). Then her fiance Mike dumps her without a word, leaving a cruel and hurtful note on the fridge and absconding with their wedding savings to Venezuela. Apparently he couldn't envisage a life explaining his wife's job or his in-laws' former profession.

Now Josie is over mIke (mostly) and her helping her TV actor star little brother Sonny celebrate Halloween in epic style with a lavish party which (of course) she organised for him. Eschewing the sexy vampire/nurse/catwoman costumes chosen by so many other women at the party, Josie has chosen to go as one of the Ghostbusters, these things really aren't her scene. Then she comes across someone else dressed as a Ghostbuster and they just click. Josie didn't mean to mislead Cameron about her job, she did organise the party food, but she isn't the caterer, but when he assumes she doesn't correct him, she even avoids acknowledging Sonny when he calls her out for organising the party from the stage. But as their friendship progresses, the lie begins to grow, Josie's father even pretends his name is Fabio, and it gets harder and harder to tell the truth. What makes it worse is that Cameron's family are all uptight, uber-conservative, snobs whereas Josie's family are free-wheeling liberals - never the twain and all that!

The dildo, penis and swearing factors are high in this book (as to be expected when you are the CEO of a sex empire), but at heart this is about protecting your heart from hurt after a bad break-up. It's sweet, funny and I devoured it. Love Kristen Bailey.

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

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Review: Little Beach Street Bakery

Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Polly Waterford and her boyfriend Chris had their own graphic design business, but the 2008 banking crisis and subsequent global recession hit them hard. Chris refused to accept reality and kept up a façade of expensive meals and fancy cars, refusing to accept smaller, less prestigious jobs until the bank forced them into bankruptcy. They lost their swanky new-build flat by Plymouth waterfront and Chris retreated into himself, going to live with his mother (and sulk).

Meanwhile, Polly realises that her tiny savings won't get her a flat in Plymouth, the best she can hope for is a grotty room in student accommodation, and she is both over-qualified and too old for every job being advertised. Then she sees a property listed in Mount Polbearne, a tidal island she used to visit on school trips as a child.

Somehow ,Polly ends up renting a derelict flat above a disused bakery in Polbearne where she soon makes friends with the local fishermen and baking bread surreptitiously for the other residents on the island. Featuring a wounded puffin, a reclusive bee-keeper, a reclusive American tech billionaire, a themed wedding and more carbs than you shake a stick at, I guess you can call this quirky. Randomly I've read the fourth book in this series already, so I was no stranger to Neil the puffin, although this does explain how he came to be Polly's pet/friend.

Although not without its heartaches, this is a cosy small-town romance to make you smile.



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Review: Buck Up, Buttercup

Buck Up, Buttercup by Anna Alkire
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Randi is that most cliched of NA/YA heroines, an orphan with a silly name from a low socio-economic background whose only relative is in poor health and emotionally needy. Randi has show-horned 21 credits into one school year to try to graduate early and get a job, but to do so she needs a place to study. She has paid a deposit on a all-female house-share but turns up on the first day to find a raging party taking place, is almost assaulted by a drunk man, is abused by one of her new housemates, and is generally harassed and made to feel uncomfortable - oh, and the room she was promised is a filthy mess. Despite her misgivings she is persuaded to stay (and not call the cops) by promises that her house-mates will clean up and significantly reduce her rent.

As another cliché, Randi is an old-fashioned, repressed girl who wears clothes more suited to a librarian and a virgin to boot. Nevertheless her prissiness catches the eye of good ole boy cowboy Buck, THE man on campus who has a trail of besotted women throwing themselves at his feet. Even Buck doesn't really understand what he sees in her. Despite her sheltered upbringing, Randi has no difficulty giving Buck back-chat (and honestly how realistic is that?) and bossing him around, even if all he seems to want to do is look after her.

Finally, of course Randi has a totally obnoxious and toxic friend Daisy who only wants to get drunk and hook up with random guys and drag Randi along for the ride.

Also, despite being quirky and dressing like a little old lady (velvet collars and prissy bows), not one, not two, but three great looking guys are all pursuing her - sheesh, I should be so unpopular!

Sorry, this did not work for me. None of the characters were realistic or more than two-dimensional. I can't think of any female character (other than Randi) who wasn't unpleasant if not absolutely foul. And most of the male characters were portrayed as drunks and practically rapists, or at least enablers.

I get that the author was trying to get us to sympathise with Randi but frankly she was such a doormat that I just wanted to shake her and tell her to dump her friends, house-mates, and aunt ASAP.

Allegedly this is the first in a series about the Montgomery Brothers, but Buck is such a nothing character who only serves as a foil for Randi that I couldn't see him as a real person.

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 Forgotten House on the Moor

The Forgotten House on the Moor  by Jane Lovering
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Alice Donaldson had a difficult childhood, with both parents very ill she was forced to play a caretaker role at a young age, it led to her being marked as 'different' at school and combined with her size led to her being bullied and ostracised. She took the only work experience that would be flexible about her working hours to help her parents and then just fell into a full-time job with them afterwards. Now eighteen years later, with one failed marriage, Alice is content to live alone in her parents' tiny cottage and do the admin at a local double-glazing firm.

One day she is woken by the police, her ex-husband has died in an explosion at an old deserted farmhouse on the Yorkshire Moors, while hunting for ghosts of all things. Perplexed as to why the police would be contacting her when she hasn't sen Grant for six years, Alice is even more confused as to how her couch-potato husband came to be ghost-hunting in an abandoned house in the middle of the night.

While exploring the Yorkshire Moors trying to make sense of Grant's death, Alice runs into brother and sister Max and Jenna, Jenna and Grant were a couple and she is devastated by his death. Max tells Alice that Jenna suffered from an eating disorder after she lost Grant's baby a few months ago and he is worried that Grant's death will cause a regression. Max is a psychologist, and owner of the house in which Grant died, he is writing a book on the house which is allegedly haunted and collating stories from people who have seen something there.

More to humour Jenna than for any other reason, Alice agrees to help Jenna investigate why Grant went off alone in the middle of the night to a house with no electricity and what he expected to achieve, but their investigations bring her closer to the devastatingly handsome Max and Alice has to keep reminding herself that tall, dark, handsome men don't fall for size 16 plain women with dubious dress sense and mundane jobs.

I have to say I hesitated to request this book because I am not a fan of ghost stories or horror and I feared this might be some scary suspense type of novel. Fear not, nothing like that. This is very funny, Alice has a wicked sense of humour and there is a super satisfying romance. My only gripe is I would have liked the ghost explained ...

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 Secrets of Ashmore Castle

The Secrets of Ashmore Castle by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

I had wanted to read Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' War At Home series (love the covers), but they seemed to be at quite a high price point for an untried series, so when I saw this book available on NetGalley I jumped at the chance.

The book starts in 1901. Lord Stainton is killed in a hunting accident and his heir, Giles Tallant, is recalled from Egypt where he has been happily excavating tombs and avoiding his father's disappointment. When Giles returns, to his mother's constant disapproval, he learns that his father has ignored advice to economise and the estate is on the brink of bankruptcy. As distasteful as it sounds, Giles must look to marry an heiress in order to give his sisters a dowry, give his mother her dowager's pension and save Ashmore Castle (which isn't a castle), even though he loathes it and England. Despite his age, Giles has never had much conversation with women, his interest in archaeology has kept him in the company of men, he's barely even kissed a girl.

Kitty Bayfield is a chronically-shy heiress, her stepmother wants to bring her out into society (in order to make a good marriage), but realises that might be difficult, until Kitty's former headmistress suggests that Kitty's best friend, Nina bolsters Kitty's confidence and might be a useful companion during the season. Although a penniless orphan, Nina has been raised by her aunt, an intellectual who has exposed her to radical thinking and encouraged her to become a teacher.

When Giles and Nina meet at a ball, he believes her to be Kitty and is immediately bowled over by how easy she is to talk to, how clever and interesting. But when he discovers that Nina is the penniless companion he must decide whether to follow his heart or save his family.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading this very much, but I 'm not sure how I would describe it. Perhaps the blurb's suggestion that this is perfect for fans of Downton Abbey is correct, because this feels like there are lots of characters with stories which are given airtime but don't go anywhere eg Giles' brother, or the sewing maid. It reminded me very much of those long family saga books that were very popular in the 1970s and 1980s where no-one ever gets an HEA and each generation inflicts its own misery on the next, although I hasten to say it wasn't that grim.

I am intrigued and will definitely read the next book as I want to know what happens to our three main characters and the supporting cast.

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

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Review: Meant to Be Mine

Meant to Be Mine by Hannah Orenstein
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I loved the concept of this novel, a family who know the exact date that they are going to meet their one true love. Starting with her ninety-year old grandmother Gloria it encompasses aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters. It even worked for their biological father who me the man of his dreams as predicted. So Edie Meyer is beyond excited on 24 June 2022 to be boarding a plane at JFK to attend her twin sister Rae's surprise engagement (to clarify, it's a surprise to Rae but not her family) - today is the day she is fated to meet 'The One', she even broke up with her long-term boyfriend Jonah because she didn't feel it was right to continue their relationship any longer with her fate beckoning.

As it happens, Edie does meet someone pretty special on her flight, a musician called Theo, but despite giving off all the right flirty signals they part without swapping numbers. But luck is clearly on Edie's side, because guess who is sitting next to her on the flight home?

As Edie and Theo date she starts to have nagging doubts, they are having fun, but are they soulmates? Does Theo 'get' her? How do their differing life goals mesh?

TBH, this didn't really work for me, I thought Edie was daft to break up with a man she was in love with, just because her grandmother predicted she would meet her 'someone' on a specific date. And then, when their differences start to emerge, she still tries to convince herself that she and Theo should stay together. And don't even get me started on the ending. Let's just say that I didn't agree with Edie's choices.

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

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Review: Murder Before Evensong

Murder Before Evensong by Richard Coles
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Canon Daniel Clement is Rector of Champton, a small village with its own stately home owned by Bernard de Floures. The most exciting thing to happen in Champton is the argument as to whether the church should install a lavatory or a buttery for the flower arrangers, then Bernard de Floures' alcoholic cousin is found by Daniel, murdered in one of the pews, with a pair of secateurs no less! But no sooner have the press departed to pastures new and the village returned to some sort of normality, than another body is found floating in the lake.

Oh dear, obviously I read a completely different book to all the celebrities who have written glowing endorsements of this book.

First, when exactly was this book set, I'm sure if I could be bothered to piece together the clues I could work it out, late 1980s/early 1990s? There is no indication (that I can see) as to when it is set, which is hugely discombobulating to the reader who imagines it must be present day.

Second, this was like some nineteenth century novel that you got forced to read at school, billed as a funny detective story. There was an interminable amount of detail about the life of a rector, the prayers, the ceremonies, and a lot in Latin which meant nothing to me. In addition, frankly there are absolutely no clues whatsoever to help the reader guess the murderer and the identification of the murderer comes out of left-field. Half of Daniel's (and his mother's) thoughts went straight over my head, too obtuse and loaded with religious terminology.

I was hoping (given The Reverend Richard Coles' past life and amusing anecdotes) for something like Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club books, but featuring a rector, alas it was not to be. I kept reading right to the end but the style didn't change. I don't think I will be requesting the next book.

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



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Review: A Fatal End

A Fatal End by Faith Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ray Reason and his band are on the brink of breaking into the bigtime. They have a regular spot on a Saturday night at one of Oxford's less than salubrious night clubs. Then Ray is found dead, halfway down a spiral staircase. The coroner court jury brings in a verdict of accidental death but coroner Clement Ryder understands the medical evidence and is convinced it must be murder.

Roping in young WPC Trudy Loveday to assist in the investigation, and with the help of his son Vincent who is spending his holidays in Oxford with his father, Clement delves into the seedy world of night clubs and finds plenty of suspects. Is it the nightclub manager who is skimming profits from the owners? Or the aristocratic famous music agent who is trying to sign the band? Or one of his bandmates unimpressed by his attempts to change the name of the band and make himself the lead? What about his bandmate's pushy girlfriend? What about his respectable girlfriend who finds herself in the family way? Has he been seeing other girls behind her back?

Another gentle yet engrossing detective story involving the unlikely duo, albeit the smarmy newspaper reporter sniffs out the best clues and delivers them on a platter for them to digest. I have now read two of these books and thoroughly enjoyed them both.

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 Clifftop Murders

The Clifftop Murders by Rachel McLean
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

DCI Lesley Clarke has moved from Birmingham to Dorset for a six-month stint after suffering PTSD following a bombing. Expecting a slower pace of life she is soon embroiled in investigating the murder of a young lawyer who appears to have been pushed off the cliff early one morning. Lesley is worried because the lawyer was a junior partner in the law firm where her new girlfriend Elsa is a named partner.

The more Lesley and her team investigate the murder, the more suspicious they become of the law firm, but Lesley's sergeant, DS Dennis Frampton (why do I keep thinking his name is Weaver?) is keeping important evidence from her.

There is also a story arc relating to the death of Lesley's predecessor DCI Mackie which was ruled a suicide. Initially Lesley just wanted to know why no-one would talk about him, but her former colleague Zoe (who I understand is the protagonist of a predecessor series) has uncovered some facts which call the verdict into question. We learn some more in this book, but my thought when I read the novella about who might be involved may have been a bit premature as the individual may also be concerned about the verdict.

Anyway, trying to be good and read ARCs in between bingeing this series ...

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Review: Bootcamp For Broken Hearts

Bootcamp For Broken Hearts by Joanna Bolouri
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nora is a forty-year old single mother who owns a slightly dated cafe in Edinburgh. After a series of disastrous relationships, including with her daughter Charlotte's father, she has given up on dating, concentrating on her daugher. Nora's sister and best friend/business partner conspire with her daughter to send her on a one-week Relationship Bootcamp to help her unlock her heart.

Although the other guests have paid £5,000 each for the privilege, Nora's stay is free, courtesy of one of her sister's clients. The bootcamp is just as awful as Nora fears, full of yoga, meditation, affirmative writing, etc. The other guests are well-dressed, well-coiffed, and (for the females) well made-up with just a hint of plastic surgery. There is some light at the end of the tunnel, one of the instructors, Brad, is so good looking he reduces Nora to a gibbering wreck with just a glance.

But underneath the mumbo-jumbo about the universe vibrating in tune with your desires, Nora starts to feel that there may be some truth in what the tutors are saying. But is she ready to take a chance again?

I've made this sound really boring and new age (and some of the psychobabble is) but actually this is very funny, especially when Nora finds a co-conspirator to laugh with at the weirder exercises they are forced to do. Really enjoyed this.

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 Love of My Other Life

The Love of My Other Life by C.J. Connolly
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Josie is a British woman living in New York, singing in a choir for a hobby, and working as a radio presenter on real estate matters. Then one day, on her thirty-sixth birthday, she has an accident on her bike and wakes up in a different reality. She's the same person (albeit thinner and with better hair and clothes), but now she has a swanky job in real estate marketing, she's married to a construction billionaire and lives in a gorgeous eighteenth floor apartment in Union Square in a building that was named after her! It appears that she has the same memories as her alter-ego until about three years earlier, the night the Other Josie met her husband Rob at a marketing function Josie had an accident on her bike and missed the do. Rob introduced her to the guys who run the company that Other Josie works for and the rest is history. In fact, this would be Josie's fantasy made true but for one terrible fact, in this life her brother and her cousin are dead.

Can Josie adapt and live in this new reality? Does she want to? What about Peter, the guy from choir she was getting close to? And if she does now get close to Rob does that betray Other Josie?

Told from alternating POVs we see Josie and Other Josie trying to adapt to their new lives, but when push comes to shove, will they stay or will they go?

I really liked this to start with, C.J. Connolly says she was inspired by Sliding Doors and Life After Life and I was enjoying the way in which they inhabited each other's lives. It reminded me of the British film Quest For Love starring Joan Collins. But then somewhere in the middle it seemed to flag and I felt that the plot had gone off in a spiral. Maybe it would have worked better for me if we had either had alternating chapters from Josie and Other Josie or just half from Josie and the other half from Other Josie rather than three chunks of each.

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 Ballard Down Murder

The Ballard Down Murder by Rachel McLean
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Prequel novella to the Dorset Crime series, free from the author's website.

DCI Tim Mackie has recently retired but his old Sergeant Dennis Frampton still hasn't got used to the change and likes to consult him on cases from time to time. When DCI Mackie fails to meet up for a pint and a chat one lunchtime Dennis is hurt but just thinks he's been forgotten. Until Tim's body is found at the foot of treacherous hills that night.

Dennis can't believe Tim would kill himself, but how can he naysay all the evidence?

As there are seven books in this series I don't think it will be a spoiler if I say I find the Superintendent's behaviour very suspect ...

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Review: Note to Self

Note to Self by Anna Bell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Edie thought her life was pretty perfect, thirty-five years old, CEO of her family's business, good flat, nice car, great boyfriend. Then a time-drop email from her eighteen-year old self reminds her of the summer she spent working at a local summer camp, the summer before her mother died and everything changed.

The emails from her younger self remind Edie of that summer, her friendships with Sophie, Geoffrey and Joel, her dreams and plans. The emails also serve to show Edie that she is stuck in a rut, her default response is always 'no' and she allowed her grief over her mother to cut herself off from friends. Can reconnecting with her younger self help Edie to live a bit more?

After meeting up virtually on LinkedIn, Sophie and Edie meet up and soon the old gang is back together, but Edie can't forgive Joel for the way he shunned her, or the events which are inextricably linked with her mother's death. But as the group reminisce Edie finds herself rediscovering the feelings she had for Joel. Is it too late to change your life at thrity-five?

I liked this, it was sweet, funny and felt authentic. I don't know if you can send emails to yourself at some future date, but if you can I think it would be cool to read something from your younger self and remember the hopes and dreams you had.

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

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Review: Ex Appeal

Ex Appeal by Cathy Yardley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Vinh Doan and Emily MacDonald were childhood sweethearts, she was from a wealthy middle-class close-knit family whereas his parents were permanently fighting and Vinh practically raised his kid sister. Even when his parents split up permanently things didn't get much better, his father got married over and over again, whilst also having multiple affairs, and his mother was focused on rebuilding her career rather than looking after her children. Things fell apart when they went to college, Emily's father died and Vinh broke up with her in the coldest way possible. Since then she's loathed him with a passion.

Fast forward a decade, VInh is bringing in the megabucks acting as a fixer for global conglomerates (eg bribing overseas officials making nasty environmental claims go away etc) and has just been promoted to Vice President, he's got a reputation for being cold as ice and having no emotions. Then one day an uber-secret crypto slush fund of $10 million, which only Vinh had access to, is emptied - the partners blame Vinh and if he can't clear his name and find the real culprit he'll be sacked and publicly vilified. Vinh needs to find a hacker who will help him find the thief, but not steal the money themselves.

Meanwhile, having dropped out of college to support her mother, Emily is earning minimum wage, and working two or three jobs to try to keep their McMansion which her father had mortgaged to the hilt to pay for their lavish lifestyle. Her mother is in denial and acting like a child, barely able to hold down a job and spending money she doesn't have. Her dreams of ethical hacking a distant memory, Emily works as telephone IT support, telling people to turn their computers off and on again with monotonous regularity. Every time she thinks they have their heads above water something else breaks (her car, the boiler, etc) and they are back to square one.

VInh bitterly regrets that he had to break up with Emily, but if he is to clear his name he needs to persuade her to help him, but she isn't going to make things easy for him.

I love a second-chance romance with a STEM female lead but sadly this didn't do it for me. There was too much angst about their past and not enough plot - previously Cathy Yardley has nailed the STEM heroine for me so this was disappointing, like the computer hacking was an afterthought that happened offstage. Also, more annoyingly, I guessed the real thief's identity extremely early on (and I mean extremely) so the element of surprise was totally absent. Overall, I would say it was all a bit simplistic with the crypto theft more of an afterthought than the main event.

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

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Review: A Curse of Queens

A Curse of Queens by Amanda Bouchet
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you've read the three preceding books you'll know that Cat and Griffin have united the three kingdoms of Thalyria under their benevolent rule and are intent on ensuring magic users (or Mogoi) don't abuse the non-magic users (Hoi Polloi).

Now Cat is heavily pregnant with a daughter who is prophesised to unite Thalyria, but someone has cursed her by giving her a draft of Olympian immortality - now she will remain eight and half months pregnant forever unless someone can find a cure.

Step forward Griffin's sister Jocasta, petite healer who has felt out-of-place and of no use ever since the family moved to the Palace. Jo has pined after Flynn, Captain of the Palace Guards, ever since he was the boy next door back when her family were just farmers in Sinta. But after humiliating herself as an eighteen-year old, Jo and Flynn have barely exchanged a word. Nevertheless, her family's well-meaning attempts to marry her off to a Thalyrian nobleman are doomed to fail because Flynn is still the only man for her.

When a chance comment by a noble suitor gives Jocasta hope that there could be a cure for Cat, she cobbles together a ragtag team to search for a mythical island and bargain with a witch goddess. With her go Flynn, her brother Carver, a fire mogoi called Bellanca, and Prometheus (yes him). But as they travel, the team come to realise that Cat's poisoning is just a move in a battle for control of Olympus and the humans are merely pawns.

I got a bit tired of the series by the third book TBH, the ratio of romance/smexy times to plot was way off (in my opinion) which was a pity because I thought the world-building was brilliant. Also, I found the intervention of 'real' gods and goddesses in what I thought was a completely new world to be a bit jarring. Anyway, I got over that because the gods are front and centre in this book from the get-go and it works. Also, there is still a LOT of love/lust and a fair amount of smexy times in this book, but it worked for me because Jo and Flynn had loved each other from afar for years.

(view spoiler)[Did anyone else notice that now Cat/Griffin have relatives in practically every other world? (hide spoiler)]

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

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