Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Debra Webb is the award-winning, USA Today bestselling author of more than 130 novels, including reader favorites the Faces of Evil, the Colby Agency, and the Shades of Death series. With more than four million books sold in numerous languages and countries, Debra's love of storytelling goes back to her childhood on a farm in Alabama. Visit Debra at www.DebraWebb.com

or write to her at PO Box 176, Madison, AL 35758.

Book Summary:

In the thrilling conclusion to The Undertaker’s Daughter series, THE DARKNESS WE HIDE, Doctor Rowan Dupont has been staring death in the face for so long, she’s willing to meet it for the secrets it holds. Death has followed her back to her hometown of Winchester, Tennessee, ten months ago, cloaking the walls of her family’s Victorian funeral home like a shroud. In investigating the mysterious deaths of her loved ones, Rowan has unearthed enough family secrets to bury everything she’d previously thought true. But each shocking discovery has only led to more bodies and more questions; the rabbit hole is deeper than she ever imagined.

Despite settling into a comfortable life with Police Chief Billy Brannigan, Rowan knows dangerous serial killer Julian Addington is still out there. She can’t let her guard down now. Not when she’s this close to ending it once and for all. But with a storm brewing on the horizon, she’ll get only one shot before the impending darkness takes hold, threatening to wipe away every truth she’s uncovered—and everything she holds dear.

5 Stars

The tension cranks up full force in the newest installment of THE UNDERTAKER'S DAUGHTER Series. A year has passed since Rowan 's father's murder. She successfully became "the undertaker," rather than "the Undertaker 's Daughter," and her friendship with Billy Brannigan, Winchester, TN's Chief of Police and lifelong best friend.

But prolific, off-the-charts, serial killer Julian Addington, once Rowan's mentor and friend, is closer still and farther along on his plan to make Rowan regret living. Billy, and FBI Special Agent Dressler, are among his targets; so is anyone close to Rowan, personally or professionally. Is there no recourse, no end?

Monday, March 30, 2020

Review: THE LIES WE TELL (THE UNDERTAKER'S DAUGHTER #2) by Debra Webb

4 Stars

There's so much unfolding revelation, such a wealth of secrets, in this Series, that the reader has to wonder if any character speaks truth! For some reason this installment didn't thrill me quite as much; perhaps because I'm reading consecutively.

Rowan is confronted with yet more possible clues to her late mother's character and integrity, and suggestions that Rowan herself is or will be a target--but other than the ingenious serial killer, by whom or by what, and why? She also has to come to terms with her true feelings about Chief of Police Billy, her lifelong best friend.

Saturday, March 28, 2020

Review: THE SECRETS WE BURY [THE UNDERTAKER'S DAUGHTER #1] by Debra Webb

5 Stars

Author Debra Webb is "series-prolific," and gifted at maintaining the suspense, excitement, and intrigue throughout each installment. In THE SECRETS WE BURY, Book #1 in THE UNDERTAKER'S DAUGHTER Series (the novella THE UNDERTAKER'S DAUGHTER is #0.5), forensic psychiatrist Rowan Dupont returns to her tiny home town, quiet Winchester, Tennessee, near Nashville. Homecoming is grieving, both for the recent loss of her beloved father, and for the ongoing memories of her lost twin and mother. However, the off-the-charts serial killer stalking her won't let up, instead continuously bombarding her with the unfolding and twisting of her past.

Friday, March 27, 2020

Review: LOST GIRLS [50 STATES OF MURDER] by Jon Mills

5 Stars

A riveting--and for women readers, terrifying--murder mystery with incredible, but ultimately comprehensible, twists. I had my own paranoid suspicions from near to the beginning, based on the continuing revelations of the character of the Villain, but was still surprised, unsettlingly so, and in the end, I found myself quite satisfied with the story and anticipating the next [50 States Of Murder Series].

Review: THE UNDERTAKER'S DAUGHTER by Debra Webb [The Undertaker's Daughter 0.5]

5 Super Stars!

Debra Webb is superb! I'm already a committed fan, just from this novella! Rowan is a totally strong female protagonist, backed up by another strong female character in Lieutenant Jones, and a surprisingly compassionate as well as protective male leading character in Sheriff Billy, who has been part of Rowan 's life since adolescence.

Then there is the "blow-me-smack-out-of-the-water" plotline involving the "least suspected " character who proves to be, quite literally, off the charts [off the FBI charts, that is]. THE UNDERTAKER'S DAUGHTER is the first in a Series, and due to the plot twists and recurring revelations, I do recommend that the Series be read in order. Although the author catches up the reader in later books, I personally think the Series is best read in order to follow the Chronology.

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Review: GRAVE GAMES by Skylar Finn

5 Resounding Stars!

What a totally enjoyable and riveting Mystery! I've enjoyed a few other books by author Skylar Finn, and found GRAVE GAMES all I expected. The premise is creatively imagined, and well-founded in both the plotting and in historical precedents. The reader's hook took my breath away; and the explication through the characters (and their evolution/devolution) of the effects of Traumq+a, of PTSD, of blanketing, inescapable, childhood abuse; as well as of criminal profiling and occasions on which law enforcement overlooks unexpected or unplanned possibilities due to tunnel vision [it never happened before, so it can't be happening now] I found superbly engrossing.

Monday, March 23, 2020

Review: PATCH LANE by S. F. Barkley

4 Stars

I found this Mystery quite intriguing, admiring the strong female heroine who combines intuition with determined perseverance. I really hope this will become a series: I'd like to read more about Officer Sarah Hastings, and I'd really like to learn more about the historical backdrop of the eponymous farmhouse on Patch Lane.

Saturday, March 21, 2020

Review: PAST MADE PRESENT by Bo Thunboe

5 Stars

I enjoy this Series particularly because of the enduring moral character of protagonist Jake Houser, a Detective with the [sometimes very corrupt] Weston, Illinois Police Department. In this Mystery, Jake is confronted not only with a high school girl's inexplicable disappearance but with a series of cold cases: murders of young girls with post-mortem rapes. Quite possibly, the wrong man was framed and convicted, leaving the guilty to commit further abduction-murders. The corruption which allowed this may come far too close to home for Jake.

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Review: SHORT HORROR STORIES VOLUME 14

5 Stars

"Anger Asylum": An intrepid protagonist suffused with integrity and character fiber takes employment at the local insane asylum in Anger, New Hampshire. He's compassionate, determined, and he's no slacker. Unfortunately, Anger Asylum hosts an implacable horror and its ever-willing vessel.

"26 Main Street": A remarkable Weird Fiction tale, with overtones of Lovecraftian horror. If the implacability here isn't Cosmic--it should be. Certainly it's inescapable.

"Hall Burial Ground": Of all the bad places in a town that is generally out of joint, the Hall Burial Ground is Anger, New Hampshire's absolute worst--and that's quite an achievement. An extremely unsettling tale; I predict I'm going to have multiple nightmares out of this.

All stories in this volume by Ron Ripley.

Review: PAST PERFECT by Richard Stockford

5 Stars

Det. Thomas Clipper Mysteries Book 2

The second intriguing mystery/Maine police procedural with the intrepid protagonist Detective Lieutenant Thomas Clipper, PAST PERFECT pits him against a local militia operated by a military veteran who claims Constitutional foundation but has ulterior intents. Clipper's live-in girlfriend Janice Owens is now in charge of the Bangor Historical Society 's renovation of the expansive Gaylord Estate, and soon enough finds herself at the center of a mysterious disappearance forty years earlier. Author Richard Stockford cleverly weaves in a cold case and a present-day "terroristic" threat.

Monday, March 16, 2020

Review: PAST DUE by Richard Stockford

5 Stars

Det. Thomas Clipper Mysteries Book 1

PAST DUE introduces us to an admirable protagonist in a new police procedural series set in New England. Set in a somewhat fictionalized Bangor, Maine (where the author was once Chief of Police), each novel cleverly interweaves a historical event in the community with present-day policing concerns, while giftedly delineating characterization and character evolution.

Here protagonist Bangor Detective Lieutenant Thomas Clipper is tasked to help prepare a reenactment of the multiply fatal 1937 shootout between local law enforcement and a Boston criminal trio. In the process, he also must confront a new series of murders, which ultimately prove to be linked to the 1937 shootout. The author balances the events of 1937 through post-World War II showing how Past is Prologue.

Monday, March 9, 2020

MARCH 2020 GOODREADS REVIEWS

Books Read and Reviewed in March 2020:

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Review: PERSONALIZED MURDER

3 Stars

A clever premise in which the Presidential line of succession is assassinated--or are all the deaths just horrific health occurrences? Are these murders or merely terminal health events? If assassinations, who or what could possibly be "brilliant " enough to organize silent, unseen, killings? And why??