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BOOK BLURB

Alyssa, Nina, Lanie, and Corinne’s friendship is being put to the test. With Nina’s marriage falling apart, Lanie acting distant, Alyssa’s new romance, and no one quite trusting Corinne, this may be more than their bond can take. But when Nina appears at Alyssa’s door, and confesses not just a decades-old secret, but a newfound magical power, the friends know that the only way to face this is together.

Someone has been blackmailing Nina for years, but lately the threats to reveal her secret have changed to threats on her life, and on the lives of those she loves. With Alyssa contacting ghosts for insight and Nina getting used to her telepathy skills, they dash from city to city to track down the threat. There’s someone out there that will go to any lengths to keep their control over Nina, and it will take all four friends to get out of this without ruining, or losing, their lives. But with the strength of their friendship—and a little help from the beyond—these women are out to prove they’re not to be messed with.

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MY REVIEW

Four friends – Alyssa, Nina, Lanie, and Corinne – are getting used to new magical skills while solving a murder.

A Charming Touch of Tarot is the second book in The Gin & Tarot Club series. I recommend reading the first book in the series, An Enchanting Case of Spirits, as it introduces the characters and sets the stage for this entertaining series.

With enchanting characters and an engaging story, A Charming Touch of Tarot is a delightful read. Good for readers who enjoy cozy paranormal mysteries.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Books in The Gin & Tarot Club series:

1. An Enchanting Case of Spirits
2. A Charming Touch of Tarot

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A hypnotic, sinister debut mystery about a seemingly good cop who is secretly the daughter of a notorious serial killer.

Anna Koray escaped her father’s darkness long ago. When she was a girl, her childhood memories were sealed away from her conscious mind by a controversial hypnosis treatment. She’s now a decorated sheriff’s lieutenant serving a rural county, conducting an ordinary life far from her father’s shadow. 

When Anna kills a man in the line of duty, her suppressed memories return. She dreams of her beloved father, his hands red with blood, surrounded by flower-decked corpses he had sacrificed to the god of the forest. 

To Anna’s horror, a serial killer emerges who is copying her father – and who knows who she really is. Is her father still alive, or is this the work of another? Will the killer expose her, destroying everything she has built for herself? Does she want him to?

But as she haunts the forest, using her father’s tricks to the hunt the killer, will she find what she needs most…or lose herself in the gathering darkness?

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MY REVIEW

The daughter of a serial killer is now a police officer. No one is aware of her connection to The Forest Strangler, but a series of new crimes puts her in the center of the mystery.

The Hunter’s Daughter has an intriguing main character. She is flawed, has a complicated past, and is a bit of an unreliable narrator. I enjoyed the police procedural parts, but wasn’t a fan of the paranormal elements.

An intense and atmospheric mystery. The Hunter’s Daughter is an enjoyable debut novel.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.

When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.

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MY REVIEW

A young couple takes a wrong turn when headed to a resort town for their honeymoon. On the long stretch of highway, they come across a hitchhiker. They stop to help, and soon realize the hitchhiker is injured. When the hitchhiker dies, the couple become the suspects instead of witnesses. As the couple looks into the mysterious town, they discover a series of murders along the highway.

Murder Road is an atmospheric supernatural thriller. Intriguing characters in an eerie setting. Recommended for fans of Simone St. James’s other books.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Other Books by Simone St. James:

1. The Haunting of Maddy Clare
2. An Inquiry Into Love and Death
3. Silence for the Dead
4. The Other Side of Midnight
5. Lost Among the Living
6. The Broken Girls
7. The Sun Down Motel
8. The Book of Cold Cases
9. Murder Road

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A gripping thriller about a man’s quest for the daughter no one else believes is still alive, from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man and The Hiding Place.

Q: Why are you called the Other People?
A: We are people just like you. People to whom terrible things have happened. We’ve found solace not in forgiveness or forgetting. But in helping each other find justice.

Driving home one night, Gabe is stuck behind a rusty old car. He sees a little girl’s face appear in its rear window. She mouths one word: Daddy. It’s his five-year-old daughter, Izzy. He never sees her again.

Three years later, Gabe spends his days and nights traveling up and down the highway, searching for the car that took his daughter, refusing to give up hope, even though most people believe she’s dead.

When the car that he saw escape with his little girl is found abandoned with a body inside, Gabe must confront not just the day Izzy disappeared but the painful events from his past now dredged to the surface.

Q: What sort of justice?
A: That depends on the individual. But our ethos is a punishment that fits the crime.

Fran and her daughter, Alice, also put in a lot of miles on the road. Not searching. Running. Trying to keep one step ahead of the people who want to hurt them—because Fran knows the truth. She knows what really happened to Gabe’s daughter.

She knows who is responsible. And she knows what they will do if they ever catch up to her and Alice.

Q: Can I request to have someone killed?
A: If your Request is acceptable, and unless there are exceptional circumstances, we fulfill all Requests.

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MY REVIEW

On his drive home one night, Gabe seems a little girl in the back of another car. When he looks closer, he sees that the girl is his daughter. He tries to catch up to the car, but they get away. He never sees his daughter again.

The Other People is told from multiple viewpoints – Gabe, Fran, and Katie. The night Gabe saw his daughter, was the same night someone entered his home and killed his wife and daughter. Gabe is convinved he saw his daughter that night, and that she is still alive. Gabe spends the next few years driving up and down the highway in search of the car that last held his daughter. The police don’t believe him, but he’s convinced she’s out there somewhere. Fran and her daughter are on the run. It’s not clear exactly who is after them and why, but there is someone trying to track them down and kill them. Katie works the night shift as waitress near the highway. As the story progresses, the points of view come together.

An intriguing thriller that combines suspense, paranormal, and vigilantism. I enjoyed the suspenseful mystery, but I wasn’t interested in the paranormal parts. For me, it didn’t really work, but I get how it was used to connect some of the characters. The idea of a vigilante group using the dark web was interesting, and my favorite aspect of the novel.

A good read, and one fans of C.J. Tudor will surely enjoy. Dark, eerie, and mysterious.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Books by C.J. Tudor:

1. The Chalk Man
2. The Hiding Place
3. The Other People
4. The Burning Girls
5. The Drift
6. The Gathering

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A journalist uncovers the dark secrets of an abandoned boarding school in this chilling suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel.

Vermont, 1950. There’s a place for the girls whom no one wants—the troublemakers, the illegitimate, the ones too smart for their own good. It’s called Idlewild Hall, and local legend says the boarding school is haunted. Four roommates bond over their whispered fears, their friendship blossoming—until one of them mysteriously disappears….

Vermont, 2014. Twenty years ago, journalist Fiona Sheridan’s elder sister’s body was found in the overgrown fields near the ruins of Idlewild Hall. And although her sister’s boyfriend was tried and convicted of the murder, Fiona can’t stop revisiting the events, unable to shake the feeling that something was never right about the case.

When Fiona discovers that Idlewild Hall is being restored by an anonymous benefactor, she decides to write a story about it. But a shocking discovery during renovations links the loss of her sister to secrets that were meant to stay hidden in the past—and a voice that won’t be silenced….

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MY REVIEW

Idlewild Hall was once a boarding school where wayward girls were sent. Since the opening of the school, there were rumors that it was haunted. The school closed in the 1970s and set abandoned until 2014. When the owner of the property decides to restore it, old secrets are revealed.

Told with the multiple timelines of 1950 and 2014. In 1950, four students at Idlewild bonded during their time there, but one of them mysteriously disappeared. In 2014, Fiona can’t stop thinking about her sister’s death twenty years earlier. Her sister’s body was found on the grounds of the abandoned boarding school, and Fiona can’t shake the feeling that there was something off about the case. Fiona is a journalist, and when she learns that a restoration project is set to begin on the school, she thinks it will make a good local interest piece. During Fiona’s visit to the school, a new discovery is made during the renovations.

This novel has a lot happening. For one, Fiona wants to know if there was more to her sister’s death. This is not a story about the wrong guy being caught and convicted for her sister’s death. It’s about there being more to the story than people were led to believe. While working on the article about the boarding school, Fiona discovers clues to an old cold case concerning a missing girl. Concerning the cold case, Fiona interviews old staff and students to connect the pieces. In amongst all of this, there is a ghost story. With so much happening, it is easy for a story to get messy, but this one came together nicely.

I’m not a big fan of paranormal mysteries, so I put off reading this one for a long time. Finally, I caved and checked it out at my local library. Even there, the librarian said how good it was and that she recommended it. So, while not exactly my genre, I had high hopes due to all the praise I’ve heard about this book. I’m happy to say that it was a captivating and suspenseful thriller, and I’m so glad I gave it a chance. Atmospheric, eerie, and compelling.

Books by Simone St. James:

1. The Haunting of Maddy Clare
2. An Inquiry Into Love and Death
3. Silence for the Dead
4. The Other Side of Midnight
5. Lost Among the Living
6. The Broken Girls
7. The Sun Down Motel
8. The Book of Cold Cases
9. Murder Road