I have been reading the Selkie Moon Series by Virginia King for a while now and loving it. Planting Pearls is taking us back to the beginning of Selkie’s journey. If you would like to meet her, pick up Planting Pearls for FREE.
I have read the first four books in the Selkie Moon Series, and Virginia King is taking us back to the beginning of Selkie Moon’s journey in Planting Pearls. If you are up for a ghostly mystery, this may be a book for you.
Sneaking away while her ex is out of town, Selkie Moon hops a plane and lands in Hawaii.
Through a series of coincidences, Selkie ends up at The Pearl and finds herself a roommate in Wanda, a friend in Derek, and a ghostly mystery to solve.
As she sits feeling a bit sorry for herself, she realizes after 20 years under Andrew’s thumb, things are falling into place with her. He is a nasty piece of work and dogs her every step, doing his best to ruin her life and drive her back into his arms.
I have grown to love the characters that Virginia King has created and by going back to the beginning and learning how they all came together, whether through Fate, Karma, or luck, I have only grown to care for them more.
In Planting Pearls, I have met Sage, a sweet, sophisticated, young girl who is very mature for her age…and I love her. She is not a character that continues in the series, but she sure stands out in Planting Pearls.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Planting Pearls by Virginia King.
4 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
When Selkie Moon escapes her controlling husband to start a new life in Hawaii, she’s under pressure to support herself with her new business, stay hidden from her ex, and trust her new friends.
She doesn’t expect to get tangled in a so-called haunting!
What happened at the old Honolulu house back in 1961, when Elvis was shooting Blue Hawaii?
Do the weird experiences of the new owners and their five-year-old daughter mean they’ve interrupted a ghost?
Or could something else be going on?
As she helps to unravel the mystery, Selkie gets caught up in something that’s way beyond her skill-set. Will her amateur ghost-hunting put her and everyone else in danger?
ABOUT VIRGINIA KING
When a voice wakes you up in the middle of the night and tells you
to write a mystery series, what’s a writer to do? That’s how I came to
create Selkie Moon, after a massage from a strange woman with gifted
hands was followed by this nocturnal message. I sat down at the
keyboard until Selkie Moon turned up — a modern woman with a mythical
name. Soon I was hooked, exploring far-flung places full of secrets
where Selkie delves into psychological clues tangled up in the local
mythology.
Before Selkie Moon invaded my life, I’d been a
teacher, an unemployed ex-teacher, the author of over 50 children’s
books, an audio-book producer, a workshop presenter and a prize-winning
publisher. These days I live in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney
with my husband, where I disappear each day into Selkie Moon’s latest
mystery. Bliss.
Wallflower (wohl-flou-erh): Identifier for someone who is shy and/or awkward. For reference, see Viola Kent.
Seventeen-year-old Viola Kent likes being invisible. Well, not literally, but she’s content being a loner, reading her books, and hanging out with the animals at the shelter. She just wants to keep her head down and get through her senior year at Durham High.
Driving Dare Frost to school every day wasn’t part of the plan.
And when Viola finds out her dad recruited Dare, his number one player, to be her friend?
Her inner Slytherin demands revenge.
The solution: Get Dare to be her fake boyfriend.
Convincing the star athlete to pretend is easier than she’d thought it would be. The hard part is protecting her heart. With every word, touch, and kiss, Viola’s feelings become more real.
The problem: Viola knows she’s falling for Dare—but he doesn’t believe in love.
This book features two sets of soulmates, one happy pooch named Hermione, so many sizzling kisses and answers the question:
Can a dork and a jock fake their way to true love?
“Come on, Dare. Show me your moves. Or did you run out already?”
Dare walked toward me until the top of
my thighs hit the couch cushion.
“I’ve got a ton of moves, flower.
We haven’t even tried half of them.”
I blinked. “Really?”
He nodded. “I’m just trying to ease you into this,
make sure you’re comfortable. I don’t
want to move too fast.”
Please, do,
I thought.
The words that came out of my mouth
were, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
It had sounded good, quippy and totally
aloof in my head.
But Dare took it as a challenge.
“I’m going to enjoy this,”
Dare said.
Before I could respond, he gripped the
backs of my legs and lifted slightly, making me gasp and throw my arms about
his neck. In the next instant, I was
balanced on the couch back, my legs on either side of his hips as he took a
step forward. There hadn’t been that
much space between us to begin with. So,
the next thing I knew his body was mere inches away from mine.
My cheeks flamed, and he drank in my
reaction.
Author Bio:
Cookie O’Gorman writes
YA & NA romance to give readers a taste of happily-ever-after. Small towns,
quirky characters, and the awkward yet beautiful moments in life make up her
books. Cookie also has a soft spot for nerds and ninjas. Her novels ADORKABLE,
NINJA GIRL, The Unbelievable, Inconceivable, Unforeseeable Truth About Ethan
Wilder, The Good Girl’s Guide to Being Badand WALLFLOWER are out now!She is also the author of NA sports romance, The
Best Mistake.
Happy Monday everyone and welcome back to Music Monday! Let’s share some songs we’ve been enjoying lately! If you would like to play, and I really hope you do, please see the rules and link up below HERE
Hope this gives you some laughs and puts a smile on your face. Will it stick with you all day….like it did me? LOL
In case you want to dance along…
The Biggest ‘Baby Shark’ Ever w/ Sophie Turner & Josh Groban. HILARIOUS!
**images are linked to Amazon (I am an affiliate)**
Hi Everyone. Not much going on this week. Mr Wonderful was at his mother’s house, so I binged on Below Deck and Twilight. I love both and Mr Wonderful gets bored with them, so whenever he is away I am binging. How about you and yours? Do you have favorites and hates? The weather has been springy…cloudy, windy, rainy and got a bit chilly too. The battle of the leaves in the pool has been ongoing and another week or so I think it will all pass and I am calling it summertime!!!!
I got the idea and the motivation to start doing Tackling The TBR from All The Book Blog Names Are Taken.
It has helped me to keep track of my reading shelf as far as current
events and I also started doing a post for Books From The Backlog,
from Carole’s Random Life in Books,
to tidy up my shelves. I feel better about my out of control TBR and
have even knocked off a couple of those old ones that had been
hanging around for years.
COME ON….JOIN IN.
Previous Total: 2396
Currently Reading
I couldn’t find this on Amazon…yet…but you can click the cover to check it out on Goodreads. I have read numerous books by Michael F Stewart and loved them.
Books Read
I got the cute book, Bad Fairy Strikes Again by Elaine Kaye for review, but I couldn’t find it on Amazon…yet. Click the cover for the Goodread link. After reading Bad Fairy Strikes Again, I found I hadn’t read the first one, Bad Fairy, but I will be getting to that ASAP.
At the time of posting, Fallen and Lost Wolf were both free on Amazon. Please be sure and check for the ‘0’.
Books Added
I had a chance pick up Them, I Kill by Shawn Raiford, a serial killer short story, for free and I grabbed it. How could I possibly resist? It is currently .99. I have been doing my best to quit adding books…unless I can’t resist them, or one of my favorite authors makes a request to review. I believe I have so many good ones waiting and I would like to get to them…at least some of them 🙂
Israel: A drone-based terrorist attack kills dozens on a sun-splashed beach in Caesarea.
Washington: America awakens to the shattering news that Vice President Stephanie Davenport has died of an apparent heart attack.
That same morning, a chance encounter on the Washington Metro results
in international private investigator Robert Brixton thwarting an
attempted terrorist bombing. Brixton has no reason to suspect that the
three incidents have anything in common, until he’s contacted by Kendra
Rendine, the Secret Service agent who headed up the vice president’s
security detail. Rendine is convinced the vice president was murdered
and needs Brixton’s investigative expertise to find out why.
In Israel, meanwhile, legendary anti-terrorist fighter Lia Ganz
launches her own crusade against the perpetrators of that attack which
nearly claimed the lives of her and granddaughter. Ganz’s trail will
ultimately take her to Washington where she joins forces with Brixton to
uncover an impossible link between the deadly attack on Caesarea and
the attempted Metro bombing, as well as the death of the vice president.
The connection lies in the highest corridors of power in Washington
where a deadly plot with unimaginable consequences has been hatched.
With the clock ticking toward doomsday, Brixton and Ganz race against
time to save millions of American lives who will otherwise become
collateral damage to a conspiracy destined to change the United States
forever.
Praise :
“Jon Land is one of the best thriller writers in the business, and
the Capital Crimes series is in superb and skilled hands with him.
Nobody does pacing better than Land, and MURDER ON THE METRO starts with a bang and keeps on going at breakneck speed. If you haven’t read this excellent series, start with Land’s MURDER ON THE METRO.” —Lisa Scottoline, #1 New York Times bestselling author
Book Details:
Genre: Thriller Published by: Forge Books Publication Date: February 16th 2021 Number of Pages: 288 ISBN: 1250238870 (ISBN13: 9781250238870) Series: A Capital Crimes Novel, #32 Purchase Links:Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Tour Info:
Book Formats: Print, Netgalley Hosting Options: Review, Interview, Guest Post, Showcase Giveaway: There will be a PICT Giveaway More: According to the author Murder on the Metro does not
include: Excessive Strong Language, Graphic Violence, Explicit Sexual
Scenes, Rape, or other trigger situations. It does contain what some may
consider to be: Steamy Clean (mild language, mild sexual tension and
innuendo, no sex scenes) content. PICT staff have not read this book,
however and cannot give additional information.
Read an excerpt:
CHAPTER 1
Washington, DC; the next morning
Not again . . .
That was Robert Brixton’s first thought when his gaze locked on the
woman seated across from him in the Washington Metro car. He was riding
into the city amid the clutter of morning commuters from the apartment
in Arlington, Virginia where he now lived alone, his girlfriend Flo
Combes having returned to New York.
Former girlfriend, Brixton corrected in his mind. And Flo’s return to
New York, where she’d opened her first clothing boutique, looked very
much like it was for good this time.
Which brought his attention back to the woman wearing a hijab and
bearing a strong resemblance to another Muslim woman who’d been haunting
his sleep for five years now, since she’d detonated a suicide bomb
inside a crowded DC restaurant, killing Brixton’s daughter Janet and
eleven other victims that day. He’d seen it coming, felt it anyway, as
if someone had dragged the head of a pin up his spine. He hadn’t been a
cop for years at that point, having taken his skills into the private
sector, but his instincts remained unchanged, always serving him well
and almost always being proven right.
But today he wanted to be wrong, wanted badly to be wrong. Because if
his instincts were correct, tragedy was about to repeat itself with him
bearing witness yet again, relocated from a bustling café to a crowded
Metro car.
The woman wearing the hijab turned enough to meet his gaze, Brixton
unable to jerk his eyes away in time and forcing the kind of smile
strangers cast each other. The woman didn’t return it, just turned her
focus back forward, her expression empty as if bled of emotion. In
Brixton’s experience, she resembled a criminal who found strange solace
in the notion of being caught after tiring of the chase. That was the
suspicious side of his nature. If not for a long career covering various
aspects of law enforcement, including a private investigator with
strong international ties, Brixton would likely have seen her as the
other passengers in the Metro car did: A quiet woman with big soft eyes
just hoping to blend in with the scenery and not attract any attention
to herself.
Without reading material of any kind, a cell phone in her grasp, or
ear buds dangling. Brixton gazed about; as far as he could tell, she was
the only passenger in sight, besides him, not otherwise occupied to
pass the time. So in striving not to stand out, the young woman had
achieved the opposite.
He studied her closer, determining that the woman didn’t look tired,
so much as content. And, beneath her blank features, Brixton sensed
something taut and resigned, a spring slowly uncoiling. Something,
though, had changed in her expression since the moment their eyes had
met. She was fidgeting in her seat now, seeking comfort that clearly
eluded her.
Just as another suicide bomber had five years ago
If he didn’t know better, he would’ve fully believed he was back in
that DC restaurant again, granted a second chance to save his daughter
after he’d failed so horribly the first time.
***
Five years ago
What world are you in? Janet had asked a clearly distracted Brixton, then consumed by the nagging feeling dragged up his spine.
Let’s go.
Daddy, I haven’t finished!
Janet always called him “Daddy.” Much had been lost to memory from
that day, forcibly put aside, but not that or the moments that followed.
It had been the last time she’d ever called him that and Brixton had
fought to preserve the recording that existed only in his mind
resolvedly ever since. Whenever it faded, he fought to get it back,
treating Janet’s final address of him like a voicemail machine message
from a lost loved one forever saved on his phone.
Come on.
Is something wrong?
We’re leaving.
Brixton had headed to the door, believing his daughter was right
behind him. He realized she wasn’t only when he was through it, turning
back toward the table to see Janet facing the Muslim woman wearing the
hijab who was chanting in Arabic.
Janet!
He’d started to storm back inside to get her when the explosion
shattered the placid stillness of the day, an ear-splitting blast that
hit him like a Category Five wind gust to the chest and sent him
sprawling to the sidewalk. His head ping-ponged off the concrete,
threatening his grip on consciousness. Parts of a splintered table came
flying in his direction and he threw his arms over his face to shield it
from wooden shards and other debris that caked the air, cataloguing
them as they soared over him in absurd counterpoint. Plates, glasses,
skin, limbs, eyeglasses, knives, forks, beer mugs, chair legs and arms,
calamari, boneless ribs, pizza slices, a toy gorilla that had been held
by a child a table two removed from where he’d been sitting with Janet,
and empty carafes of wine with their contents seeming to trail behind
them like vapor trails.
The surreal nature of that moment made Brixton think he might be
sleeping, all this no more than the product of an airy dream to be lost
to memory by the time woke. He remembered lying on the sidewalk, willing
himself to wake up, to rouse from this nightmare-fueled stupor. The
worst moment of his life followed the realization that he wasn’t asleep
and an imponderable wave of grief washed over him, stealing his next
breath and making him wonder if he even wanted to bother trying for
another.
Brixton had stumbled to his feet before what moments earlier had been
a bustling café filled with happy people. Now, bodies were everywhere,
some piled on top of others, blood covering everything and everyone. He
touched the side of his face and pulled bloody fingers away from the
wound. He looked back into the café in search of his daughter but saw
only a tangle of limbs and clothing where they’d been sitting.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered, his senses sharpening. “Janet!”
Washington’s Twenty-third Street had been crammed with pedestrians at
the time of the blast, joined now by people pouring out of office
buildings and other restaurants nearby, within eye or earshot of the
dual blasts. Brixton’s attempts to get closer to the carnage, holding
out hope Janet might still be alive, were thwarted at every turn by
throngs fleeing in panic in an endless wave.
“My daughter! My daughter!” he kept crying out, as if that might make the crowd yield and the chaos recede.
***
It wasn’t until Brixton reached the hospital that he learned Janet
hadn’t made it out, had been declared one of the missing. Having served
as an agent for a private security agency out-sourced to the State
Department at the time, he knew all too well that missing meant dead. He
had another daughter, Janet’s older sister, who’d given him a beautiful
grandson he loved dearly, but that was hardly enough to make up for the
loss of Janet. And the guilt over not having dragged her out with him
when she’d resisted leaving had haunted him to this very moment, when
instinct told him many on this crowded subway car might well be about to
join her.
Thanks to another woman wearing a hijab, but it wasn’t just that.
Brixton had crossed paths with an untold number of Arab women in the
five years since Janet’s death, and not one before today had ever
elicited in him the feeling he had now. She might’ve been a twin of the
bomber who’d taken his daughter from him, about whom Brixton could
recall only one thing:
Her eyes.
This woman had the very same shifting look, trying so hard to appear
casual that it seemed she was wearing a costume, sticking out to him as
much as a kid on Halloween. Brixton spun his gaze back in her direction,
prepared to measure off the distance between them and how he might
cover it before she could trigger her explosives.
But the young woman was gone.
Brixton looked down the center aisle cluttered with commuters
clutching poles or dangling hand-hold straps. He spotted the young woman
in the hijab an instant before she cocked her gaze briefly back in his
direction, a spark of clear recognition flashing when their eyes met
this time.
She knows I made her, Brixton thought, heavy with fear as he climbed to his feet.
He started after her, heart hammering in his chest, the sensation he
was feeling in that dreadful moment all too familiar. He couldn’t help
but catalogue the people he passed in the woman’s wake, many of whom
were either his late daughter’s age or younger. Smiling, gabbing away on
their phones, reading a book, or lost between their earbuds without any
knowledge of how horribly their lives might very well be about to
change. If he needed any further motivation to keep moving and stop the
potential suicide bomber though any means necessary, that was it. Doubt
vanished, Brixton trusting his instincts in a way he hadn’t that tragic
day five years ago when he was still a de facto agent for the US
government.
Janet . . .
In Brixton’s mind, this was no longer a Metro car, but the same
restaurant where a suicide bomber had taken a dozen lives and wounded
dozens more. And he found himself faced with the chance to do today what
he hadn’t done five years ago.
Stop!
Had Brixton barked that command out loud, or merely formed the
thought in his head. Other passengers were staring at him now, his surge
up the aisle disturbing the meager comfort of their morning routine.
Ahead of him, the woman wearing the hijab had picked up her pace,
Brixton spotting her dip a hand beneath a jacket that seemed much too
heavy for the unseasonably mild Washington, DC spring. His experience
with the State Department working for the shadowy SITQUAL group, along
with that as a cop, told him she was likely reaching for the pull cord
that would detonate the suicide vest concealed under bulky sweatshirt
and jacket.
If you could relive the day of your daughter’s death, what would you do?
I’d shoot the bitch before she had the chance to yank that cord,
Brixton thought, drawing his Sig Sauer P-226 nine-millimeter pistol. It
had survived his tenure with SITQUAL as his weapon of choice, well
balanced and deadly accurate.
He could feel the crowd around him recoiling, pulling back, when they
saw the pistol steadied in his hand. Several gasped. A woman cried out.
A kid dropped his cell phone into Brixton’s path and he accidentally
kicked it aside.
“Stop!”
Shouted out loud for sure this time, the dim echo bouncing off the
Metro car’s walls as it wound in thunderous fashion through the tube.
The young woman in the hijab was almost to the rear door separating this
car from the next. Brixton was close enough to hear the whoooooshhh as
she engaged the door, breaking the rule that prohibited passengers from
such car-hopping.
“Stop!”
She turned her gaze back toward him as he raised his pistol, ready to
take the shot he hadn’t taken five years ago. Passengers cried out and
shrank from his path. The door hissed closed, the young woman regarding
him vacantly through the safety glass as she stretched hand out blindly
to activate the door accessing the next car back.
And that’s when she stumbled. Brixton was well aware of the problems
encountered by this new 7000 series of Metro railcars after federal
safety officials raised repeated concerns about a potential safety risk
involving the barriers between cars that were designed to prevent blind
and visually impaired people from inadvertently walking off the platform
and falling through the gap. The issue initially was raised by
disability rights advocates, who argued the rubber barriers were spaced
too far apart, leaving enough room for a small person to slip through.
The young woman wearing the hijab was small. And she started to slip through.
Brixton watched her drop from sight an instant before an all-too
familiar flash created a star burst before him. He felt light, floating
as if there was nothing beneath his feet, because for a moment there
wasn’t. The piercing blast that buckled the Metro car door blew him
backward, the percussion lifting him up and then dropping him back down,
still in motion sliding across the floor amid a demolition derby of
commuters crashing into each other, as the train barreled along.
Separated now from its rear-most cars, what remained of the train
whipsawed through the tube with enough force to lift this car from the
rails and send it alternately slamming up against one side and then the
other.
Brixton maintained the presence of mind to realize his back and
shoulders had come to rest awkwardly against a seat, even as the squeal
of the brakes engaging grew into a deafening wail and his eyes locked on
the car door that to him looked as if someone had used a can opener to
carve a jagged fissure along the center of its buckled seam. The car
itself seemed to be swaying—left, right, and back again—but he couldn’t
be sure if that was real or the product of the concussion he may have
suffered from the blast wave or upon slamming up against the seat.
Unlike five years ago, Brixton had come to rest sitting up, staring
straight ahead at the back door of the Metro car currently held at an
awkwardly angled perch nearly sideways across the tracks. He realized
that through it all he’d somehow maintained grasp of his pistol, now
steadied at the twisted remnants of the Metro car door as if he expected
the young woman to reappear at any moment.
Janet . . .
A wave of euphoria washed over Brixton as, this time, he thought he’d
saved her, making the best of the do-over fate had somehow granted him.
The Metro car floor felt soft and cushiony, leaving him with the
dream-like sense he was drifting away toward the bright lights shining
down from the ceiling.
And then there was only darkness.
***
Excerpt from Murder on the Metro by Jon Land. Copyright 2021 by Jon Land. Reproduced with permission from Jon Land. All rights reserved.
JON LAND is the USA Today bestselling author of over fifty books,
including eleven in the critically acclaimed Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong
series, the most recent of which, Strong from the Heart, won the 2020
American Fiction Award for Best Thriller and the 2020 American Book Fest
Award for Best Mystery/Suspense Novel. Additionally, he has teamed up
with Heather Graham for a science fiction series that began with THE
RISING (winner of the 2017 International Book Award for best Sci-fi
Novel) and continues with BLOOD MOON. He has also written six books in
the Murder, She Wrote series of mysteries and has more recently taken
over Margaret Truman’s Capital Crimes series, beginning with Murder on
the Metro in February of 2021. A graduate of Brown University, he
received the 2019 Rhode Island Authors Legacy Award for his lifetime of
literary achievements. Land lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Books from the Backlog is a fun way to feature some of those
neglected books sitting on your bookshelf unread. If you are anything
like me, you might be surprised by some of the unread books hiding in
your stacks.
Psychotherapist Kate Huntington helps other people cope with the horrible things that have happened to them, but she herself has led a charmed life… so far. Now a killer with a mysterious grudge against her and her closest friend, lawyer Rob Franklin, is threatening everyone and everything that she holds dear.
When the detective assigned to their case decides they are lovers and the attacks against them and their families are veiled attempts to rid themselves of their spouses, Kate and Rob are forced to investigate on their own. Can they identify their mutual enemy, before he or she kills again?
I added Multiple Motives by Kassandra Lamb to my TBR on 11.26.12. I love the fabulous cover and am always up for a good mystery. I’m sure I was click happy too.
YAY!. Another fabulous romantic suspense novel by Jane Blythe, Saving Ryder, Book I of the Saving Seals series did not disappoint. It starts out strong, keeping me rapidly ‘flipping pages’.
How Jane Blythe manages to come up with a different twist on an oft told tale, never ceases to amaze me.
What romance lover doesn’t love a hunkalicious Navy Seal and a damsel in distress?
Abby and Ryder already knew each other. In fact, he had broken it off with her twice. When his team of Navy Seals are sent to rescue a group of children who had been taken hostage, Ryder found Abby, who had been missing for fourteen months. It was a surprise to him, but she had never given up hope that she would be rescued.
She had suffered through months of torture and near starvation, but even she didn’t know how bad it really was. The truth comes out slowly…and, this time, Ryder will be by her side every step of the way. BUT, why was she taken?
Saving Ryder has all the goodies: a damsel in distress, some hunkalicious Navy Seals, mucho danger from a psychopath, and sweet romance.
Jane Blythe creates a fabulous story with lovable and loving characters. Every time I read a book like Saving Ryder, I have to remind myself how much her writing and creativity give me the suspense and thrills I am looking for. After all the books I have read of hers, she still manages to surprise me and leave me wanting more.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Saving Ryder by Jane Blythe.
4 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
He’s left her twice before why should she believe this time is any different?
Abigail McNamara feels like she always has to prove herself and could never live up to her family’s expectations. Her grandfather was a SEAL, her father was a SEAL, her brother is a SEAL, and, oh yeah, her brother’s ridiculously hotter than hot hunkalicious best friend is also a SEAL. She’s loved Ryder since she was twelve but he’s broken her heart twice already and she’s vowed she won’t ever trust him again.
Every guy knows the code you don’t have sex with your best friend’s little sister. If you do you don’t get caught. If you fall in love with her you don’t break her heart. And if you earn her trust back you don’t walk away. Unfortunately Ryder “Spider” Flynn did all that. When Abigail is abducted and help prisoner for fourteen months by a sadistic sociopath that changes everything. Now all bets are off but he has to keep her alive long enough to prove to her he deserves a third chance.
ABOUT JANE BLYTHE
Jane
has loved reading and writing since she can remember. She writes dark
and disturbing crime/mystery/suspense with some romance thrown in
because, well, who doesn’t love romance? She has one completed series,
Detective Parker Bell, and one new series, Count to Ten.
When she’s not writing Jane loves to
read, bake, go to the beach, ski, horse ride, and watch Disney movies.
She has a black belt in Taekwondo, and a 200+ collection of teddy bears.
She has the world’s two most sweet and pretty Dalmatians, Ivory and
Pearl. Oh, and she also enjoys spending time with family and friends!
We have a new character, Evelyn, Myrtle’s grandniece. She is living in Evelyn’s home, fixing it up and collecting the homeless kitties, like Evelyn used to do. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Glinda is a psychic, and quickly makes many friends since her move to the small town of Spookie, where danger stalks the characters, like the ghosts in the fog. Is the fog your friend or is it out to get you?
Frank is a murder mystery writer since his retirement from the police department, but he needs more. He becomes a consultant for the Chicago Police Department, and it’s a good thing he did. He will need those resources when his daughter, Laura’s, safety becomes an issue.
There is so much more going on than just the mystery about the buried treasure. Kathryn Meyer Griffith manages to have multiple mysteries going on so there is never a dull moment.
What a fabulous cast of characters. I love their uniqueness and quirkiness. Their willingness to go above and beyond for those around them, whether two footed or four footed.
Myrtle still remains my favorite. I love this crusty old bird, eccentric, gruff, but, as we pull away the layers, like peeling an onion, her heart is exposed. And it is a big one!
We’ve had adventures in Spookie, with kidnappers, serial killers, missing people, ghosts, witches and now, treasure hunters. It amazes me that Kathryn Meyer Griffith is able to create so many different and wonderful scenarios. I can hardly wait to find out the next one:
All Those Who Came Before…
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of What Lies Beneath by Kathryn Meyer Griffith.
4 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
The 5th Spookie Town Murder Mystery is finally out. Who wouldn’t want to find a chest of buried treasure, ancient gold coins and exquisitely priceless jewelry, on their land? A treasure a sailor dead for over seventy years once found in the shallow waters of a distant island and later buried, hid, the remnants of at the end of his tragic life. The townspeople of Spookie have been searching, fighting and killing each other over it, for decades and no one has ever unearthed it. Abigail, Frank, Myrtle and her psychic grandniece, Glinda, are on the hunt for the treasure…and they might just find it with Glinda’s and the dead sailor’s help. For Frank, ex-Chicago homicide detective, there’s also a new and dangerous case that brings him temporarily out of retirement and back to Chicago because it threatens his adopted daughter Laura’s safety at the art college she is attending. There are three missing college students, young women, one a close friend of Laura’s, and the Chicago police force is feverishly searching for them before their abductors kill them. Can Frank, with a little help from Glinda’s visions, and his old partner Sam Cato, locate the abducted girls in time and save their lives? All the rest of the quirky characters are also back again to share in the adventures, the mysteries, and the small town life of foggy Spookie. Come join them.
ABOUT KATHRYN MEYER GRIFFITH
Kathryn Meyer Griffith has been a writer
for over forty-nine years now and has had twenty-nine novels and thirteen short
stories published since 1984. She began her writing career as a paperback
horror author in 1984 with Leisure and Zebra Publishing, but has since moved on
to write paranormal horror, romantic historical time-travel, suspense, romance,
thrillers, and murder mysteries. Her horror novel The Last Vampire, and her
thriller Dinosaur Lake (now a best-selling five book series), were both Epic
eBook Awards Finalists in 2012 and 2014. Kathryn Meyer Griffith rdgriff@htc.net
NOVELS: Evil Stalks the Night, The Heart
of the Rose, Blood Forged, Vampire Blood, The Last Vampire (2012 Epic
eBook Awards Finalists in their Horror category), Witches, Witches II:
Apocalypse, Witches plus Witches II: Apocalypse, The Nameless One erotic
horror short story, The Calling, Scraps of Paper (1st Spookie Town
Murder Mystery), All Things Slip Away (2nd Spookie Town Murder Mystery),
Ghosts Beneath Us (3rd Spookie Town Murder Mystery), Witches Among Us
(4th Spookie Town Murder Mystery), What Lies Beneath the Graves (5th
Spookie Town Murder Mystery), All Those Who Came Before (6th Spookie
Town Murder Mystery); soon, a 7th, When the Fireflies
Retuned, out in December 2020, Egyptian Heart, Winter’s Journey, The Ice
Bridge, Don’t Look Back, Agnes, A Time of Demons and Angels, The Woman
in Crimson, Human No Longer, Four Spooky Short Stories Collection,
Forever and Always Romantic Novella, Night Carnival Short Story,
Dinosaur Lake (2014 Epic eBook Awards Finalists in their
Thriller/Adventure category), Dinosaur Lake II: Dinosaurs Arising,
Dinosaur Lake III: Infestation and Dinosaur Lake IV: Dinosaur Wars,
Dinosaur Lake V: Survivors, Memories of My Childhood, and a biographical
short story Christmas Magic 1959.
Too bad Seb didn’t have the magic eight ball before he met with Ling and all hell broke loose. He took his chances in Vegas. If it wasn’t for bad luck, he’d have no luck at all and it will take his Hellcat Charger to survive.
Bloody and fleeing for his life…
I love that Jason Parent adds some humor to his horror and he is not afraid to kill off a character or two or three…His characters are quirky and his scenarios keep me wondering. The minute I think I know how the story will end, he throws in a surprise or two making me say…WTF.
WOW…Eight Cylinders was one wild ride with some of the worst characters being the best. This may be a novella, but it was filled with danger, otherwordly, nail biting, edge of the seat suspense and thrills.
Good job Jason. You had me going. The ending was worth a star itself.
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Eight Cylinders by Jason Parent.
4 Stars
GOODREADS BLURB
Sebastian “Seb” McAlister has run out of luck in Vegas. Cornered by a trigger-happy gang and shot through the stomach, he makes a desperate escape in his supercharged Hellcat. Fate guides Seb safely out of Sin City and into the desert, but as his wheels fade into the horizon, he fades into darkness.
He awakes among a tiny community in the middle of nowhere. A mountain range circles the hodgepodge of shacks like prison walls looming high. And the warden that resides in those mountains is big, ugly, and deadly—a creature straight out of a Lovecraftian nightmare.
If Seb hopes to escape that wayward way station, he’ll need enough cunning to outwit a force beyond comprehension… and a fast car. With a little luck and a ragtag group of would-be monster mashers racing alongside him, Seb just might have a shot of making it through the mountains alive.
ABOUT JASON PARENT
In
his head, Jason Parent lives in many places, but in the real world, he
calls New England his home. The region offers an abundance of settings
for his writing and many wonderful places in which to write them. He
currently resides in Southeastern Massachusetts with his cuddly corgi
named Calypso.
In a prior life, Jason spent most of his
time in front of a judge . . . as a civil litigator. When he finally
tired of Latin phrases no one knew how to pronounce and explaining to
people that real lawsuits are not started, tried and finalized within
the 60-minute timeframe they see on TV (it’s harassing the witness; no
one throws vicious woodland creatures at them), he traded in his cheap
suits for flip flops and designer stubble. The flops got repossessed the
next day, and he’s back in the legal field . . . sorta. But that’s
another story.
When he’s not working, Jason likes to
kayak, catch a movie, travel any place that will let him enter, and play
just about any sport (except that ball tied to the pole thing where you
basically just whack the ball until it twists into a knot or takes
somebody’s head off – he misses the appeal). And read and write, of
course. He does that too sometimes.
