Book Review: Last Seen Alone by Laura Griffin @Laura_Griff @BerkleyMystery

Last Seen Alone
Laura Griffin
Berkley, September 2021
ISBN ‎978-0-593-19736-3
Mass Market Paperback

In Last Seen Alone, we meet Leigh Larson, a hard-driving ambitious lawyer with a law practice specializing in helping women dealing with stalkers, harassers, and revenge porn, and Brandon Reynolds, an Austin, Texas homicide detective.  But the book begins with Vanessa Adams, a young woman meeting her contact in a wooded area to buy a gun from him.  After concluding the transaction, Vanessa drives off but then pulls over to examine her new gun.  As she does, she realizes there is a truck behind her slowing down and fearful she is being followed Vanessa takes off running into the woods and disappears.

When Brandon’s partner Antonio is called to the scene of the parked car, he finds a smear of blood on the open door.  He and Brandon then decide to investigate but find no clues to Vanessa’s apparent disappearance.  Nonetheless they ask their boss to classify the case as a homicide and let them continue investigating.  Meanwhile they have met Leigh Larson who, citing attorney-client confidentiality, refuses to  answer any questions about Vanessa or whether she is Leigh’s client.  In fact, Vanessa approached Leigh some weeks earlier with what Vanessa described as a problem with her landlord.  Leigh gave her some advice and when she heard nothing further assumed the matter was taken care of.  However, upon return to her office after being questioned by Brandon, Leigh finds a signed retainer agreement and a check from Vanessa, but Vanessa doesn’t respond to Leigh’s phone calls.

The rest of this story is about both Leigh and the detective trying to find out what happened to Vanessa, a break-in at Leigh’s office, and various people who know Vanessa giving them little information.  Along the way they discover a mutual passion for each other, although Reynolds is aware that Leigh is holding back but he doesn’t know why.

I have mixed feelings about this book.  I like the premise but found Leigh annoying in her constant attempts to investigate on her own, putting herself in danger, and generally bumbling around with no clear plan or path.  I also found the relationship between Leigh and Brandon annoying along with being somewhat hard to believe.  A blurb on the book cover by author Jayne Ann Krentz, herself a romance writer, referred to liking “smart, sophisticated, fast-moving romantic thrillers….”  I too like thrillers and find this book to have too much of the romance.

Reviewed by Melinda Drew, January 2022.

Book Review: He Started It by Samantha Downing @smariedowning @BerkleyPub

He Started It
Samantha Downing
Berkley, April 2021
ISBN 978-0-451-49176-3
Trade Paperback

From the publisher—

From the twisted mind behind mega hit My Lovely Wife comes the story of a family—not unlike your own—just with a few more violent tendencies thrown in….

Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan haven’t all been together in years. And for very good reasons—we’ll get to those later. But when their wealthy grandfather dies and leaves a cryptic final message in his wake, the siblings and their respective partners must come together for a cross-country road trip to fulfill his final wish and—more importantly—secure their inheritance.

But time with your family can be tough. It is for everyone.

It’s even harder when you’re all keeping secrets and trying to forget a memory, a missing person, an act of revenge, the man in the black truck who won’t stop following your car—and especially when at least one of you is a killer and there’s a body in the trunk. Just to name a few reasons.

But money is a powerful motivator. It is for everyone.

Road trip! Those two words have differing connotations to many people but, to most of us, road trips from our past bring good memories, memories we like to savor. For me, they represent family vacations and occasional outings with college friends. There were also a few day trips with my best friend, sort of a high school Thelma and Louise kind of a thing…but without the cliff 😂

Such pleasant meanings don’t hold true for Beth, Portia and Eddie, though, as they’ve been coerced to take this particular road trip by greed and a demand from their deceased grandfather that they recreate a trek from years before. Trouble is, that long-ago journey wasn’t the nicest thing that ever happened to those kids and dear old Grandpa was the guy behind some very creepy pit stops. Now, if they want his millions, they have to recreate it and scatter his ashes but there are rules that have to be followed.

And then the REAL creepiness begins.

There are stories full of dark family secrets but Ms. Downing takes He Started It to a new level and I couldn’t help feeling truly sorry for the two spouses who had no idea what they were about to find out about the siblings and, of course, none of them could have expected the new craziness that was coming. I found myself enthralled with characters that I didn’t even like and had to keep reading to see what levels of awfulness they’d reach next. “Entertaining” is almost too mild a word to be used for this and, yet, it kind of fits if you’re entertained, as I am, by weirdly harrowing tales. If I have any quibbles at all, it’s because there’s more telling than showing here and that lessens the effect a bit, but I still recommend He Started It.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, April 2021.

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“Wholly original. Scarily clever. Completely mesmerizing. You
will never look at family road trips the same way again.”
—Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times bestselling author

************

Credit Jacqueline Dallimore

Samantha Downing currently lives in New Orleans, where
she is furiously typing away on her next thrilling book.
Website // Facebook // Goodreads

Book Review: The Comeback by Ella Berman @ellabee @BerkleyPub

The Comeback
Ella Berman
Berkley, August 2020
ISBN 978-0-593-09951-3
Hardcover

Teen actress Grace Turner was only fourteen when she was discovered by director Able Yorke. With her parents and younger sister Esme she moves to Los Angeles from England, where she appears in a television series and films. When she is nominated for a Golden Globe for “Lights of Berlin,” she drops out of sight.

The Comeback begins as Grace emerges from her exile. She has been living with her parents, in a nondescript suburban neighborhood, and her sister, who has been suspended from her school for sexting. Her mother was a modestly successful model back in England and now watches the Kardashians on television and swallows diet pills.   Grace has been asked to present a Lifetime Achievement Award to Able Yorke, and she has difficulty coming to terms with her feelings for him. He has controlled every aspect of her life for eight years.

Grace rents a house across from Able Yorke, watches his wife and children, and obsesses about what she will say to him when they meet again. There are many echoes of the Harvey Weinstein case woven through this book. In the end, Grace believes there are many ways to get hurt, but you can still fight back. A well-written and disturbing look at how young women are treated in the entertainment industry.

Reviewed by Susan Belsky, January 2021.

Book Reviews: The Art of Theft by Sherry Thomas and Twinepathy by C.B. Cook @sherrythomas @BerkleyMystery

The Art of Theft
The Lady Sherlock Series #4
Sherry Thomas
Berkley, October 2019
ISBN 978-0-451-49247-0
Trade Paperback

Once upon a time, Sherry Thomas created the first of a retelling of the Sherlock Holmes adventures and, my word, what a charming series this is so far. Charlotte Holmes and Mrs. Watson are a delightful pair and they channel the original Holmes and Watson with a feminine aplomb that makes Sherlock himself much more accessible.

Charlotte is a successful detective, having solved numerous cases, but she’s going to have to become something of an art thief this time. The target is a particular very valuable painting but it’s the documents secreted on the back of the painting that she needs to obtain; if she can’t do so, her client will be ruined. Charlotte recruits her usual partners in crime, so to speak, and the merry band sets off to attend a masked ball and art sale at a certain chateau in France. Charlotte is the true brains of the group but she couldn’t pull this off without the able assistance of Stephen Marbleton and Lord Ingram, not to mention her sister, Livia, and the pragmatic Mrs. Watson.

There’s a great deal of fun to be had in this latest tale but the reader who’s new to the series should probably start with the first book, A Study in Scarlet Women, to enjoy the books to the fullest. If you’re like me, you’ll fall head over heels for Charlotte and company.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, June 2020.

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Twinepathy
IDIA #1
C.B. Cook
CreateSpace, July 2016
ISBN 978-1535201551
Trade Paperback

Twin sisters Brooklyn and Albany have always hidden their telepathic abilities, believing they’re alone in the world in that sense, until a small child shows up on the doorstep, a child who seems to be suffering from total amnesia. Before they can even begin to come up with a plan—although they instinctively know they need to hide the child from their older brother and parents for the moment—two strangers appear literally out of thin air and the world as they know it changes in an instant.

It turns out that superheroes do really exist, with various powers as Data and Blaze explain; Data is a glorified mind reader and is the head of a secret agency of superheroes, the International Defense and Intelligence Agency, while Blaze specializes in teleportation and illusion. Before this first meeting is over, the sisters have code names, and they’ve learned that the little girl, dubbed Maddie, is not the first victim of memory loss. Now, Albany and Brooklyn set out to solve the first mystery—who is Maddie and what is her story?

Twinepathy is a fun tale for anyone who enjoys superheroes and adventure mixed in with a puzzle and I recommend it for a few hours of entertaining distraction from our all too real world.

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, June 2020.

Book Review: Who Rescued Who by Victoria Schade—and a Giveaway! @VictoriaSchade @BerkleyPub

Who Rescued Who
Victoria Schade
Berkley, March 2020
ISBN 978-0-593-09883-7
Trade Paperback

From the publisher—

Where can you turn when the world turns against you? When Elizabeth Barnes’ life fell apart she never imagined that she’d be rescued by a new friend on four paws.

The plan was simple: Elizabeth would ignore the fact that she was unjustly fired from her dream job, fly across the pond to settle an unexpected inheritance in her father’s home country and quickly return to reclaim her position among the Silicon Valley elite.

But when Elizabeth stumbles upon an abandoned puppy, she’s shocked to realize that her brief trip to England might turn into an extended stay. Her strict itinerary is upended completely by the pup’s dogged devotion, and soon the loveable puppy helps her to connect with a tight-knit community of new friends on two legs and four, from the aunt and uncle she didn’t know existed, to a grumpy coffee shop owner to two very opinionated sheep. Along the way Elizabeth is confronted by long-kept family secrets, hard truths about her former life and a new romance that might lead her to question everything she knows about love. Because sometimes rescue magic happens on both ends of the leash.

Just a couple of months ago, a story about someone who rescues a pet would have been very heartwarming, of course, a feel-good tale to pass a few hours of comfortable reading. That’s all true with Who Rescued Who but life today gives it a whole new meaning and, while I’m sure there are other newly-released animal rescue books, this is the one that came to my attention and I’m SO glad it did.

Besides the obvious attraction of a cute puppy, Ms. Schade has created a really good tale full of what makes family and friends mean so much to us and we’re treated to a bit of mystery, romance and family secrets along the way. Bess is an especially appealing protagonist, one we can really sympathize with when she’s faced with more than her share of angst-causing adversity and the people and animals, especially Georgina, that soon surround her are just as engaging. I loved watching Bess come to terms with the past and learn to be the person she’s meant to be. Perhaps best of all, we get to escape our current health/economic/political crisis for just a little while and, these days, that’s a very good thing. Ms. Schade and her publisher had no way of knowing how timely this would be but we readers surely do benefit from serendipity.

We’re a household of four rescues, including three cats and one dog, and the pup on the cover of this book reminds me of our Rosie even though they don’t look at all alike. What they do have in common is an intense stare, as though they don’t want to miss even a nanosecond of their humans’ attention. Rescues KNOW they’ve found a forever home and love their people just as much in return, certainly more than some humans do. If you can, please consider rescuing a critter—of any kind—and help out an overwhelmed shelter at the same time, won’t you? 🙂

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, April 2020.

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Giveaway

To enter the drawing for an advance
reading copy of Who Rescued Who,
leave a comment below. The
winning name will be drawn on
Sunday evening, April 19th.
Open to residents of the US and Canada.

Book Review: Where the Light Enters by Sara Donati @akaSaraDonati @penguinrandom

Where the Light Enters
The Waverly Place Series #2
Sara Donati
Berkley, September 2019
ISBN 978-0-425-27182-7
Hardcover

Where the Light Enters is a massive 672 page book that starts off in an epistolary fashion as Dr. Sophie Savard waits for her husband, Cap Verhoeven, who is afflicted with tuberculosis, to die. They are in Switzerland in an attempt to prolong his life, but when that proves to be in vain, Sophie, and Pip, her little dog, return home to New York. The year is 1884 and, although I believe Sophie’s history with Cap is detailed in a previous novel, that Cap was part of the wealthy New York society clique and married to a mulatto physician is an integral part of the plot.

Sophie tries to make her way both as a physician, a wealthy widow in high society, and a part of a large integrated family from all sorts of backgrounds. She also becomes, with her cousin Anna, another physician, involved in a horrific act of crime. Anna is married to a police detective who is charged with finding a murderer who’s method of killing is especially cruel. It seems the killer is an abortionist who uses expertise in surgery to murder the victims. Who better to help identify such a person than a couple of women doctors?

But don’t read this story as a mystery. It really isn’t. Very soon we can make a good guess at the killer. Even that seems almost incidental as the book could also be identified as a psychological morality story. Or simply a historical detailing not only the prevailing attitude toward women doctors, especially one of color, but of the fashions and mores of the time. And possibly, given the familial aspects, a feel good tale of love and acceptance.

Something for every reader, melded together in the best possible way. The details are wonderfully compelling and you may just find yourself immersed in the historical period.

If I had a problem with the story, it’s that a great many characters were introduced from the first and, although maybe it was just me, I did have a bit of trouble keeping them separate.

Reviewed by Carol Crigger, September 2019.
www.ckcrigger.com
Author of The Woman Who Built A Bridge (Spur Award Winner), Yester’s Ride
and Five Days, Five Dead: A China Bohannon Novel

Book Review: The Girl in Red by Christina Henry @C_Henry_Author @BerkleyPub

The Girl in Red
Christina Henry
Berkley, June 2019
ISBN 978-0-451-49228-9
Trade Paperback

From the publisher—

It’s not safe for anyone alone in the woods. There are predators that come out at night: critters and coyotes, snakes and wolves. But the woman in the red jacket has no choice. Not since the Crisis came, decimated the population, and sent those who survived fleeing into quarantine camps that serve as breeding grounds for death, destruction, and disease. She is just a woman trying not to get killed in a world that doesn’t look anything like the one she grew up in, the one that was perfectly sane and normal and boring until three months ago.

There are worse threats in the woods than the things that stalk their prey at night. Sometimes, there are men. Men with dark desires, weak wills, and evil intents. Men in uniform with classified information, deadly secrets, and unforgiving orders. And sometimes, just sometimes, there’s something worse than all of the horrible people and vicious beasts combined.

Red doesn’t like to think of herself as a killer, but she isn’t about to let herself get eaten up just because she is a woman alone in the woods….

I read this book during the holidays and, weeks later, I’m still stewing about it. I guess that’s not necessarily a terrible thing because, after all, it means the book made a lasting impression on me but…

Red is a young woman who’s apparently alone in the world following the advent of a pandemic cough but we soon learn that’s not entirely true. The author switches the scene back and forth from just before to now and back again, a style that can be confusing but it works well here. Red is determined to get to her grandmother’s house deep in the forest but has a perilous journey to get there. Fortunately, she’s somewhat prepared for the dangers she faces because she prepared well, unlike her parents and brother (who is so clueless you have to wonder how he made it as long as he did even before the Crisis). To add to her difficulties, Red is an amputee and, not that it matters to the story but she’s biracial, a nice touch.

Red has a number of twisty turny encounters but she keeps going for weeks, fending off bad guys and monsters as well as the government that wants to put everybody in quarantine (but even the government offers a hero of sorts) and the nearly unbearable tension kept me reading far into the night. As post-apocalyptic stories go, this one is a doozy and I loved how Ms. Henry turned Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf into an even scarier tale. So, why am I so bent out of shape? Well, I can’t tell you specifically because it would be a major spoiler but let me just say that Chapter 15 has a whopper of a surprise and I was left wanting so much more. I’m really torn because until then I was completely immersed but that nonending left me cold. Fortunately, not every reader sees it that way; all I can say is Bah Humbug…but dagnabbit, this was good!

Reviewed by Lelia Taylor, January 2020.