I don't read a lot of horror, but once in a while once grabs my attention. Hemlock Island revolves around Laney Kilpatrick, an English teacher and thriller author who is recently divorced and is grieving her sister who lost her battle to cancer. She is raising her 16-year-old niece, Madison, and reluctantly renting her vacation home on a remote island to strangers. Things get out of control when the renters call her in the middle of the night to inform her that there are blood and nail marks all over the guest room's closet. Laney goes out to the house with her niece Madison. Her ex-husband, Kit, also shows up with his sister, Jayla. And then, we have Sadie, a former friend from high school, and her brother, Garrett, who is now a cop. There is so much tension in the group, but we gradually learn about their relationships and secrets. Then one of their group goes missing - and...
I have to admit that the reason I listen to the Andy Carpenter series is that Grover Gardner narrates them. He has such a distinctive voice and it works so well with Andy's sarcasm and humor. I've never read on of the series in print, and I have no desire to stray from the audio versions.
This time around Andy is defending hometown girl turned Hollywood star, Jenny Nichols. And of course, Jenny has a dog, Mamie, who she adopted through Andy's rescue program. She is accused of killing her former boyfriend, current co-star, Ryan Griffin.
Andy, of course, wants to get a "not guilty" verdict but the evidence is not in their favor. So he and his team get to work on trying to figure out who really killed Ryan and why. They uncover a lot in their digging including money laundering, organized crime, Interpol's most wanted, cybercrime, drug trafficking, and murders. Even with all the complications, I did manage to...
The Cage of Dark Hours is the second book in the series, following The Helm of Midnight. Read the first before even attempting this one. The Cage of Dark Hours opens with a brief synopsis of what happened which works well as a refresher but not as a starting point.
The Cage of Dark Hours continues a few years after the events of the first book. We have a couple of returning characters, but most of the cast is new. In the first, we learned how little the people living in the valley really understand about the magics that keep them safe, about their gods, or about the creatures that terrify them. This time around Krona and her companions are trying to pull the cover all the way off, revealing what is truly going on.
The book opens with a Thalo ritual and we are introduced to Thalo Child who gives us insight into the inner workings of the Thalo order, people...
The Helm of Midnight is a fantasy novel, but it's also horror and mystery. The book opens with a daring and deadly heist. The thieves stole a dangerous artifact of terrible power: the death mask of Louis Charbon. Charbon was once a serial killer and the theft of the death mask means that someone might have the power to channel Louis Charbon’s abilities when they wear it. Krona, her sister De-Lia, and the other Regulators need to find the thieves and discover the truth behind this heist.
The story is told through the perspective of three main characters, each in a different time frame. The three viewpoints have different narrators which worked well by keeping it clear whose portion of the story we were listening to. And each read with appropriate emotion and helped flesh out the characters' personalities. Krona is in the present time, trying to solve the mystery and stop more killings. Melanie's chapters take place about two years...
Lavender House was a satisfying mystery, but the characters and setting made it outstanding.
San Francisco, 1952. Andy was a police detective until he was caught in a raid with his pants down at a gay bar. Fired, disgraced, and shunned, he is contemplating throwing himself into the Bay. Then he is approached by Pearl, who asks him to investigate the murder of her wife, Irene Lamontaine, the head of the famous Lamontaine soap empire. Irene was killed at Lavender House, the family estate which is also a haven for the queer Lamontaine family and their staff.
The mystery is fairly straightforward, although there are reasons to suspect most of the members of the household. The author does a good job with the historical part of the mystery, really setting it in its time and place, And the characters are fabulous - loving, hopeful, damaged, afraid, confident.
I listened to the audiobook and while the narrator was sometimes a little...
The Paston Treasure, commissioned by either Sir Robert Paston or his father Sir William Paston in the early 1670s
A painting, a copy of The Paston Treasure, is found in a bricked-up attic room, but it contains hidden messages and puzzles. During the graduation ceremony at the École Polytechnique, the women who were killed and injured during the Montreal massacre in '89 are remembered. Fiona, a woman found guilty of murder when she was 14, has been paroled, thanks in part to Gamache, and is staying along with her brother in Three Pines after her graduation from that same school. Harriet, the niece of Myrna, the bookstore owner, is also graduating and spending time in Three Pines. A local woman has been murdered, staged as a suicide. Penny takes so many threads and pulls them all together in a complex, tension-filled story.
Gamache knows he and his family are under threat, but the damage could come from any of several directions. Sam,...
