Category Archives: Fiction

Review: A Grave Deception, by Connie Berry

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Book cover image: Stone houses lining both sides of a peaceful canal, with a church spire among them. It looks like a quiet English village. Text: A Grave Deception, A Kate Hamilton Mystery, by Connie Berry.

A Grave Deception, by Connie Berry (Crooked Lane Books, 2025)

How on earth can an antiques expert in contemporary England put a name to a remarkably well-preserved woman secretly buried 700 years ago?

Researching a long-ago murder seems safe enough, but when a member of the archaeological team is found dead Kate is drawn into that investigation as well.

The present-day killing has a classic British house-party vibe, with its limited pool of suspects. Complicating things are the abundance of personal motives within the team and the dig protestors lurking on the fringes. There’s also a possibly unrelated fugitive on the loose.

Readers familiar with the Kate Hamilton Mystery series know to expect a clean, engaging mystery with engaging characters, charming Suffolk village settings, and delicious references to food.

If you’re new to the series, you can start here with book 6 without feeling lost since each story is self-contained. Kate’s relationships with Tom and Ivor develop along the way, so for the full experience you may prefer to begin with book 1, A Dream of Death.

To learn about author Connie Berry and her work, visit connieberry.com.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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Review: Between the Sound and the Sea, by Amanda Cox

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Between the Sound and the Sea, by Amanda Cox (Revell, 2024)

Ostracized by their small town, her parents have sold the family home and moved south. Her father and brother haven’t spoken in years. And social pressure is about to kill her event planning business.

Josephine (Joey) needs distance—and maybe perspective. When she applies for a contract to restore an old lighthouse on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, it’s another battle for acceptance—a woman project manager in this island town? Working on a lighthouse the locals claim is haunted?

Walt, the property owner, is an 80-plus-year-old man compelled to right a past wrong. His adult grandson, Finn, is afraid the old man is unstable. Joey soon learns restoring their relationship comes with the building project. And where will she find her own purpose now? Is this a temporary break from Tennessee, or is it truly time to start over?

This is my second Amanda Cox book (first was The Bitter End Birding Society), and I love her occasionally-lyrical prose and setting descriptions. These characters engaged my imagination, and I enjoyed watching the various relationships shift and grow. And what’s not to love about a crumbling lighthouse stocked with secrets?

Between the Sound and the Sea is a 2025 Christy Award Winner. As the title implies, this is a novel of betweens. The “sound” is a body of water separated from the sea by a narrow, grassy sand dune, trying to hold its place. Joey, Finn, and Walt are much the same in the beginning.

It’s also a novel of second chances and gentle romance. The story’s set in 2007, but history buffs will appreciate the references to the early 1940s.

Amanda Cox’s website tagline describes her fiction as “stories of hope, healing, and home.” For more about the author and her work, or to get a free short story prequel to her first novel, visit amandacoxwrites.com. The website also offers free discussion guides for her books, and if you go to amandacoxwrites.com/books-2/between-the-sound-and-sea you can read an excerpt and find resources to enrich your understanding of the Outer Banks, its history and its lighthouses.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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Review: Quicksand, by Gigi Pandian

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Book cover in purple and tan, featuring the title, Quicksand, and the author's name, Gigi Pandian. The main image is a hand-drawn village with what looks like a church and multi-storey buildings in an older style. There's also an empty picture frame and an open book with text and illustrations.

Quicksand, by Gigi Pandian (Gargoyle Girl Productions, 2014)

Historian Jaya Jones becomes a pawn in a criminal mastermind’s complex plan to rob the Louvre in Paris—and there’s far more at stake than she’s been told. On the plus side, she’s reunited with her mysterious sort-of-boyfriend Lane Peters for this mad heist.

Quicksand takes Jaya from her San Francisco home to Paris and then to other locations in France as she and Lane try to outwit their enemy and somehow keep from breaking the law.

This is book 3 in the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt series, and it’s a lot of fun with quirky characters and lots of action. Definitely high-stakes physically, professionally, and emotionally for Jaya and Lane, but not the sort of scary to keep a reader up at night. (You might be up late reading just to see what comes next, but that’s a different matter!)

In addition to the Jaya Jones series, multi-award-winning author Gigi Pandian also writes The Accidental Alchemist Mysteries and The Secret Staircase Mysteries.

Visit the Gigi Pandian website for more about the author and her books. Get both a free short mystery and a recipe book by signing up for her author newsletter.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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Review: A Fatal Groove, by Olivia Blacke

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Book cover features a vinyl record printed with the title "A Fatal Groove, The Record Shop Mysteries." The cover image includes around table with spilled coffee cup and a record partly out of its sleeve, plus a blue flower in a vase. A cat sits on a chair at the table. The background is a rack of record albums.

A Fatal Groove, by Olivia Blacke (St. Martin’s, 2023)

Juni Jessup and her sisters have reopened the family record business, with a trendy coffee bar to draw people in. Before they can grow a steady income stream, the mayor is found dead—poisoned—holding a take-out cup of their coffee.

Rumours travel fast in a small town. With their livelihood—and reputations—on the line, the three sisters determine to find the killer.

A Fatal Groove is book 2 in the Record Shop mysteries (Book 1 is Vinyl Resting Place). The small-town extended family vibe is fun, the tone is light, and I appreciate the puns. It’s an easy read, not intense, and I like the characters.

If the mysteries will stop long enough, Juni needs to decide which side of the love triangle she’s on: with her childhood best friend, or with her ex? It’s only a 3-book series, so I guess book 3, Rhythm and Clues, will include the answer.

Olivia Blacke writes cozy mysteries with quirky characters. As well as the Record Shop Mysteries, her books include the Brooklyn Murder Mysteries and the paranormal Ruby and Cordelia Mysteries.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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Review: The Bitter End Birding Society, by Amanda Cox

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Book cover in pale pink and yellow with birds perching on a delicate tree branch. Text: The Bitter End Birding Society: a novel, by Amanda Cox

The Bitter End Birding Society, by Amanda Cox (Revell, 2025)

“A forbidden romance, a fractured family, and one woman’s journey to piece it all together.” [from the back cover]

Desperate for a quiet space to recover from a traumatic experience, kindergarten teacher Ana heads to the Tennessee mountains to spend the summer with her great-aunt. Her hopes of getting to know Aunt Cora vanish when she discovers the invitation was actually a request for house-sitting while Cora travels with a friend.

Woven between the chapters of Ana’s experiences with the residents in the old mountain town of Bitter End are chapters of her grandmother’s story. That’s where the forbidden romance and fractured family come in.

This is an immersive, faith-filled novel with relatable (and sometimes quirky) characters who struggle to make sense of the hurts they carry. They stayed with me when I wasn’t reading.

The birding society doesn’t come in until almost halfway through the book, but birders will appreciate the group’s hikes and sightings. This is a group started by a local resident named Marilyn, who Ana’s aunt Cora had warned her to avoid. Naturally, Ana finds herself joining the group of misfits Marilyn has collected—and finds these times in nature to be part of the healing process she’s longed for.

I’ll say that one aspect of the grandmother’s plot bothered me (no spoilers!), but that doesn’t keep me from recommending the book to anyone who wants a reflective, heartfelt, and ultimately feel-good story. Especially to anyone who doesn’t feel like they’re “enough” or like they deserve a second chance.

Favourite line:

But now the spaces between who she was and who she’d like to be looked like opportunities for growth and grace instead of evidence of failure. [p. 301]

The Bitter End Birding Society is Christy-Award-winning author Amanda Cox’s fifth book. Her website tagline describes her fiction as “stories of hope, healing, and home.” For more about the author and her work, or to get a free short story prequel to her first novel, visit amandacoxwrites.com.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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Review: Swan Song, by Edmund Crispin

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Book cover featuring tall, older-style buildings and a wide street with bicyclists and a couple old cars. Text: Edmund Crispin, Swan Song.

Swan Song, by Edmund Crispin (Collins Crime Club, 2018; originally published 1947)

An offensive but popular opera singer. A cast who loathes him. And a new director he’s trying to ruin.

Almost everyone would be happy to see Edwin Shorthouse dead—but as the book’s back cover description asks, “Who amongst them has the fiendish ingenuity to kill him in his own locked dressing room?”

The time: post-war England. The town: Oxford. The tone: omniscient and gently old-fashioned, with some complex sentences and rare vocabulary. I read it as a paperback, and an ebook with digital dictionary would have been a plus.

This is one of those books to read slowly and appreciate the atmosphere—and the locked room puzzle. Readers familiar with Wagner’s Die Meistersinger will understand the references, but I didn’t bother to look them up and still followed the story. In places that was tricky, as there’s a full cast of characters and the names would get mixed up in my mind.

Swan Song is actually number 4 in the Gervase Fen series, Mr. Fen being an Oxford professor and amateur sleuth. Goodreads lists eleven books, and there may be more. Edmund Crispin is the pseudonym of composer Robert Bruce Montgomery. For more about his books and music, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Crispin.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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Review: Slay Bells Ringing, by Emily James

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Red-patterned book cover featuring a gingerbread figure with x-ed out eyes. Text: A Murder Mystery Duet Slay Bells Ringing, Emily James.

Slay Bells Ringing, by Emily James (Stronghold Books, 2019)

Two short-but-fun mysteries set at Christmas:

“Unsilent Nights” (Maple Syrup Mysteries) Lawyer and maple syrup farm owner Nicole Fitzhenry-Dawes can’t even go on her honeymoon without landing in a mystery that needs solving. Watch her stare down cruise ships officials in flip-flops and shorts.

“Ginger Dead Man” (Cupcake Truck Mysteries) Isabel Addington is on the run from her abusive ex, running a mobile food truck. She’s sleeping in the truck too, but that doesn’t make her homeless, right? She needs to keep off-grid, but she can’t walk away when a homeless man’s murder may go unsolved.

Emily James writes mysteries that are fast, clean, and funny in places. I appreciate the way she really understands her protagonists and the details in their lives.

As well as the Maple Syrup Mysteries and Cupcake Truck Mysteries, Emily James has also written the Cat and Mouse Whodunits. For more about the author and her work, visit authoremilyjames.com.

[Review copy from the public library via the Hoopla Digital app.]

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Review: Don’t Blink: 12 Inspirational Suspense Thrillers

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Box set of 12 books, with authors' names visible on the spines. Cover: Don't Blink. Cover image is a cottage in the forest with an overcast sunset sky.

Don’t Blink: 12 Inspirational Suspense Thrillers, by Terry Toler, Cynthia Hickey, Heather Day Gilbert, Jordyn Redwood, Urcelia Teixeira, Melanie D. Snitker, Camy Tang, Sherri Wilson Johnson, Vikki Kestell, C.D. Gill, Jan Thompson, and Lynn Shannon. (Winged Publications, 2025)

This collection is well worth picking up. Some of the authors were new to me, some were the draw for me to order the book. (Then I scored an advance review copy. My own copy landed in my Kobo app on release day.)

As with any collection, not every story worked for me. The ones that weren’t to my taste will be another reader’s favourites.

Here are some of the ones I most enjoyed, in order of appearance:

Queen Bee, by Heather Day Gilbert: 5 stars, tense but heartwarming. I liked the setting and the bee details. I was pretty I’d identified the villain, but there was a lot more going on that totally surprised me.

Abandoned to Darkness, by Jordyn Redwood: 5 stars, even tenser but somehow Isla’s blindness and having to trust Asher, her rescuer, helped me keep enough distance that I wasn’t too frightened.

Murder by Accident, by Vikki Kestell: 5 stars, and my personal favourite in this collection. Miss BD Finch is delightful—feisty, direct, and determined to avoid the gangster who wants to prevent her testifying at his trial. Be warned, this novella doesn’t resolve that. It stops at what I’d call a pause point, not a cliff-hanger, but where the next stage of the action will begin in book 1 of The Tahoe Mysteries series, Number 1 With a Bullet. Ordinarily, that’s a deal-breaker for me not to find at least partial resolution… but I’d already decided I’ll be following Miss Finch and her pets into the next book.

For more about the authors and to check out their other books: Terry Toler, Cynthia Hickey, Heather Day Gilbert, Jordyn Redwood, Urcelia Teixeira, Melanie D. Snitker, Camy Tang, Sherri Wilson Johnson, Vikki Kestell, C.D. Gill, Jan Thompson, and Lynn Shannon.

[Advance review copy provided by the authors / Review copy from my personal library.]

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Review: The Accidental Alchemist, by Gigi Pandian

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Illustration of a crouching gargoyle, smiling, with large wings, holding a cooking whisk. In the background is a large house. Text includes the title: The Accidental Alchemist, and author: Gigi Pandian.

The Accidental Alchemist, by Gigi Pandian (Midnight Ink, 2015)

An ex-alchemist. A living gargoyle. A delinquent teen. What could possibly go wrong?

Zoe Faust hopes she’s finally found a safe place to settle down in Portland, Oregon, after so many years living on the road in her travel trailer. Except she discovers the gargoyle Dorian in one of the crates shipped from her former shop in Paris. And a local teen, Brixton, breaks into her house on a dare because everyone thinks it’s haunted.

Not the most peaceful start. Then a man is murdered on the property and valuable items are stolen. Zoe, Dorian, and Brixton forge an unlikely team to solve both crimes—before time runs out for Dorian.

It’s the characters that give this mystery heart. They share a common bond of not fitting in. Zoe’s full of regret, and Dorian isn’t human. The friendship that develops, extending to include Brixton, is heartwarming. And Dorian… who’d expect a formerly stone gargoyle to be a French chef? (The book includes vegan recipes—at over 300 years of age, Zoe is particular about what she puts into her body.)

The Accidental Alchemist is book 1 in the Accidental Alchemist Mysteries series. Highly recommended for a good read.

Gigi Pandian’s other series are the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mysteries and the Secret Staircase Mysteries. I’ve read the first in each one and look forward to the rest. For more about the author and her books, visit gigipandian.com.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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Review: Under Lock and Skeleton Key, by Gigi Pandian

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Under Lock and Skeleton Key, by Gigi Pandian (St. Martin’s, 2022)

This first-in-series mystery novel ticks so many boxes. Interesting characters, strong family dynamics, good friendships, threads from the past that may include a generational curse, a puzzling crime with multiple misdirections… and food, all in a clean read. Plus bonuses like multi-ethnic characters, stage magician know-how, references to classic mysteries and authors, and best of all secret rooms and staircases. Oh, and crossover characters from at least one of the author’s other series.

I did say it ticks a lot of boxes…

Tempest Raj loves her multigenerational, ethnically-mixed family and their unique home. Visits are great. But she’s not happy to be living there again after a performance-gone-wrong that nearly killed her in front of an audience.

Then she’s present when a fresh body is discovered at her father’s construction company’s job site—in a room that hadn’t been opened for years. The rumoured family curse says “the eldest dies by magic.” Was Tempest the intended victim?

As unexplained, possibly supernatural, happenings abound, the family must consider that the curse may be real. Or is it all a cleverly-executed illusion?

Under Lock and Skeleton Key comes with recipes and discussion questions, and although this mystery is solved at the end the ongoing mystery of Tempest’s mother’s disappearance/death is ongoing. I’m eager to read book two, The Raven Thief.

Under Lock and Skeleton Key is multi-award-winning author Gigi Pandian’s twelfth novel, first in The Secret Staircase Mysteries. Her other series are the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mysteries and The Accidental Alchemist Mysteries.

Visit the Gigi Pandian website for more about the author and her books. Get both a free short mystery and a recipe book by signing up for her author newsletter.

[Review copy from the public library.]

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