Showing posts with label Bookouture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bookouture. Show all posts

Monday, February 03, 2020

#BookReview: Murder at the Dolphin Hotel (A Miss Underhay Mystery #1) by Helena Dixon, Nell Dixon


Synopsis: A room with a view… to murder 

June 1933. Independent young Kitty Underhay has been left in charge of her family’s hotel, The Dolphin, on the tranquil English coast. She’s expecting her days at the bustling resort to be filled with comfortable chatter with chambermaids as they polish the mahogany desks and glittering candelabras of the elegant foyer. Everything must be perfect for the arrival of a glamourous jazz singer from Chicago and a masked ball that will be the cultural highlight of the season. 

But when several rooms are broken into and searched, including Kitty’s own, she quickly realises that something out of the ordinary is afoot at the hotel. Soon rumours are flying in the cozy town that someone is on the hunt for a stolen ruby. A ruby that Kitty’s mother may well have possessed when she herself went missing during the Great War. And when the break-ins are followed by a series of attacks and murders, including of the town’s former mayoress, it seems the perpetrator will stop at nothing to find it. 

Aided by ex-army captain Matthew Bryant, the Dolphin’s new security officer, Kitty is determined to decipher this mystery and preserve not only the reputation of her hotel, but also the lives of her guests. Is there a cold-blooded killer under her own roof? And what connects the missing jewel to the mystery from Kitty’s own past? 

A classic page-turning murder mystery! Fans of Agatha Christie, Elizabeth Edmondson and T.E. Kinsey will love this unputdownable whodunnit. 

Sunday, February 02, 2020

#BookReview: An Everyday Hero (A Heart of a Hero #2) by @LauraTrentham


Synopsis: From award-winning author Laura Trentham comes an emotionally layered novel about redemption, second chances and discovering that life is worth fighting for.
At thirty, Greer Hadley never expected to be forced home to Madison, Tennessee with her life and dreams of being a songwriter up in flames. To make matters worse, a series of bad decisions and even crappier luck lands her community service hours at a nonprofit organization that aids veterans and their families. Greer cannot fathom how she’s supposed to use music to help anyone deal with their trauma and loss when the one thing that brought her joy has failed her.
When Greer meets fifteen-year-old Ally Martinez, her plans to stay detached and do as little as possible get thrown away. New to town and dealing with the death of her father in action, she hides her emotions behind a mask of bitterness and sarcasm, but Greer is able to see past it and recognizes pieces of who she once was in Ally. The raw and obvious talent she possesses could take her to the top and Greer vows to make sure life’s negativities don’t derail Ally’s potential.
After Greer is assigned a veteran to help, she’s not surprised Emmett Lawson, the town’s golden boy, followed his family’s legacy. What leaves her shocked is the shell of a man who believes he doesn’t deserve anyone’s help. A breakthrough with Ally reminds Greer that no one is worth giving up on. So she shows up one day with his old guitar, and meets Emmett’s rage head on with her stubbornness. When a situation with Ally becomes dire, the two of them must become a team to save her—and along the way they might just save themselves too.


#BookReview: The Leaving Party by Lesley Sanderson @Bookouture


Synopsis: Every year on the same day, on the anniversary, I receive a single black rose. Thirteen years of dark petals, jagged thorns, dredging up memories I’ve tried to forget… 

I’ve packed up my life. All my belongings are carefully sealed in labelled boxes, my suitcases ready for my big move. I’m just days away from a new life abroad with my boyfriend, Ben

No one knows the real reason I’m desperate to leave. 

My best friend, Lena, is throwing me a leaving party. A celebration, to say goodbye. Champagne to toast my farewell. Speeches, full of fond memories. 

No one knows what I’m running from. 

Then another black rose appears, dragging up thirteen years of buried memories. My passport goes missing. The very people I am trying to escape from turn up at our house. 

Someone knows what I did. 

This party was meant to be the first night of the rest of my life – but now I don’t know if I’ll see tomorrow. 

Someone knows my secret. They’re in my home, they're at my party, and they’re making me pay for it. 

Thursday, January 30, 2020

#BookTour: The Forgotten Wife by @emmarobinsonuk


Synopsis: It was a wooden box, white with yellow and green flowers. Shelley ran a finger over the embossed lettering – Memories – pressed her lips tightly together, feeling her heart pounding in her chest… and opened it.

When Shelley first met Greg, her life had been full of possibility. A whirlwind romance, a dream wedding, moving into their first house together, thinking about starting a family…

But now it’s ten years since their wedding. Greg has gone. And there’s a room in the house where Shelley has shut a baby blanket away. In a box, under a bed, in a spare room, behind a door that she never opens. If it’s there, she can forget about it. Just like everything else in that room. Just like her other memories. Of a marriage that perhaps hadn’t been perfect. Of a life that hadn’t gone the way she had expected.

She’s been managing to hide from her past. Every day she acts like everything is normal. Going to work and following a routine helps her pretend the bad stuff never happened.

Until one day, everything changes. She sees the couple moving in next door, giggling as they walk up the path to their new home. The woman is pregnant. It’s like she has everything that Shelley has lost. But when Shelley properly meets Lara, she soon discovers she is in fact carrying a heartache to match Shelley’s own.

As her friendship with Lara deepens, Shelley starts to wonder what might happen if she opens the box she’s hidden away. Will the secrets from her past – about what she lost, what she’s hiding from, and what she has been doing her best to forget – destroy her?

Sunday, January 26, 2020

#BookReview:The Stranger's Wife (Detective Dan Riley #3) by @annaloulondon @bookouture


Synopsis: Beth and Cath are leaving their husbands. 

This is a story about two very different women. 

One is wealthy and having an affair with a man who gives her the kind of love that her cold, detached husband does not. 

One is living hand to mouth, suffering at the hands of a violent partner who would rather see her dead than leave him. 

You may think you know these women already and how their lives will unfold. 

Beth will live happily ever after with her little girl and her soulmate. 

Cath will go back to her abusive husband. 

And these two women will never cross paths. 

But you will be wrong. 

On the 3.15pm train from London to Bristol, Beth and Cath are about to meet and discover they share one shocking thing in common. 

A clever, engrossing and absolutely unputdownable page-turner of a read about what really lies beneath the surface of a marriage. Fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train will be hooked on The Stranger’s Wife. 

#BookTour: The Outcast Girls by Shirley Dickson






Synopsis: An utterly heartbreaking tale of two young girls, worlds apart, who are thrown together when they have lost everything. Fans of Wives of WarBefore We Were Yours and Diney Costeloe will absolutely love this poignant and moving World War Two novel. 

England, 1937: After a devastating childhood at Blakely Hall Orphanage, fifteen-year-old Sandra is released. She finds work as a housemaid, finally able to put her past behind her. But the start of World War Two throws the country into turmoil, and her brother Alf is sent away to fight, leaving her completely alone. 

Germany, 1939: Eleven-year-old Frieda is about to board a ship bound for England with her brother, Kurt. Life at home is perilous, with synagogues set alight and innocent lives lost to the Nazis. They have no choice but to flee, with only their identity cards and a small suitcase. But at the last moment, as Frieda stands on the deck crammed with frightened children, she spots her brother jumping off, back to land. 

England, 1943: Joining the Land Army, Sandra is sent to a farm in the remote countryside where she meets evacuee Frieda. The girls are grappling with their own tragedies – Sandra fretting over whether Alf, flying a bomber in the heavens, will see tomorrow, and Frieda distraught that Kurt abandoned her, uncertain whether he is alive. 

Sandra and Frieda form a friendship that sees them through the darkest of days, but in times of war heartbreak is always just around the corner. Will the girls ever be reunited with their loved ones? And will the relationships they have fostered amidst the terror of war survive? 

Friday, January 24, 2020

#BookTour: Burning Island by Suzanne Goldring


Synopsis: They were not her children. But she would protect them with her life… 

Corfu 1943. Though they don’t know it, five-year-old Matilde and three-year-old Anna have kissed their mother for the last time. The Nazis have reached their sun-scorched home, and they are being taken to a place of safety, on the north-eastern tip of the rocky island, to be hidden at great risk by kindly Agata and her husband until the terrible war is over. 

Matilde and Anna’s tears are soothed by Agata’s bedtime stories, but she is always alert. So far no soldiers have ventured down the steep rocky hillside to their secret haven, but Agata knows they are constantly scouring the island for missing Jews. And then, on a day when Agata’s husband is away, a German soldier appears… 

2016. Under a baking June sun, Amber and her husband arrive in Corfu from England, hoping for a fresh start. But not everyone is pleased by their arrival, and with the pressures of pregnancy, the couple grow further apart. Desperate to find a sense of belonging for herself and her unborn child, Amber finds herself drawn to the local story of two little girls, left by their parents and hidden for their own protection. 

But there are some who would rather Amber left Corfu’s terrible history well in the past. Can Amber uncover the heart-breaking truth about the two little girls, and what happened after a German soldier took a swim in the bay by their house? If she does, can the secrets of the past help her find happiness, or send her running from the island, alone? 

A gripping, heart-wrenching and compelling read about the shadows at the heart of the sun-drenched island of Corfu and survival against all odds. Fans of Victoria Hislop, The Nightingale and The Tattooist of Auschwitz will fall in love with Burning Island. 

Thursday, January 23, 2020

#BookReview: The Family Secret by @SherylBrowne @Bookouture


Synopsis: Claire always wished for a sister. But should you be careful what you wish for? 

Claire has spent her whole marriage trying to be the perfect wife and mother – supporting her husband as he goes for promotions and always making sure she’s there to tuck her daughter into bed each night. But little does she know that almost everyone around her has been keeping secrets that could ruin the life she’s worked so hard to create. 

Growing up with warring parents and an often absent father, Claire has always wanted to give her daughter Ella the dream childhood she wishes she’d had. So, when she discovers her husband Luke has been having an affair, Claire is left wondering how she can possibly keep her daughter’s world from crumbling. 

Then Claire receives a text message from someone called Sophie that simply reads – ‘You don’t know me, but I’m your sister’. At first, she’s shocked. And Sophie’s appearance raises questions Claire would like to put to her elderly father before it’s too late. But as she gets to know Sophie – who is so like her in so many ways – she can’t help but be delighted to finally have the sibling she always dreamed of. 

As the two women become inseparable, Claire leans on her new sister more and more, ultimately asking her to move into the family home and trusting her with Ella. But when the unthinkable happens and Claire fears for her daughter’s life, she starts to wonder whether her new sister is exactly who she says she is. 

One thing Claire knows is that telling the perfect lie seems to run in the family. 

If you enjoyed The Girl on the TrainMy Lovely Wife and Lucinda Berry’s The Perfect Child, you’ll love this heart-stopping psychological thriller from bestselling author Sheryl Browne. 

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

#BookReview: The Nowhere Girl by @nicoletrope @Bookouture


Synopsis: I will not think about it anymore. I won’t think about her. My lost little sister with her beautiful smile, her chestnut-coloured eyes. My sister who I couldn’t protect. 

If you passed Alice on the street, you couldn’t help but smile. At how she holds hands with her husband, Jack, who she has been with since she was at university. At the way she admires her three boys, the centre of her universe. 

But if you looked very closely, you’d see how tightly she holds Jack’s hand, afraid to let go. You’d see how carefully she watches her boys, scared to look away. You’d see her smile fading in a matter of seconds, and the pain she hides behind her eyes. 

She has told Jack that she ran away from home when she was younger – but she didn’t tell him the whole story. Her husband doesn’t know about the guilt she bears about her little sister she failed to save. 

Now, after a lifetime of fresh starts, Alice can feel her past playing catch-up. She is sure she is being watched, certain she is being followed. She may not be able to stop her secret coming out – but can she stop the world she has lovingly built collapsing in on her? 

This utterly heartbreaking, beautifully written and gripping family drama examines just how far we are willing to go for our loved ones, and the desperate decisions we make when we have no other choice. Fans of Jodi Picoult, Kerry Fisher and Liane Moriarty will be blown away by this incredibly moving tale. 

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

#BookTour: The Fortunate Ones by @cathokin @Bookouture


Synopsis: Every day he stood exactly where he was directed. He listened for his number, shouted his answer in the freezing cold. He was ragged and he was starving, but he was alive. He was one of the fortunate ones whom fate had left standing. And he needed to stay that way. For Hannah. 

Berlin, 1941. Felix Thalberg, a printer’s apprentice, has the weight of the world on his shoulders. His beloved city is changing under Nazi rule and at home things are no better – Felix’s father hasn’t left the house since he was forced to wear a yellow star, and his mother grows thinner every day.

Then one night, Felix meets a mysterious young woman in a crowded dance hall, and his life is changed forever. Hannah is like a rush of fresh air into his gloomy, stagnant life and Felix finds himself instantly, powerfully infatuated with her. But when he tries to find her again, she’s vanished without a trace.

Was Hannah taken away by the Gestapo and held prisoner… or worse? When Felix himself is imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, his thoughts are only for her safety. And when a life-threatening injury lands him on the ward of Dr Max Eichel – a Nazi medical officer with a sadistic reputation – his love for his lost Hannah sees him through the pain.

Until one day Dr Eichel brings his pretty young wife to tour the camp and Felix’s world is thrown off-kilter. Framed in the hospital window he sees – impossibly – the same girl he met that fateful night… her wrist in the vice-like grip of the deathly calm SS Officer. And it’s clear Hannah recognises him at once – there is no mistaking her expression, she has been dreaming of him too...

A gripping and beautiful wartime love story about two people facing impossible odds – heartbreaking, moving and unforgettable. Perfect for fans of The Tattooist of AuschwitzWe Were the Lucky Ones and The Alice Network.
 

Friday, January 17, 2020

#BookReview: The Daughter's Promise by Sarah Clutton


Synopsis: Two years after a family tragedy, and still consumed by her grief, Willa receives a strange letter from halfway across the globe. She has inherited a house in Australia, in a town she’s never heard of, from a woman she doesn’t know… 

Following the mystery to the inviting shores of Sisters Cove, Willa is entranced by the dilapidated old Chapel House she now owns, perched high on a windy cliff within the grounds of Merrivale Estate. As Willa’s suspicions grow about her connection to the place, she begins to look amongst the dusty artwork and sealed boxes of papers left to her, and it becomes clear that the truth is not at all what she expected.

At Merrivale, social butterfly Annabelle is alarmed by Willa’s arrival. Why did her old friend and confidante Lillian leave her home to this stranger? As the two women’s lives intersect in the small, insular world of Sisters Cove, neither realises the dark truth that connects them until it’s too late. And when that terrible secret is exposed, it could destroy the lives of everyone involved…

An emotional, powerful novel full of dark secrets and family drama. Fans of The Silent Wife, Liane Moriarty and Kerry Lonsdale, read this next.
 

#BookTour: The Day that Changed Everything by @katylittlelady @Bookouture


Synopsis: When you lose the love of your life, how do you find yourself again? 

For Tabitha, the day that changed everything started like any other. 

She woke up, slid her feet into fluffy slippers, wrapped herself in a dressing gown and tiptoed out of her bedroom, leaving her husband Andy sleeping. Downstairs, she boiled the kettle and enjoyed a cup of tea as the sun rose. 

Upstairs, Andy’s alarm sounded, and Tabitha took him a freshly brewed coffee, like every other morning. Except today, the incessant beeping rang out and her husband hadn’t stirred. She called his name, she nudged his shoulder. But Andy wouldn’t wake up. 

Three years later Tabitha is trying her hardest to get by in the shadow of her grief. She may have lost the love of her life but she won’t give up on the family they dreamed of. Fostering troublesome teenage girls and a newborn baby is a chance to piece together her broken heart. 

But being a mother isn’t easy, and neither is healing the heartache she carries around. After losing everything, could saving these three children help Tabitha save herself too? 

This stunning tale will make you laugh and cry in equal measure, hold your loved ones close and see the beauty in the little things in life. Fans of Jojo Moyes, Jodi Picoult and Diane Chamberlain will love this moving and uplifting story. 

Monday, January 13, 2020

#BookReview: The Man She Married by Alison James


Synopsis: How well do you know your husband?

Since Alice’s fiancé walked out on her, she never thought she’d meet ‘The One’. But all that changes when she meets Dominic. Handsome, charming and kind, Alice can’t believe her luck when he proposes a few months later and moves into her West London home.

Three years on, Alice’s catering business is thriving and she is married to a man she adores. So when she sees that little blue line, it should be the happiest moment of her life: they’re going to have a baby. But then the police knock on her door and Alice’s whole world is turned upside down… Dominic is dead.

Distraught, Alice goes to identify the body. There’s no doubt that it’s her husband. Yet when his estranged brother comes to view the coffin, he insists the man lying there is not Dominic. Alice refuses to believe it at first, but when confronted with irrefutable proof, she finally has to face the truth:

The man she married is not the person he said he was. And if he lied about that, what else was he hiding from her?

Sunday, January 12, 2020

#BookReview: Winter Dark (The Winter Series, #1) by Alex Callister


Synopsis: The #1 Bestselling Audible 2019 Thriller of the Year 
'There is a new kid on the block – the love child of Jack Reacher and Lisbeth Salander.' Independent 

A girl with wide brown eyes looks into the camera. Below her picture, a clock ticks down. Cold traces the back of my neck, pricks my hairline. I will find you, I whisper

It has been ten years since Winter – a headstrong loner with a broken past – was pulled off a mountain by special forces with the aim of turning her into the Secret Service’s most effective field agent. Now, she has just two weeks to bring down the head of a formidable criminal organisation, Alek Konstantin, before an innocent girl is murdered by a twisted killer in front of an online audience of millions

Going deep undercover disguised as a paid assassin – alias Snow White – Winter’s aim is to infiltrate Konstantin’s inner circle. Calculating, charismatic and totally in control, he holds the girl’s fate in his hands. But every time Winter gets close to him, he melts away. He’s like a shadow, and yet he knows things about Winter – dark secrets she’s never told anyone. Who is he, and how can she reach him in time to save the girl? 

Then Winter finds the body of a man from her past, stuffed in a dumpster with a bullet through his forehead, and things begin to fall into place. But with the girl’s death growing closer with every tick of the clock, and Winter’s protective shell starting to crack, does she have what it takes to bring down Konstantin before the clock hits zero? 

Impossible to put down, Winter Dark is an action-packed and twisty read with a heroine you won’t forget. Perfect for fans of Lee Child, Sandra Brown and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Please note: this book contains scenes of a sexual nature. 

Saturday, January 11, 2020

#BookReview: No, We Can't Be Friends by @sophieranald @Bookouture


Synopsis: Everyone knows a girl like Sloane. She was always The Single One. She never brought a plus-one to weddings. She was the woman you’d set up with your single cousin. She joined ballroom dancing classes to meet men and was the queen of online dating. 

But then she met Myles. Perfect Myles, with denim-blue eyes and a dazzling smile that melted her insides. She’d finally found The One. 

Except she didn’t imagine that Myles’s idea of Happy Ever After would include Sloane battling an overflowing laundry basket, buying birthday cards for his family, and ironing his Calvin Klein underpants. 

Then Sloane finds out that Myles has a secret. 

The fairy tale is well and truly over. Her heart is blown to smithereens. Eating her weight in Ben & Jerry’s and large Meat Feast pizzas can only get Sloane so far before she has to make a decision… Can she learn to love herself more than she loved the love of her life? 

No, We Can’t Be Friends is a brilliantly relatable, hilarious and feel-good novel that every woman with a waste-of-space ex HAS to read! If you’re a fan of romantic comedies by Sophie Kinsella and Lindsey Kelk, and TV shows like Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Jane the Virgin, pick up this laugh-out-loud book – you won’t regret it.

Monday, January 06, 2020

#BookReview: Mystery on Hidden Lane (An Eve Mallow Mystery, #1) @ClareChase_


Synopsis: Meet Eve Mallow: an American far from home, a professional busybody… and an amateur detective? 

Seasoned obituary writer Eve Mallow has a new assignment: to tell the life story of famed musician Bernard Fitzpatrick. A chance to spend a few days in the sweet little village of Saxford St Peter, walking the country lanes with her beloved dachshund Gus and meeting new people sounds like a dream. But it turns out that Bernard’s life was much less interesting than his death. On the day she arrives, news breaks that the charismatic cellist was the victim of a grisly murder. Could this quaint English village be hiding a dark secret? 

As Eve starts to interview Bernard’s friends and colleagues, she finds that he’d ruffled a few feathers. In fact, from the keepers of the Cross Keys Inn to his own staff at High House, there’s barely a person in town who doesn’t have some reason to hate him… is one of the friendly villagers a cold-blooded killer? 

Eve hoped Saxford St Peter would be the perfect escape from her busy city life. But there is darkness even in the most sunlit of settings. And when a second body is found, Eve becomes certain that one of the people she’s met must be the murderer. She has never done any detective work before… but is there something in her notes that can crack the case? 

An unputdownable page-turner, perfect for fans of Faith Martin, Agatha Christie and Betty Rowlands. 

Sunday, January 05, 2020

#BookReview: Her Daughter's Cry (Detective Jo Fournier #3) by M.M. Chouinard






Synopsis: Someone wants her dead, and she can’t remember why. 

Zoe is a wife and a mother. Or so she’s been told. Ask her for more than that and she couldn’t tell you. The blow to her head wiped her memory clean. 

Zoe knows the blood on her shirt isn’t just her own. After she was found stumbling out of the woods, the police ran tests. They say it belongs to her missing daughter. 

Zoe is trying to piece together what her daughter’s face looks like, but all she can conjure up is a white-hot panic. A fear that her child is in desperate need of her help. 

When a man claiming to be her husband turns up looking for her, she knows she can’t trust him. Until she gets her memories back, she can’t trust anyone. Not the stranger, not the police investigating, not even herself… 

A completely addictive thriller that will keep you guessing into the early hours of the morning. Perfect for fans of The Silent Patient, Lisa Regan and Gregg Olsen. 

#BookReview: Her Secret Past (Detective Jessie Blake #3) by @Denmanisfab






Synopsis: Jean Angus pours the last of the lukewarm tea into her chipped cup, shivering as she looks outside into the dark night. Her eyes are drawn to a slow movement not far from her cosy farmhouse. She’s not expecting visitors. And as the back door opens with a bang, she doesn’t even have time to shout for help. 

On a dark winter night, the bodies of Malcolm and Jean Anguslie cold and still in a pool of blood in their kitchen. Detective Jessie Blake is called in to find out what happened to the reclusive pair. 

Searching the couple’s property, Jessie learns about a vicious dispute with a nearby landowner, Rachel Ferguson, and when Jessie looks into Rachel further, she doesn’t expect what comes up. Rachel isn’t the person everyone thinks she is and a previous murder conviction just made her Jessie’s prime suspect. 

The small Perthshire town begins to gossip about the double murder and Jessie’s own past comes back to haunt her when her abusive ex-husband begins to interfere in her new life. As the town starts a witch hunt against Rachel, Jessie is under pressure to find out what really happened in the farmhouse that night. Because if it isn’t Rachel, then who is the murderer living among them, waiting to kill again? 

#BookReview: Tell Me Lies (Detective Max Carter #1) by Ed James


Synopsis: Fans of Lee Child and David Baldacci will be gripped by this heart-racing FBI thriller from bestselling author Ed James. 

Megan Holliday opens her eyes and finds herself slumped on her doorstep. The last thing she remembers is being in the car with her two kids. She sees a handwritten note on her lap – Don’t call the police. It’s then that she realises her car is missing, and her children are gone… 

Leading the FBI’s Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team, FBI agent Max Carter will stop at nothing to find children taken from their families. After all, he was once one of those taken children, so he knows exactly what’s at stake. When he hears that a young senator’s two children have been abducted and their mother left for dead, he races to the Holliday family home in Washington State. 

Facing a wall of police cruisers and blacked-out SUVs, Carter quickly uncovers the facts. Megan Holliday was ambushed by a man with a gun as she returned home from taking her kids out for ice cream. Bound and drugged, the attacker left her unconscious on the doorstep with the sinister note on her lap. 

As Senator Christopher Holliday walks through the halls of the US Federal Building in Seattle, his phone beeps with an alert. Frustrated by the interruption, he takes a cursory glance and is horrified by the image on the screen – his two children, Brandon and Avery, unconscious. The message he gets simply reads Meet me or they die

When Agent Carter tries to make contact with the busy senator, it seems the politician has gone missing, fleeing from the Federal Building and abandoning his distraught wife. If Carter knows one thing, it’s that Holliday has something to hide. And he just became Carter’s prime suspect. 

Saturday, January 04, 2020

#BookReview: Her Last Goodnight (Detective Finnegan Beck #3) by Michael Scanlon


Synopsis: Eddie stands at his door anxiously waiting for the woman to arrive, touching the engagement ring box in his pocket for luck. He doesn’t hear the footsteps behind him until it’s too late… 

Detective Finnegan Beck is called to a crime scene – a remote house near the rural Irish town of Cross Beg – where a dog lies whimpering beside his beloved owner’s body. 

At first it looks like a burglary gone wrong. But Beck spots something his colleagues didn’t. The victim – Eddie Kavanagh – was wearing his smartest clothes. He’d brushed his hair. And, on closer inspection, a small velvet box containing an engagement ring is discovered in his pocket, along with a letter to a nameless woman, which seems to suggest she’s in danger. 

Those who knew Eddie have no idea about a female friend though – there’s been no one in his life since a girl who he’d loved and who’d broken his heart decades before. Now Eddie leads a quiet, solitary existence, rarely going further than the fields behind his house to walk his sheepdog Max. 

So who was the woman Eddie was waiting for? And did his connection with her ultimately lead to his murder? When a beautiful young woman is then found beaten to death – murdered exactly as Eddie had been, Beck has to ask – is the danger over? Or is just beginning? 

An absolutely addictive and atmospheric crime novel that will leave you gasping for breath. If you love gripping thrillers from Rachel Caine, Robert Dugoni and Kendra Elliot, you won’t be able to put this one down.