Review: The Norfolk Beach Murders

The Norfolk Beach Murders by Judi Daykin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the fifth book in a series. I haven't read any of the previous books but this was easy to get into, although there are slight references to ongoing relationships they are very general and I wouldn't say you needed to read any of the other books to enjoy this one.

It's nearly Christmas, a young homeless girl and her dog witness an altercation between two men late at night which ends in one man falling off a cliff edge.

As DS Sara HIrst and her colleagues are winding down for the Christmas break a seal watcher reports a body on the beach. The body is so badly damaged that they can't tell if it was murder or accident that led to him being in the water. Just when it appears that the body could be that of a man reported washed overboard, there is a report of a boat washed ashore with blood stains on the hull and a yacht adrift in the sea.

Meanwhile, Danni, PA to London Italian crime boss Lisa London is concerned about her boss' recent behaviour and an upcoming meeting with one of her business partners. When she spots a police tail the group hightail to Norfolk to inspect their mutual business venture.

As the book progresses these three disparate threads start to weave together against the backdrop of one of the worst storms on record which batters the Norfolk coast.

I really enjoyed this, I would say it fits midway (writing-wise rather than geographically) between Rachel McLean and Marion Todd and I would recommend to fans of either author.

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

View all my reviews

Review: A Blind Eye

A Blind Eye by Marion Todd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

three and a half stars.

DI Clare Mackay and her team are called in when a ranger finds a car abandoned in the woods with what looks like a body inside. When they gain entry the detectives discover that the man has been murdered, his throat brutally slashed. The victim turns out to be a mild-mannered conveyancing solicitor called Harry Richards, whose wife had both reported him missing and complained about a stalker lurking outside recently.

Shortly afterwards, Harry's colleague's wife dies in a car accident - are the two deaths linked? Is there a vendetta against the law firm?

I do enjoy this series, the way the plot comes together, the mixture of personal lives and police investigations. However, in this case I did feel that solving the case relied very heavily on a Ta-Da moment rather than solid police legwork. but looking back at my review of the previous book in the series I can see that this is not a trend - and let's be honest sometimes it is just a stroke of luck that makes things happen - so I won't let it drag my review down.

Still an autobuy/request. What is it about Scottish crime books that is so addictive?

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

View all my reviews

Review: Game, Set, Match: Escape to the Spanish sunshine in this laugh-out-loud and feel-good romcom

Game, Set, Match: Escape to the Spanish sunshine in this laugh-out-loud and feel-good romcom by Heidi Stephens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After Hannah discovers her husband Graham has got his assistant pregnant she calls a halt to their fourteen-year marriage, has a make-over and flies to Spain with some new friends for a week of tennis school, after which she intends to drive around Spain, perhaps visiting her father. Having been raised in a repressive religious group Hannah is more restrained and less worldly than her thirty-two years would suggest.

Rob has always been the black sheep of the family, a dyslexic he struggles to match up to his parents and siblings who are all wealthy professionals. He has given up his job to spend the summer as a tennis professional in a smart club in Spain before taking up a tennis coaching job in Bristol. Despite his parents' blissfully happy marriage, Rob has never really felt the urge to settle down, in fact he's quite the player although he would say he never leads women on. But all that must take a backseat while he's in Spain, fraternising with the guests is a sackable offence and he isn't interested in taking part in the sexual bingo game the other professionals have got going.

Hannah and Rob are drawn to each other despite themselves, but the timing is wrong. Also Hannah is nothing but commitment and Rob is anything but. When a spiteful colleague gets Rob fired, Hannah spontaneously invites him to join her Spanish road trip which involves a stray dog, a tennis competition, a family reunion, and a few surprises along the way.

This was pleasant enough (indeed 100% PG) but it didn't really feel like the plot had been properly mapped out in advance. The book felt like a series of scenes strung together, as if the author had said well I need X to happen so I'll make my characters do Y. Characters pop in and out randomly and a lot happens in what feels like ten days. Also, Hannah had broken away from the church and been married for fourteen years (albeit to another former member of the same church) but remained very timid, rarely drinking, never swearing, wearing loose drab clothing etc. Then as soon as she kicks her husband out she's suddenly completely different (other than the swearing), it feels like too much of a change in such a short period of time.

Overall, it dragged a bit for me and smacked a bit of the 'Miss Jones you look so beautiful without your glasses' cliché.

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

View all my reviews

Review: Playing For Keeps

Playing For Keeps by Julie Hammerle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When Bryce Barrett gets passed over for promotion to partner at her fancy Chicago law firm in favour of a snotty-nosed, know-nothing idiot who just happens to be the Mayor's nephew she doesn't take it well. In fact she may have incinerated her career. Now she's retreated to the house her ex-husband bought in the tiny midwestern town of Wackernagel he grew up in (she might have been petty enough to ask for it in the divorce) and is sticking it to The Man (assuming that this means watching every episode of The Gilmore Girls, wearing sweatpants and eating Cheetos - can I also say I've never eaten them but they sound vile).

On a visit to the local ice-cream parlour to buy essential ice-cream provisions, Bryce attracts the eye of a concerned citizen who calls the local security for the gated community in which she lives (cripes these are special snowflakes if they've never seen a woman in sweatpants and novelty slippers binge-eating ice-cream). Jake Warner was born and bred in Wackernagel (I apologise for all the asides, not sure what has come over me, but why do authors insist on having their towns called silly names (please don't tell me it's an actual town)) but he's spent the last decade as far away as possible roaming the US. Now he's back, but only until he's repaid his father, and then he'll be off far from home once again - because 'reasons'. His temporary job as security guard for a gated community is easy work, but when he's called to deal with a possibly violent vagrant woman scaring customers at the ice-cream parlour he feels compassion for the woman who is clearly dealing with some issues.

A chance encounter with Bryce's ex and his new girlfriend leads Bryce to claim that she and Jake are dating, which he goes along with because he can see where she's coming from. When Bryce's power gets cut off because she's not been paying her bills (or opening her mail - see, I'm doing it again), they come to an agreement, Jake will help her renovate the house to sell and in return Bryce will pay him the realtor's fee which will help him repay his father. United in their desire to get out of Wackernagel as soon as possible the two of them become friends - or maybe more.

I've read a few of Julie Hammerle's novels before and I've always appreciated the way she portrays more mature women with real problems and grown-up reactions, which is why I requested this book. Unfortunately, this didn't really work well for me for several reasons. First, Jake blames himself/his father for something that happened - it is this that has kept him away from home for a decade, but frankly his logic is that of an eight-year-old, not a grown man. Second, Jake's family are so irritating I would have left town as soon as possible to get away from them. Third, Bryce's slob phase was too extreme - closer to mental breakdown territory - and I've read better.

Overall, it was okay, a pleasant enough read but after only a few days I could barely remember the plot.

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


View all my reviews

Review: Playing It Tough

Playing It Tough by Amy Andrews
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ronan Dempsey is an American rugby player who has joined the Sydney Smoke to hopefully get more experience and get selected for the US Olympic team. However, his partying hasn't gone unnoticed and could jeopardise his career, so he makes a bet with his teammates that he can remain celibate for the rest of the season. When his apartment block develops subsidence problems one of his mum's friends offers the use of her (luxurious) pool house as a temporary home.

Orla Stewart used to be a big party girl, then a cancer scare pushed her the other way. Now she's a walking talking celibate advert for clean living in all its forms and she uses her skills as a cosmetic tattoo artist to cover up scars. She is house-sitting for a wealthy Sydney resident while they are travelling.

When Ronan and Orla first meet he doesn't make a good impression, especially because Orla didn't know the pool house had been lent out. But the chemistry was palpable, if it wasn't for those pesky celibacy vows. Orla gets quite creative about her definition of celibacy (move over Bill Clinton you have a new contender), but can she let herself out of the box she has put herself in?

Amy Andrews and I have a love-hate relationship, and I'm afraid this one tipped the wrong way. I know Amy is all about the steamy smexy times, but I feel she may have over-compensated for the serious topic under discussion by throwing more sex scenes at it. For me, it just felt like the balance between plot and steam was off. Others will no doubt love it.

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

View all my reviews

Review: Blood and Money

Blood and Money by Rachel McLean
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A new series featuring DI Jade Tanner who has been tasked with managing a new investing team Scotland's Complex Crimes Unit. Alongside her are Dr Petra McBride (who we know from previous Rachel McLean series) and DS Mo Uddin (ditto).

Jade is a single mother whose husband died recently - I suspect there is more to uncover in future books on this point. Petra has a girlfriend in America but fears for her it is out of sight and out of mind, is she capable of a relationship? She is also receiving silent phone calls and believes someone is stalking her. Mo has trepidations about working for a new superior officer, he got on so well with Zoe, and moving to the countryside when he's used to be a city detective.

Their first case is a doozy. An American internet billionaire is shot and left to bleed to death on his remote country estate in Scotland which he visits once a year for his detox from devices. There are striking similarities to the murder of a millionaire property developer, another of Jade's cases which remains unsolved.

Obviously with a new series there is a fair amount of scene-setting and laying the foundations for what could be overarching story arcs (I really must find a better way of describing them I hate the 'arching' 'arc' proximity). However, I have to say I was left with a curious sense that not all the loose ends had been tied up, more importantly the breakthrough only occurred because one of the detectives overheard someone making an incriminating phone call. It felt like the crime was solved without actually understanding the motives until later - maybe that's the case in real life but it felt off.

Anyway, first in a new series and I'm keen to see where it goes.

Read on my Kindle Unlimited subscription.

View all my reviews

Review: Kiss Hard

Kiss Hard by Nalini Singh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Danny Esera and Catie Rivers have been frenemies practically all their lives. Danny's older half-brother is married to Catie's older half-sister and so they are practically family, especially since Catie's father is an unreliable gambler and her mother is a cold career woman without a maternal bone in her body.

Danny is a star rugby player from a dynasty of New Zealand rugby players, Catie is a paralympic sprinter. The two of them are forever snarking on each other's social media, although never in a mean way.

When Catie sees Danny clearly under the influence at a bar in Auckland she knows something is wrong, Danny wouldn't drink that much he's very conscious of his public image and maintaining his personal fitness. It turns out that someone at the bar has slipped drugs into Danny's drink and Catie has to get him to the hospital with the help of one of his teammates. In order to misdirect people, particularly the press, Danny's friend pretends that Danny and Catie went off on their own to hook up, which normally wouldn't be a problem but with Danny being rugby's golden boy, if the two of them are thought to have had a one-night stand it would reflect badly on Catie and could cost her some of her sponsorships (double standards are still alive and well). Also, Danny has an ultra-conservative sponsor who might not view a one-night stand favourably. So the two of them agree to a fake relationship for six months, be seen publicly, attend a few events, post a few pictures on the socials, job done. Very close friends and family are told that its fake.

But of course, what they intend isn't what happens and soon the fakery becomes real. But can they make it all the way and how will love impact their career ambitions?

Loved it. Intelligent characters with integrity. None of the rinse-and-repeat angst of other authors. Going back to read the other books featuring the Esera brothers.

View all my reviews

Review: Going Dark

Going Dark by Neil Lancaster
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Tom Novak is a former Royal Marine, and member of the elite Special Reconnaissance Regiment turned police officer. Originally from Bosnia, he and his mother fled the country when he was a child after his father's death in the Yugoslav wars. After his mother's death he was brought up by a foster family in the Cairngorns of Scotland. Tom is finding piloting a desk unfulfilling so when he gets approached to go undercover to infiltrate a gang of Bosnian Serb people smugglers he is delighted. His role is to collect evidence to convict the people smugglers themselves, the Branko family, who bring girls over from Sarajevo promising them good jobs in the UK then force them into working in their brothels and the corrupt solicitor Michael Adebayo who gives them fake Slovenian passports and then forces them to marry men who want to stay in the EU (this is pre-Brexit) to falsely obtain visas.

Things are going well until he is compelled to break cover to prevent the solicitor from raping a young woman, luckily he gets it all on camera but mysteriously both his written report and the camera footage disappear in police hands, when the girl is too scared to testify it looks like the case is dead in the water. Tom had saved another copy of the footage to his phone, but there is obviously at least one person in the police who is in the pay of Adebayo and/or the Brankos and he doesn't know who to trust on the taskforce. On the run with a CIA freelancer supplied by an old friend Tom must uncover the traitors before they succeed in having him killed.

I don't normally like the Jack Reacher type of character or the SAS style hero, all stunted emotionally and skilled in every known way to kill a person. But, I do like Neil Lancaster's police novels and this was available as part of my Prime Reading (and also now available on Kindle Unlimited) so I thought I'd give it a try. I really enjoyed it, obviously there were a few cliches/lucky coincidences such as the fact that Tom had saved the life of a man who had since gone on to be a senior person in the CIA with the ability to furnish Tom with guns and surveillance equipment, a freelance operative, and a plane at short notice. My only negative was that I thought the identity of the traitor was too obvious.

I have already downloaded the second book in the series - let's see whether Tom is more than a one-trick pony.

View all my reviews

Review: Murder in the Parish

Murder in the Parish by Faith Martin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

DI Hillary Greene is retired but has returned to the police to help solve cold cases. She has a remarkable solve rate. Her latest case is the thirty-year old murder of the Reverend Keith Coltrane in his own church in the Oxfordshire village of Lower Barton.

There were two suspects at the time, a businessman who was in dispute with the Reverend over a plot of land which the Reverend wanted to use as a cemetery and the businessman wanted to use as a glamping site, and the husband of a woman who was known to be chasing after the good-looking Reverend. Someone seems to think these two know more than they are letting on.

Was he a ladies man? Was he too friendly with the village youths? Was he hiding a secret?

This is the twentieth book in the series but the first one I have read. I found it easy enough to get into, Hillary's past was alluded to but you don't need to have read the other books to enjoy this police procedural. Having said that, the plot seemed quite familiar, but then there are only a few real motives for murder.

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

View all my reviews

Review: The Seven Day Switch

The Seven Day Switch by Meg Chronis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

When Becca Stratton's identical twin TV celebrity Gem runs into problems as always Becca comes riding in to the rescue, leaving her prestigious job as concierge at one of London's smartest hotels to return to South Africa where Gem was supposed to be doing seven days of community work at an animal sanctuary after tweeting some unfortunate remarks about an animal. Gem's had a meltdown and is in danger of losing her lucrative sponsorship deals unless she (ie Becca) can fix things with the surly vet Dr Sullivan Scott.

How hard can it be? Switch places for one week? Easy. Shovel manure? You should see the things Becca has had to clean when she was working her way up the ladder in hospitality.

The only trouble is, Becca's legendary prowess at fixing problems for her hotel guests has totally deserted her and it seems she can't take a step without mucking up, whether its crashing her car or practically drowning a dog. And then there's the inconvenient attraction to Dr Scott, especially since Gem is dating the captain of the Springboks (South Africa's national rugby team).

I'll be honest, I would have liked this better if Becca hadn't been such a walking disaster. It felt out of character and unrealistic. Why would Dully fall for a woman like that? Also, Becca was so totally indiscreet and talked about London so much that it felt contrived that Sully didn't put two and two together and guess that she was Becca when he learned that she had an identical twin sister. Especially since he commented so often about how different she was when she returned.

Overall, this felt like one of those Goldie Hawn frenetic romantic comedies (you know the ones where she runs about causing chaos and squealing a lot) which didn't really match with the vibe of the characters. I don't think I'm explaining myself very well, but if you are the type of woman who can pander to outrageous guest demands and do it with a smile on your face, why would you do so many stupid things? Ah, no I've just got it, very much like The Proposal with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, although there's no reason to take Becca down a peg or two. So a four star knocked down by half a star.

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

View all my reviews

Review: Yours Truly

Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dr Briana Ortiz and Dr Jacob Maddox get off on the wrong foot. She thinks he's come to her hospital to get the promotion she's been working for, instead he's come to avoid his ex-girlfriend and brother who have got together and both work at his previous hospital. Briana's younger brother is in kidney failure and has slumped into depression, which means he's not looking after himself and is a frequent visitor to the ER where she works.

Jacob is an introvert and an over-thinker, very much like Briana's brother. On his first day at the hospital he had a series of patients die (none of them his fault) and now the nurses call him Dr Death and hate him. His large, loud family are constantly hovering over him, taking his side and throwing shade on his brother. It's all too much. Then a woman runs past him so fast she knocks his phone out of his hand and cracks the screen. Could anyone get off to a worse start? Well yes, they could follow the woman into a patient's room and then (see introvert and overthinker above) make some stupid comments when she is clearly distressed by the patient (Briana's brother).

Anyway, long story short, Jacob writes Briana a letter to apologise for his behaviour and explain why he acted the way he did. A proper letter on real paper with a pen. The letter means a lot to Briana and she understands his behaviour better because of her brother. So strikes up a pen-pal relationship as they leave each other letters around the hospital.

Jacob's mother received a kidney donation many years ago and the entire family were grateful because none of them were a match. In an attempt to pay it forward Jacob volunteers to be tested for Briana's brother and turns out to be a near-perfect match. He agrees to donate a kidney but insists on anonymity and for the operations to take place at another hospital, his introversion could not cope with everyone crowding around him, being grateful and loud.

When Jacob confesses that he is dreading dinner at his parents' house where his brother is going to announce his engagement Briana offers to accompany him as his fake girlfriend. She understands his anxiety and vulnerability and wants to help, just as she would help her brother. Indeed, she teaches Jacob a game she and her brother play at social events.

Things are going swimmingly, Briana and Jacob are getting on fine, they could even have something real, but when Briana finds out that Jacob in her brother's donor he can't tell if she's faking it out of gratitude. On her part, Briana is worried that Jacob is still in love with his ex and just faking it with her to distract his family. Can these two get over themselves?

I thought that this was the second Abby Jimenez book I had read, it's actually the fourth! This loosely follows from Part of Your World, which was a bit heavy on the woo-woo with a sentient Inn. The Inn features in this book, but only a cameo appearance.

What can I say, I loved it. Okay I felt both of them maybe harped on a bit too much about what they thought the other was doing rather than looking and listening to what they were actually doing, but hey that's the nature of the beast, there has to be some kind of conflict.

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

View all my reviews