Fiction Review

Thanks to virtual events, The Poisoned Pen was able to host Ruth Ware, author of One By One. Barbara Peters, owner of the bookstore, did a very short introduction, and then turned the event over to A.J. Finn for the discussion with Ruth Ware. Finn’s The Woman in the Window is available through the Web Store. Ware’s books, including the new one, One By One, is as well. https://store.poisonedpen.com/ No promises, but, while supplies last, One By One comes with a signed bookplate. The other item it comes with may already be gone because there were hats for the first fifty orders, a beanie hat with One By One embroidery.

If you haven’t heard the summary of One By One yet, here it is.

“The Agatha Christie of our generation.” —David Baldacci, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“Diabolically clever.” —Riley Sager, author of Final Girls

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Turn of the Key and In a Dark Dark Wood returns with another suspenseful thriller set on a snow-covered mountain.

Getting snowed in at a luxurious, rustic ski chalet high in the French Alps doesn’t sound like the worst problem in the world. Especially when there’s a breathtaking vista, a full-service chef and housekeeper, a cozy fire to keep you warm, and others to keep you company. Unless that company happens to be eight coworkers…each with something to gain, something to lose, and something to hide.

When the cofounder of Snoop, a trendy London-based tech startup, organizes a weeklong trip for the team in the French Alps, it starts out as a corporate retreat like any other: PowerPoint presentations and strategy sessions broken up by mandatory bonding on the slopes. But as soon as one shareholder upends the agenda by pushing a lucrative but contentious buyout offer, tensions simmer and loyalties are tested. The storm brewing inside the chalet is no match for the one outside, however, and a devastating avalanche leaves the group cut off from all access to the outside world. Even worse, one Snooper hadn’t made it back from the slopes when the avalanche hit.

As each hour passes without any sign of rescue, panic mounts, the chalet grows colder, and the group dwindles further…one by one.

Enjoy the discussion!

Today, I’m linking to an article in the Guardian newspaper. Attica Locke’s article, “Why did my black ancestors never leave Texas? They knew land is power”, is “is an extract of a lecture commissioned by the National Centre for Writing and the University of East Anglia for the the 2020 Noirwich crime writing festival.” If you read the newspaper article, it will link to the full lecture.

Attica Locke’s article provides the history and background for her crime novels, beginning with Bluebird, Bluebird. She tells about the connection to her other books, all of them available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/32qXHxf

Here’s the book that started it all.

A “heartbreakingly resonant” thriller about the explosive intersection of love, race, and justice from a writer and producer of the Emmy-winning Fox TV show Empire (USA Today).

“In Bluebird, Bluebird Attica Locke had both mastered the thriller and exceeded it.”-Ann Patchett

When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules — a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.

When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders — a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman — have stirred up a hornet’s nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes — and save himself in the process — before Lark’s long-simmering racial fault lines erupt. From a writer and producer of the Emmy winning Fox TV show Empire, Bluebird, Bluebird is a rural noir suffused with the unique music, color, and nuance of East Texas.

Although we all miss meeting the authors at bookstores, virtual events allows readers to “meet” authors from around the world. Canadian author Andrew Pyper recently discussed his career and his new book, The Residence, with Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen. The book described as “creepy”, is available through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2RlrEIT

Here’s the description of The Residence.

In this gripping and terrifying horror story based on true events, the President’s late son haunts the White House, breaking the spirit of what remains of the First Family and the divided America beyond the residence’s walls.

The year is 1853. President-elect Franklin Pierce is traveling with his family to Washington, DC, when tragedy strikes. In an instant, their train runs off the rails, violently flinging passengers about the cabin. But when the great iron machine finally comes to rest, the only casualty is the President-elect’s beloved son, Bennie, which casts Franklin’s presidency in a pall of sorrow and grief.

As Franklin moves into the White House, he begins to notice that something bizarre is happening. Strange sounds coming from the walls and ceiling, creepy voices that seem to echo out of time itself, and visions of spirits crushed under the weight of American history.

But when First Lady Jane Pierce brings in the most noted Spiritualists of the day, the Fox sisters, for a séance, the barrier between this world and the next is torn asunder. Something horrible comes through and takes up residence alongside Franklin and Jane in the walls of the very mansion itself.

Only by overcoming their grief and confronting their darkest secrets can Jane and Franklin hope to rid themselves—and America—from the entity that seeks to make the White House its permanent home.

*****

If you enjoy “real” ghost stories that relate to history, you’ll enjoy Andrew Pyper’s discussion of his research for The Residence. You can “meet” Pyper here.

John Charles at The Poisoned Pen recently hosted a virtual event with Jenn McKinlay, author of the new Library Lover’s Mystery, One for the Books. She was joined by several of her author friends. Kate Carlisle is the author of the Bibliophile Mysteries, including The Grim Reader. Paige Shelton’s latest Scottish Bookshop mystery is The Stolen Letter. You can order signed copies of One for the Books and The Grim Reader from the Web Store, as well as copies of Paige Shelton’s books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the description of One for the Books.

Wedding bells are ringing in the latest page-turning Library Lover’s Mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of Word to the Wise.

Love is in the air in Briar Creek as library director Lindsey Norris and boat captain Mike (Sully) Sullivan are finally tying the knot. The entire town is excited for the happy day, and Lindsey and Sully’s plan for a small wedding evaporates as more and more people insist upon attending the event of the year.   

When Lindsey and her crafternoon pals head out to Bell Island to see if it can accommodate the ever-expanding guest list, they are horrified to discover a body washed up on the rocky shore. Even worse, Lindsey recognizes the man as the justice of the peace who was supposed to officiate her wedding ceremony. When it becomes clear he was murdered, Lindsey can’t help but wonder if it had to do with the wedding. Now she has to book it to solve the mystery before it ends her happily ever after before it’s even begun….

*****

You’ll have fun with the video of this virtual event.

You’ll want to check out the list of the upcoming virtual events for September at The Poisoned Pen. And, don’t forget to watch the website for updates. Sometimes new events are added. Order early if you want copies of books by your favorite authors. Copies go quickly because they’re more limited this year. Check the Web Store for copies. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

While most people know her under her real name, Patricia Sargeant, mystery readers will think of her as Olivia Matthews. She uses a pseudonym for her mysteries. She’s launching a new series in March with Murder by Page One. You can order her books through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/33fXKgd

Patricia Sargeant is a national best-selling, award-winning author. She writes romance as Patricia Sargeant and Regina Hart, and mysteries as Olivia Matthews. Her work has been featured in national publications such as Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Kirkus Reviews, Suspense Magazine, Mystery Scene Magazine, Library Journal and RT Book Reviews. Patricia was drawn to write romance because she believes love is the greatest motivation.  Her mysteries put ordinary people in extraordinary situations to have them find the Hero Inside. For more information about Patricia and her work, visit PatriciaSargeant.com.

It was so good of Patricia to take time to write a book “Distractions” piece for us. Check to see what she’s been reading lately, then check the Web Store for the books. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

*****

For the past couple of years, I’ve been reading a lot of nonfiction books and articles on business topics, and for research for my stories. Most of these books have been enjoyable. Please don’t misunderstand. But this year, I’ve made more of a concerted effort to carve time for leisure reading; reading purely for pleasure. I’m thrilled and honored for this opportunity to share a few of my most-recent pleasure reads with you.

Destiny’s Embrace: Destiny Trilogy, Book 2 by Beverly Jenkins

Oh, my word. Beverly Jenkins knows how to break my heart and heal it again with her beautiful historical romances. It’s 1885. Mariah Cooper needs a new beginning. Logan Yates needs someone to clean up his mess. Literally. I mean, his home is a sty. I could smell it through the pages of Destiny’s Embrace. Luckily, his stepmother, the lovely Alanza, places an ad for a housekeeper and the next thing we know, Mariah’s boarding a train to carry her from Philadelphia to Yolo County, California. Mariah is a resilient, hardworking, strong heroine with a mischievous sense of humor. Logan is an honorable, protective, playful hero who’s strong enough to respect our heroine’s identity. Their physical attraction and emotional connection are complicated by Mariah’s innocence and Logan’s vow to remain single.

Temporary Wife Temptation: The Heirs of Hansol, Book 1 by Jayci Lee

Set in Los Angeles, Temporary Wife Temptation by Jayci Lee is a sexy contemporary romance with two smart, family-centric, wickedly funny leads. Garrett Song has a challenge. His beloved grandmother plans to arrange his marriage. To wiggle out of the trap, he’s claimed to already be engaged. But he’s not. Natalie Sobol has a challenge. She’d promised her now deceased sister she would adopt her daughter. To keep that promise, she needs to be married. But she’s not. Temporary Wife Temptation features one of my favorite tropes: marriage of convenience. But it makes the familiar theme fresher, sexier, and smarter by not having the leads do what we expect them to do or say what we expect them to say. As a bonus, the romance allows readers a peek into Korean culture, especially within the wedding scene and the scene in which Natalie meets Garrett’s grandmother.

Hope, Faith & a Corpse: A Faith Chapel Mystery by Laura Jensen Walker

The amateur sleuth featured in this cozy mystery is an Episcopalian pastor who is a woman. As the author of the Sister Lou Mysteries, I was intrigued to read this story when I was offered an advance review copy. Hope Taylor is selected to be the first female pastor of Faith Chapel Episcopal Church in the small northern California town of Apple Springs. Not everyone is happy about having a female pastor, though, including the victim who’d stated she would be pastor over his dead body. Yikes. Pastor Hope is immediately a suspect, but the author includes other intriguing suspects, in addition to tremendously quirky characters, both supporters and detractors of Pastor Hope.

*****

Murder By Page One is the first in Sargeant’s new mystery series, written under the name Olivia Matthews. Watch for it in March, and pre-order it if you’re interested.

If you love Hallmark mystery movies,

you’ll love this cozy mystery

with humor, romance, and a librarian amateur sleuth.

Marvey’s a librarian from Brooklyn who makes book-themed jewelry as a hobby, looks after her cranky cat, and supports events for readers and authors. She’s still adjusting to quirky small-town life in Georgia—and that’s before she discovers a dead body in a bookstore.

When her new best friend becomes a suspect, Marvey develops a new hobby: solving a murder mystery. With her talents for research, her knowledge gleaned from crime novels, and a whole lot of determination, she pursues the truth. But even as she gets closer to it, could she be facing a deadly plot twist?

This first in series cozy mystery includes a free Hallmark original recipe.

*****

Matthews is also the author of the Sister Lou mysteries. The most recent one, Alibis & Angels, is available for order in either regular or large print.

Giving up murder for Lent won’t be easy . . .

With the Lenten season fast approaching, Sister Louise “Lou” LaSalle looks forward to a final day of indulgence before giving up her favorite sweets. But one Briar Coast resident won’t get the chance to repent. Opal Lorrie, the mayor’s director of finance, was just found in the parking lot of the Board of Ed–with a broken neck.
 
The sheriff’s deputies are calling the apparent slip-and-fall a freak accident. But Opal was driving her boss’s car and wearing her boss’s red wool coat. Mayor Heather Stanley has been receiving threatening letters and is clearly the real target. Offering her sanctuary could put the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Hermione of Ephesus at risk, but how can Sister Lou turn her back on a neighbor in need? Aided by her loyal sleuthing partners—her well-connected nephew Chris and reporter Shari Henson—Sister Lou must confront the mayor’s myriad detractors during this critical election year. And as the first day of April nears, it’s up to her to unmask an unrepentant killer who has everyone fooled.

Hannah Dennison launches a new mystery series with Death at High Tide. Readers who decide to view the virtual event at The Poisoned Pen will also be treated to Barbara Peters’ photos from her trip to the Isles of Scilly, the setting for Dennison’s book. You can order copies of Death at High Tide through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2DBBjb0

Here’s the description of Death at High Tide.

Death at High Tide is the delightful first installment in the Island Sisters series by Hannah Dennison, featuring two sisters who inherit an old hotel in the remote Isles of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall and find it full of intrigue, danger, and romance.

When Evie Mead’s husband, Robert, suddenly drops dead of a heart attack, a mysterious note is found among his possessions. It indicates that Evie may own the rights to an old hotel on Tregarrick Rock, one of the Isles of Scilly.

Still grieving, Evie is inclined to leave the matter to the accountant to sort out. Her sister Margot, however, flown in from her glamorous career in LA, has other plans. Envisioning a luxurious weekend getaway, she goes right ahead and buys two tickets—one way—to Tregarrick.

Once at the hotel—used in its heyday to house detective novelists, and more fixer-upper than spa resort, after all—Evie and Margot attempt to get to the bottom of things. But the foul-tempered hotel owner claims he’s never met the late Robert, even after Evie finds framed photos of them—alongside Robert’s first wife—in his office. The rest of the island inhabitants, ranging from an ex-con receptionist to a vicar who communicates with cats, aren’t any easier to read.

But when a murder occurs at the hotel, and then another soon follows, frustration turns to desperation. There’s no getting off the island at high tide. And Evie and Margot, the only current visitors to Tregarrick, are suspects one and two. It falls to them to unravel secrets spanning generations—and several of their own—if they want to make it back alive.

*****

Enjoy the conversation and virtual event with Hannah Dennison.

Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, recently hosted James R. Benn, author of the Billy Boyle mysteries, and Francine Mathews, whose latest book is Death on Tuckernuck. Benn’s fifteenth mystery is The Red Horse. You can find autographed copies of both books in the Web Store. https://store.poisonedpen.com/

Here’s the summary of The Red Horse.

Just days after the Liberation of Paris, US Army Detective Billy Boyle and Lieutenant Kazimierz are brought to Saint Albans Convalescent Hospital in the English countryside. Kaz has been diagnosed with a heart condition, and Billy is dealing with emotional exhaustion and his recent methamphetamine abuse. Meanwhile, Billy’s love, Diana Seaton, has been taken to Ravensbrück, the Nazi concentration camp for women, and Kaz’s sister, Angelika, who he recently learned was alive and working with the Polish Underground, has also been captured and transported to the same camp.

This news is brought by British Major Cosgrove, who asks Billy for help, unofficially, in solving what he thinks was the murder of a British agent recuperating at Saint Albans. The convalescent hospital is really a secret installation for those in the world of clandestine warfare to recover from wounds, physical and emotional. Some are allowed to leave; others are deemed security risks and are detained there. When a second body is found, it is evident that a killer is at work in this high-security enclave. Now Billy must carry out his covert investigation while maintaining his tenuous recovery, shielding his actions from suspicious hospital authorities, and dodging the unknown murderer.

*****

Here’s the description of Death on Tuckernuck.

In the Category 3 winds of a late-season hurricane, Nantucket police detective Merry Folger and her team attempt a rescue off the secluded island of Tuckernuck—only to discover a deadly secret.
 
As a Category 3 hurricane bears down on Nantucket, Dionis Mather and her father have their work cut out for them. Their family business is to ferry goods and people back and forth from Tuckernuck, the private island off Nantucket’s western tip, a place so remote and exclusive that it is off the electric grid. As caretakers of the small plot of sand in the middle of the Atlantic, the Mathers are responsible for evacuating Tuckernuck’s residents, who range from a stubborn elderly native who refuses to leave her family home to the abandoned summer house pets of an absentee NFL quarterback. But as the storm surge rises and the surf warnings mount, Dionis has to make a choice: abandon whatever—or whoever—was left behind, or risk her own life by plunging back into the maelstrom. Even she has no idea what evil the hurricane is sheltering.
 
When the coast guard notifies the Nantucket police of a luxury yacht grounded in the shoals off Tuckernuck’s northern edge—with two shooting victims lying in the main cabin—detective Meredith Folger throws herself into an investigation before the hurricane sweeps all crime-scene evidence out to sea. Merry is supposed to be on leave this weekend, dancing at her own wedding, but the Cat 3 has thrown her blissful plans into chaos. As her battered house fills with stranded wedding guests and flood waters rise all over Nantucket Island, Merry has her own choice to make: How much should she risk in order to bring a criminal to justice?

*****

Enjoy the conversation with James R. Benn and Francine Mathews.

Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman just collaborated on the third book in the Clay Edison series, Half Moon Bay. Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, talked with the father and son team about writing together, and their latest book. I think you’ll enjoy the witty comments. Half Moon Bay is available through the Web Store, along with the other books in the series. https://bit.ly/3lRDHeZ

Here’s the summary of Half Moon Bay.

Deputy Coroner Clay Edison discovers that buried secrets can be deadly in this riveting thriller from a father-son team of bestselling authors who write “brilliant, page-turning fiction” (Stephen King).

An ID Book Club Selection

Clay Edison has his hands full. He’s got a new baby who won’t sleep. He’s working the graveyard shift. And he’s trying, for once, to mind his own business. Then comes the first call. Workers demolishing a local park have made a haunting discovery: the decades-old skeleton of a child. But whose? And how did it get there? 

No sooner has Clay begun to investigate than he receives a second call—this one from a local businessman, wondering if the body could belong to his sister. She went missing fifty years ago, the man says. Or at least I think she did. It’s a little complicated. 

And things only get stranger from there. Clay’s relentless search for answers will unearth a history of violence and secrets, revolution and betrayal. Because in this town, the past isn’t dead. It’s very much alive. And it can be murderous.

*****

Enjoy the story of the Kellerman’ collaboration.

John Charles from The Poisoned Pen asked Tori Eldridge a question that led to an interesting account. He asked her to tell her backstory. You’ll want to hear this discussion. Eldridge’s second Lily Wong novel, The Ninja’s Blade, is now available. You can order that book, along with the first book, The Ninja Daughter, through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/32Yl2Wn

Here’s the summary of The Ninja’s Blade.

Lily Wong—a Chinese-Norwegian modern-day ninja—has more trouble than she was bargaining for when controlling grandparents arrive in Los Angeles from Hong Kong at the same time she goes undercover in the dangerous world of youth sex trafficking. As she hunts for a kidnapped prostitution victim, a missing high school girl, and a sociopathic trafficker, the surviving members of a murderous street gang hunt for her. Life would be easier if Lily knew who to trust. But when victims are villains, villains are victims, and even family is plotting against her, easy is not an option. All Lily can do is follow the trail wherever it leads: through a high school campus polarized by racial tension or the secret back rooms of a barber/tattoo/brothel or the soul-crushing stretch of Long Beach Boulevard known as The Blade. She relies on her ninja skills to deceive and infiltrate, rescue and kill—whatever is necessary to free the girls from their literal and figurative slavery. If only those same skills could keep Lily’s conniving grandparents from hijacking her future.

*****

Here’s the recent conversation with Tori Eldridge.