The Ex-Husband

A cruise ship event planner is haunted by her past in this grippingly evocative, psychological thriller.

It’s not all smooth sailing in The Ex-Husband, a heart-pounding crime thriller by Karen Hamilton set mostly aboard the Cleobella, a private luxury cruise ship traveling from Cornwall to the Caribbean.

Charlotte works as an event planner on the ship. She’s determined to leave her sordid past behind. She married and later divorced, Sam, a charming swindler--a cruise-ship card dealer--who roped Charlotte into cons that once usurped wealthy passengers out of their fortunes. But that was then. Charlotte is determined to get her life back on track now that Sam--and their tricks--are behind them. But with Sam missing and Charlotte suddenly receiving anonymous messages regarding her once criminal behavior, the past and its haunting sends her into panic. Who’s behind the black-mailing mind games that could do Charlotte in?

As in The Perfect Girlfriend and The Last Wife, Hamilton presents deeply flawed characters readers can root for. A well-researched setting enhances the suspense that unspools through exotic ports of call from the Bahamas to Tobago. Dark, psychological undercurrents of deceit and lies--how the past braids in with the present--create surprising shifts amid the course of this turbulent, juicy story.

 

The Ex-Husband by Karen Hamilton

Graydon House, $16.99 paperback, 9780369717030, 352 pages

Publication Date: January 18, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

It Started With a Dog

In the second installment of a cheerful romcom series, love percolates amidst the competition of two Austin, Texas coffee shops.

Julia London’s second installment of her cheerful romcom series is set in Austin, Tx., during the Christmas season. She cleverly brings together two 30something dog lovers with personalities and agendas as different as caffeinated versus decaffeinated coffee.

 

Aeronautical Engineer, Jonah Rogers, leaves his job to help out at the ‘Lucky Star,’ a charmingly humble--however lagging--coffee shop run by his parents, his aunt and uncle. With his father ill, Jonah--reliable and devoted, sacrificing and loyal--steps in to assist the long-standing family business that offers no frills, old-school coffee and desserts. Matters are complicated when he accidentally swaps his phone with Chicagoan, Harper Thompson, in town to launch ‘Deja Brew’—a trendy, two-story coffee house accented with gleaming chrome coffee makers, which serves upscale coffee and vegan food choices. The driven, only-child overachiever is up for a promotion riding on the success of ‘Deja Brew.’ However, can she contend with ‘Lucky Star,’ a local fixture in town, and a ‘Starbucks’ situated in the very same neighborhood?

 

Along the way, Jonah and Harper and their swapped phones lead them to romance as they discover they are business rivals. The ante is upped when a local dog competition, “King Mutt,” pits the couple--the lovable three-legged Dachshund mascot of ‘Lucky Star’ versus Harper’s mean old bulldog--against each other, as well.

 

A perfect blend of coffee, dogs and romance permeates London’s (You Lucky Dog, Charmer in Chaps) frothy romcom that will leave readers thirsty for a third helping in this sweet, enjoyable series.

 

It Started with a Dog (Book 2: Lucky Dog series) by Julia London

Berkley (Penguin Books), $16.00 paperback, 9780593100400, 320 pages

Publication Date: September 28, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (October 2, 2021), link HERE

Laughing Can Kill You

Maggie King’s astute cozy-mystery protagonist Hazel Rose of Richmond, Virginia, is thrust front and center in a murder investigation that puts her own life in jeopardy. 

Hazel Rose is a computer-programmer-turned-romance writer who burst onto the cozy literary murder-mystery scene in Murder at the Book Group. In that novel, Book One, she was swept up in solving the murder of a book club member who died after ingesting a cup of tea laced with cyanide. In Book Two, Murder at the Moonshine Inn, Hazel and her book club cronies became embroiled in solving the suspicious death of a high-powered executive found dead in the parking lot of a local watering hole. In Laughing Can Kill You, Book Three in this engaging series, poor Hazel learns that she’s been dumped by her publisher—her romance books have faced lagging sales. Ever resilient and undaunted Hazel decides to sign up for a local course in mystery writing in the hope that by switching gears, she’ll re-energize her career. The problem is, however, there is always one spoiler in every group—and writing groups are no exception.

Self-aggrandizing Randall “Randy” Zimmerman, Esquire—a lawyer-turned-thriller-writer who believes he can give “John Grisham a run for his money”--is that one annoying person in Hazel’s group. Randy is the ex-husband of a book club member. He takes confrontational pleasure in demeaning, belittling and even laughing at the work of his fellow classmates. When Hazel and her true-crime writing husband, Vince, find Randy dead, foul-play looms. Hazel--with the help of her cohorts--once again goes on a dangerous pursuit to root out the killer.  

Readers don’t need to be familiar with King’s prior books to enjoy this one, but they’ll no doubt want to after reading this well-crafted, suspenseful whodunnit augmented with a strong supporting, small-town ensemble cast and a ratcheting plot rife with shifty motives and red herrings.

Laughing Can Kill You: A Hazel Rose Book Group Mystery (Book Three) by Maggie King

Olive Lane Press, $12.99 paperback, 9798985231816, 320 pages

Publication Date: December 6, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

Read my reviews of other Hazel Rose Book Group Mysteries:

MURDER AT THE BOOK GROUP

MURDER AT THE MOONSHINE INN

The Holiday Swap

In this delightful romantic comedy, twin baker sisters secretly swap lives and hilariously discover their true selves by experiencing how the other lives.

Identical twins--20-something sisters who are both successful bakers--switch lives in The Holiday Swap, a fun and quick-witted first novel by Maggie Knox (pseudonym for authors Karma Brown and Marissa Stapley).

 

The story launches days before Christmas in sunny California. Charlie Goodwin, a noted Paris-trained pastry chef, is embroiled in a network reality baking show. Her program--Sweet & Salty, produced for two seasons in Los Angeles and cohosted by Chef Austin Nash--is facing the threat of replacement with another show slated to feature only one chef. Charlie and Austin, who leaves Charlie feeling more "bah-humbug than merry and bright," embark as judges on a 12-days-to-Christmas countdown, where 12 amateur bakers compete for a $25,000 prize.

After a shelving unit tips over, giving Charlie a concussion that strips her of the ability to taste and smell, she is ordered to take it easy. But how can she possibly rest with her show and job on the brink of peril? Afraid to tell anyone of her sensory malfunctions, Charlie secretly enlists the help of her lifelong confidante, her identical twin, Cass, who steps in to save Charlie in her hour of need, agreeing to swap lives temporarily--and covertly. 

 

Knox assembles a memorable cast and whips up inventive switched-lives scenarios filled with a host of mishaps that double the fun. Delightfully romantic plot twists further sweeten this lighthearted, feel-good story with a message that is sure to make rom-com readers hunger for whatever Knox decides to dish up next.

 

The Holiday Swap by Karma Brown and Marissa Stapley

G.P. Putnam Sons Books (Penguin Books), $17.00 paperback, 97805933307398, 352 pages

Publication Date: August 10, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (October 8, 2021), link HERE

 

To read the longer form of this review as published on Shelf Awareness for the Book Trade (September 3, 2021), link HERE

The Speckled Beauty

Famed serial memoirist Rick Bragg shares a beguiling story of his quest to tame an exasperating, yet utterly lovable, stray dog.

Pulitzer Prize-winning memoirist Rick Bragg (The Best Cook in the World; My Southern Journey) grew out of rural Southern poverty, but the spirit of his storytelling has made him--and legions of readers--rich beyond measure. In The Speckled Beauty, he recalls how an aggressive, one-eyed stray dog, a wayward Australian shepherd, bolted into Bragg's life when he was down and out.

 

Bragg--then 60 years old--had retreated to Calhoun County, Ala., to live and work in his elderly mother's basement. He was there to assist during the pandemic, and he was also recovering from serious complications after battling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The unruly dog with speckled markings bounded into Bragg's life and stuck around. Bragg's older brother, Sam, found him to be a pitiful stray with "the attention span of a tick on a hot rock," implying, "A dog like this, wild for so long, would only bring woe." But Bragg, who had always admired the breed, takes up training "Speck" as a cause. The exasperating, fearless dog chronically tests his patience ("The dog would not back down from a rattlesnake"), but he ultimately charms Bragg, his mother and even his skeptical brother with laughable antics: "How could you not love a dog with a toilet-seat halo around his head?" And, Bragg claims, "My dog would battle me to death over the last cold tater tot."

 

Amid dark days, bright Speck shows up at just the right time. How fortunate for readers that the joy of his presence--enhanced by the wit and wisdom of Bragg's inimitable prose--will resonate far beyond the Bragg homestead.

 

The Speckled Beauty by Rick Bragg

Knopf (Doubleday Books), $26.00 hardcover, 9780525658818, 256 pages

Publication Date: September 21, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (September 24, 2021), link HERE

Beware the Mermaids

 

This exciting, emotionally charged story follows an acrimoniously divorcing couple who compete in a high-stakes boat race.

Carrie Talick's exciting first novel, Beware the Mermaids, opens with a scene that packs a wallop. Nancy Hadley, a native Californian who came from modest beginnings to become a wealthy housewife, lives in Hermosa Beach. Nancy--a lifelong sailor, thanks to a doting Finnish grandfather who instilled in her an instinct and love for the sea--cheerfully escorts a charity league on a tour of the Bucephalus, a 38-foot racing yacht owned by Nancy and her husband, Roger. As the group boards the well-appointed sailing vessel, Nancy catches scheming, philandering Roger in a compromising position with none other than Nancy's cunning, devious nemesis, a woman who hailed from the East Coast and clawed her way into "the upper echelons of society."

 

What follows is the start of an acrimonious divorce between Nancy and Roger. The Bucephalus, which both refuse to relinquish, becomes the obstacle in finalizing the legalities of their split. Locked in a grueling tug-of-war, determined Nancy gears up for a fight. She moves out of their lavish home, buys a boat of her own to live on and rallies the support of her tight-knit circle of girlfriends, intent on teaching them how to sail. When Nancy suggests that she and Roger, via competing vessels and crews, both enter the Border Dash Race, which sails from Newport Harbor to Ensenada, Mexico--winner take all--the stage is set for high-stakes fun and drama.

 

Fans of women's fiction will eagerly climb aboard Talik's smart, sassy, suspenseful story that sails through choppy waters and shifting tides of betrayal, friendship and new romance.

 

Beware the Mermaids by Carrie Talick

Alcove Press, $16.99 paperback, 9781643858241, 352 pages

Publication Date: August 10, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (August 31, 2021), link HERE

Piglet: The Unexpected Story of a Deaf, Blind, Pink Puppy and His Family

In this inspiring true story, a severely disabled rescue dog positively changes the life of one veterinarian and the world.

Sometimes, the little things in life have the power to change everything. Such was the case with Connecticut veterinarian Melissa Shapiro, who was asked by a local animal rescue organization to foster a barely two-pound puppy that was deaf, blind and morbidly skittish.

 

Piglet--named because of his pink coloring--was added to the family pack that included Shapiro's husband, three college-aged kids and six other dogs. Through weeks of trying to calm and stabilize the traumatized little puppy, Shapiro provided canine comfort through lots of love, the familiarity of established routines and developing a touch-style of sign language. When it came time to release the dog from foster care, Shapiro was faced with a dilemma: Did she really want someone else taking care of a dog she and her family had fallen in love with?

 

Thus, Shapiro embarked on a new chapter where she adopted Piglet and decided to share him--and the lessons of his life--with the world. His popularity soared on social media, where he raised awareness about special needs rescue organizations and other animal causes. This later led to Shapiro establishing an educational outreach program where Piglet--severely disabled, yet a joy-filled, loving teacher--helped children learn how to accept and work through life challenges.

 

Shapiro's inspirational memoir--candid details of her veterinary career, her family, lovable Piglet and his incredibly sweet, resilient spirit--will win hearts.

 

Piglet: The Unexpected Story of a Deaf, Blind, Pink Puppy and His Family by Melissa Shapiro, DVM; Mim Eichler Rivas

Atria Books (Simon and Schuster), $26.00 hardcover, 9781982167165, 320 pages

Publication Date: August 3, 2021

 

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (August 6, 2021), link HERE

When We Were Young

A moving, life-affirming story about two male friends who reunite and unravel old secrets and resentments while taking a long hike.

British novelist Richard Roper has the uncanny ability to embroil quirky characters in heart-wrenching situations, rendering their predicaments into immensely appealing fiction. In How Not to Die Alone (retitled and reissued as Something to Live For), a grief-stricken man grappled with his sad lot in life. In Roper's second novel, When We Were Young, he again mines the theme of how breaking the shackles of the past can lead to transcendence. 

As teenagers, Theo and Joel--would-be writers--were best friends until a life-changing accident drove a wedge between them. Now, estranged for more than 10 years, the two men lead separate lives. Hard-driving Joel, from a sordid family background, is a successful TV writer who harbors secrets. Floundering, lovesick and bitter Theo is barely scraping by, living in a backyard shed at his parents' house. Things take a turn when Joel crashes Theo's 30th birthday party, hoping to reconnect with his long-lost friend and to convince him to make good on a promise made in their youth: to hike all 184 miles of the Thames Path, from Gloucestershire to south east London. As the two set out on the long, arduous journey, they wind through episodic memories of the past--what united and divided them. What will it take for them to bury the hatchet and make peace? 

Roper delivers an enormously moving and surprising story about the rarely documented bond of male friendship, focusing on the lengths some must travel in order truly to forgive and sacrifice for another. 

When We Were Young: A Novel by Richard Roper

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, $26.00 Hardcover, 9780525539919, 352 pages

Publication Date: July 20, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (July 27, 2021), link HERE

Mango, Mambo, and Murder

When a food anthropologist moves from New York City to Miami, she suddenly finds herself in hot water created by a double-murder plot. 

Mystery writer Raquel V. Reyes plunges a lovable, quick-witted Cuban-American amateur sleuth deep into hot water in her fun, first cozy mystery novel, Mango, Mambo, and Murder.

 

Miriam Quinones-Smith, an academic-turned-food anthropologist-turned-cooking expert on a Spanish-language morning TV program, moves from New York City to Miami with her restless husband and adorable young son. When her best friend, Alma, drags her to a Women’s club luncheon, a socialite at the event face-dives into a pile of chicken salad…and dies. When another woman dies soon thereafter, all hell breaks loose. Miriam’s curious mind and meddling sweeps her into an investigation that delves into the Miami social scene and soon upends her life—and the lives of those she loves. Can her amateur super-sleuthing figure a way out of--and solve--the mayhem?

 

Reyes delivers a fast-paced, spicy debut--replete with rich details of Cuban-American culture--that will satiate the appetites of foodies and cozy mystery lovers alike.

 

Mango, Mambo, and Murder (A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery) Raquel V. Reyes

Crooked Lane Books, $26.99 hardcover, 9781643857848, 336 pages

Publication Date: October 12, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

Mona at Sea

A darkly comic story about a bright, clever college grad who struggles to come of age during the tumultuous Great Recession.

Mona at Sea is a very funny, darkly comic first novel about a high achiever, on the brink of starting her adult life, who has her hopes and aspirations dashed amid the Great Recession.

 

In 2008, in suburban Tucson, Ariz., bicultural, 23-year-old Mona Mireles graduates from college--top of her class and with an equally high opinion of herself--and is eager to start a promising new finance career on Wall Street in New York City. When the job suddenly dissolves amid the economic downturn, Mona becomes a "sad millennial" in more ways than one. Down on her luck, she sinks into anxiety and depression. Broke, lovelorn and not happy living at home--her parents' marriage is in a shambles--she is forced by her mother to attend a support group for others also in search of work. There, she meets other defeated, unemployed souls who make Mona's woes pale in comparison as she gets a fuller experience of all that awaits in the real world.

 

The story of Mona's efforts to reboot her life and find meaning in its pitfalls is filled with unexpected, bittersweet twists and turns. However, it's her intimately rich first-person narration--how her scorching wit and wisdom mask her own vulnerability and foibles--that makes her story come fully alive. Mona Mireles, ever a perfectionist--and unabashed in sharing her cleverly rendered observations, criticisms and insights--will keep readers laughing as she rises above her sad, zany lot in life.

Mona at Sea by Elizabeth Gonzales James

Sante Fe Writer’s Project, $15.95 paperback, 9781951631017, 270 pages

Publication Date: June 19, 2021

To order this book on INDIEBOUND, link HERE

 

NOTE: This review is a reprint and is being posted with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (July 6, 2021), link HERE