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3.5 Stars The psychological suspense novels of Canadian author Nicole Lundrigan have become my go-to books when I’m looking for an audiobook for my morning walks. This one has chapters which alternate between two perspectives. There’s that of Warren Botts narrated in omniscient third person. He’s a PhD student taking a leave of absence and teaching science in a middle school. The other point of…
4 Stars This is a gentle, comforting read. During a museum visit, Daphne Fuller reconnects with her former stepfather, Eddie Triplett. They haven’t seen each other for 44 years since she was nine years old and the two of them were involved in a serious car accident. Their reunion has her looking back on her childhood and slowly coming to see people and events with new eyes. The novel’s chapters…
4 Stars This is the seventh book in the Skelfs series which follows a multi-generational family of female funeral directors and private investigators. As in the previous books, chapters alternate among the three women. Dorothy, the matriarch, investigates the grief tech industry. Is there a connection between a man’s death by suicide and the digital avatar of his daughter who died months earlier?…
4 Stars I’ve read all of Anita Rau Badami’s novels ( Tamarind Mem , The Hero’s Walk , Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? and Tell it to the Trees ) and have enjoyed them all. A sha in Her Garden , the latest, after a 15-year hiatus, is no exception. The novel begins with seventy-year-old Asha Mohan witnessing the cutting down of an old maple tree in her Montreal back yard. This tree shaded her…
3.5 Stars This is the third book of the Nordic noir series the Cold Case Quartet featuring William Wisting. A serial killer, Tom Kerr, has agreed to reveal the resting place of his last victim. During the site visit, however, Kerr escapes. The police have long suspected that Kerr had an unknown accomplice whom they have dubbed as the Other One. Now it seems this collaborator has helped Kerr to…
3.5 Stars This psychological suspense novel is set in Iceland. In 2018 Unnur is a single mother to seven-year-old Lilja. She lives a quiet life in Reykjavík, but she is haunted by what happened when she was eleven years old and living in the remote Dark Valley. There she befriended Freyja who mysteriously vanished one night. Unnur has only fragments of memories of what happened that night so she…
3 Stars This book is historical fiction but based on the author’s family letters. Klara and Julius own a bakery in Feldenheim, Germany. They have a daughter Annelise who, as a young girl, yearns for more than working with her parents in the family business. Eventually she marries Walter and they have a daughter, Ruth. In 1938, Annelise, Walter, and Ruth leave for the U.S. amidst rising…
3.5 Stars This is another domestic suspense novel by an author considered by many to be a master of the genre. Jill and Ted Westcott love their luxury Brooklyn Heights brownstone the way other people love their children. It’s their sanctuary which they’ve expensively renovated and decorated to reflect their tastes. Unfortunately they cannot continue their lifestyle because Ted’s inheritance has…
3.5 Stars I prefer my audiobooks to be escapist, and this one fit the bill. Beginning in 1958, the story is narrated by 11-year-old Tommie Ware. Aunt Celia, the woman who raised him, is murdered by a serial killer. Tommie is forced to move in with his mother Esther, a live-in housekeeper for the prominent Henneberry family. Hers is not a glamorous existence: she lives in a very small room and is…
3 Stars I had the same issues with this novel as I did with the first book in the series, Thirty Days of Darkness ( https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2023/07/review-of-thirty-days-of-darkness-by.html ). Hannah Krause-Bendix is sent by her editor to a luxurious villa in Sicily. His hope is that she will write a second crime novel that will be as successful as her first. Shortly after arrival,…
3.5 Stars This is a coming-of-age story set in 1986 in Maine. Fourteen-year-old Frances is hired by Regina and Forrest Emerson to be a mother’s helper for the summer at their lakefront home named Wonderland. She has to help look after 12-year-old Hayward and 6-year-old Jilly but her responsibilities are not that taxing. She finds many benefits that she doesn’t have in her home. She is given a…
