By Alex Finlay
​** Publication Date 28 May 2024**
4.5 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today. 

Do you ever read a novel and know right away what the subplot and the villains are? Not this one. I was nearly dumbfounded two thirds of the way through the book when the pieces started falling together. That is what makes a great crime/thriller/mystery novel.

Leavenworth Kansas is the site of a very famous prison, and the setting for the novel. Poppy McGee has just come home from an army discharge to start her new gig as a deputy sheriff. Her father is longtime friends with the Sheriff. This enabled Poppy to join the department without much effort. 
Almost at the same time, a car is pulled out of the nearby lake. A car belonging to another of her father’s old friends, and the car that was last seen driven by Alison Lane. Alison Lane who has been missing for years. Alleged to have been killed by the notorious serial killer roaming the area at the time.

Only this car contains two unknown men. 

Poppy is assigned to the case, as she is new to the department. It is up to Poppy to forge through the tip line and maybe make some connections of her own, and possibly solve the question of whatever happened to Alison?

So well written and such an easy book to whiz through. Honestly, I love books like this. They keep you riveted and glued and up way too late at night. The only reason it wasn’t finished in one night is that my eyes were crossing. Alex Finlay is a master of this genre. I could devour these books. Well done and well recommended!

By Garth Risk Hallberg
​** Publication Date 28 May 2024 **

4 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today. 
This would have absolutely been a 5, but I really struggled to get through it. The writing was beautiful, challenging at times. The story took us through three generations of a family. It was a good book, but slow. So so slow. Maybe it was the heaviness of it all. The darkness of the characters and what they are hiding. The lack of timeline or mixed up one. I’m not really sure. I do know that I did enjoy this epic, but also disliked it in many ways.

Jolie is a teenager, the product of two other teenagers, now divorced and estranged. While her father, Ethan, is hiding out on Catalina Island in the Pacific Ocean, and her mother is hiding in plain view, Jolie is struggling to keep her life together. She’s recently found alcohol to be her best friend, blurring the realities of her world in New York City. Jolie is unhappy. Her father is gone, her mother virtually absent, and here she is, trying to navigate her teens, feeling all but alone.

Throughout the novel we will find out how Jolie’s parents got together. How her father ended up hiding out on an exclusive island off California. The grandparents, Albert & Eleanor, and their reluctance to accept their son-in-law, and their adoration of their granddaughter. Father Ethan’s long since passed mother & father, and his sister. The people who pass through all their lives and somehow shape Jolie’s in the process. And finally, how Jolie eventually finds herself.

As I said, this was an excruciatingly hard novel to finish. I don’t know why it felt like slogging through mud the entire time. Especially since the story was, in many ways, really quite amazing. It gets a 5 for the story, 3 for the pace. A novel that I’m happy I read, but glad I won’t be reading again. 

By Sydney J. Shields
​** Publication Date 14 May 2024 **
4.25 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today. 

I always wanted my letter from Hogwarts or a family member to tell me that secretly I was a witch. In the Honey Witch, Marigold is the one who is awkward and lives in the fringe of society in her very artsy community of Bardshire. Her one serious romantic entanglement ended abruptly, and she has no prospects for marriage.

Marigold sees magical creatures, at least some, in a meadow near her home. No one else can see them, and it seems that everyone humors her tales of these creatures and her gifts. While her brother Frankie can play the violin like a dream and her sister Aster sings like an angel, this is Marigold’s only gift.

Until her grandmother appears at the family home in Bardshire and she gives Marigold the news Marigold has always wanted to hear. She is special. She has a very important gift. And as her grandmother Althea is on her way out of this world, it is up to Marigold to take over and protect the island of Innisfree.

I loved this book. While there were times it did drag a bit, the story of Marigold, her family, and Althea was so magical (no pun intended.) I was captivated by Honey Magic. I did not want the story to end. There were no throwaway characters. Everyone had a place an purpose in the novel. 
Would definitely recommend!