I’m excited to share that my newest release, Bitter Truth, received second place in the Angel Book Awards (mystery/suspense category)!
Congratulations to first-place Carrie Stuart Parks with Woman in Shadow and third-place Mary Dodge Allen with Hunt for a Hometown Killer. I feel like my characters are in good company!
You can see the full list of winners at the Faith & Fellowship Book Festival page on Facebook. Here’s the link to the announcement post.
False Pretense, by Heather Day Gilbert (WoodHaven Press, 2022)
Missing persons, unexpected power flickers, and sightings of a creature from West Virginia folklore… except the huge grey Mothman is being seen by trustworthy witnesses. And the winged creature isn’t just a guy in a costume, because it flies. More troubling still, its appearance seems to coincide with the disappearance of two local women—women who look a lot like Tess Spencer.
Mysteries keep finding Tess. She’s solved three as an amateur sleuth, earning enough respect from the police in her small town that Detective Zeke Tucker has hired her as admin assistant. Sure, it’s a desk job, but Zeke values her insights on active cases.
As Tess begins to suspect this case may be personal, she’s also concerned about her mother-in-law’s health and the dirty politics being played by her husband’s rival. As readers of the series know, Tess isn’t one to allow anyone to mess with her family.
I’ve liked Tess from book one. She’s a smart, brave, loyal, self-reliant woman of faith. Since she lives in a state where it’s allowed to conceal-carry a weapon, she takes a handgun and sometimes a knife into danger.
Favourite line:
I’ve always felt the woods are my native environment, a place I can be protected from the pressures of life. Now something—maybe some age-old evil, if I let my imagination run wild—has invaded our area. [Kindle location 539]
The mystery in False Pretense offers enough clues for readers to feel like we’re part of the investigation. I came up with a few ideas, but they were definitely off-base. Fans of the series will be glad to spend time with Tess and her family again, and will be hoping to finally learn the truth about the mysterious Axel Becker. And while this finishes the series, it left me wanting to go back and read again from the beginning.
Readers of the author’s Barks ‘n Beans mystery series will recognize a few mentions of those characters. I enjoy seeing nods like this to other fictional friends.
False Pretense is a satisfying finale to a mystery series filled with heart and truly likeable characters. If you’re new to the Murder in the Mountains series, you could start here without feeling lost. But I’d encourage you to start with book 1, Miranda Warning, and enjoy the development of characters and relationships through the full series.
Author Heather Day Gilbert writes contemporary mysteries and Viking historicals. To quote her bio on the Goodreads site, “She brings authentic family relationships to the page, and she particularly delights in heroines who take a stand to protect those they love.” For more about the author and her work, visit heatherdaygilbert.com.
[Review based on an advance reader copy provided by the publisher, because I couldn’t wait to read the copy I’ve preordered. My review is voluntary and my opinions are my own.]
The clock is ticking down! With Bitter Truth releasing later this month, I had the chance to chat with blogger Jeffrey C. Reynolds about the novel, writing in general, and a few other things. And I may have let slip something about the print version that’s not yet been shared… come join the conversation!
The Knitting Fairy, by Jaime Marsman (Shade Tree Publishing, 2012)
Librarian’s Assistant Molly Stevenson has her life planned out. In fact, The Plan is stuck to her fridge where she can review it regularly. She loves her job, and if she can survive until her abrasive boss retires, she’ll inherit the position.
Until a woman who looks just like Mother Goose comes into the library with a long-overdue book. And then Molly gets fired. And then Mother Goose (whose real name is Carolyn) finds her and offers her a job in a knitting store.
A knitting store? Molly had no idea such things existed or could turn a profit. As Carolyn would say, she’s been “denying her inner knitter.”
On impulse, Molly turns her back on The Plan and takes the job. And discovers she loves to knit. (Learning is an understandable condition of employment.)
The Knitting Fairy is a light-hearted mystery that knitters are sure to love. It’s not a murder mystery, but Carolyn’s store, Crabapple Yarns, has been receiving threatening calls. And shortly after Molly starts work there, people’s knitting projects begin getting mysterious “help”. Customers joke about a knitting fairy, but who’s behind this? When the “help” changes to sabotage, it has to be stopped. But how?
The story is told in first person, and Molly makes a cheerful and funny narrator. Suspects abound, and I completely missed the clues about the Knitting Fairy’s identity. How the culprit gets access to the knitters’ projects doesn’t really work for me, but it’s a minor point. And the book has a few more copyediting errors than average. I read the Kindle version, but it’s also available in print.
The Knitting Fairy is book 1 in the Crabapple Yarns series, so I hope to see book 2 in the future. Jaime Marsman is a knitwear designer as well as a novelist. Visit her website to learn more about the book and author (scroll down the page to see the options) or stop by the Yarns From Crabapple Yarns blog to see what the novel’s characters have to say. You can also find Jaime Marsman on Facebook.
[Review copy from my personal library.]