Book After Book

Lori Anderson is a bounty hunter and a single mother. In the first book, Deep Down Dead, Lori had to capture her former mentor and lover, JP, who she hasn’t seen in ten years and who is accused of assault, and she had to rescue her 9-year-old daughter Dakota from the bad people who wanted to frame JP. Lori managed to save Dakota, but now JP is facing the death row for murders he didn’t commit. To save him, Lori makes a deal with a FBI agent to find Gibson Fletcher, a thief and murderer who escaped from prison. If Lori manages to capture him, JP will be set free.

While Lori flies between Florida and California looking for her fugitive, she also has to deal with the Mafia who is after her for the disappearance of one of their own, her husband Tommy, who Lori killed ten years before and for which JP took the fault. The clock is ticking and Lori has to face many obstacles to get the happy ending she dreams of.

I have to admit that I enjoyed this book more than the first one. For me, the first one was more an introduction to the characters and their story, although there is a high amount of tension and twists, while in this one I was already familiar with Lori, JP, and Dakota, but the story is more fast-paced and captivating.

While the first book completely focuses on Lori’s story, I loved that in this one you also get a glimpse inside JP’s character. Not much, just a few chapters, but enough to make me like this character more.

The plot is thrilling, full of action, and full of suspense. The characters are engaging and well-drawn, but at the center of the story there is Lori, a strong, determined, and independent woman who doesn’t let any man walk over her. She always gets herself in trouble, sometimes she makes bad decisions, and she is flawed and I couldn’t help but like her. Everything Lori does is for the safety and happiness of her daughter Dakota and I liked how the author portrayed her not only as a bounty hunter but focused also on her role as a mother.

This series is a complete page-turner and I can’t wait to read more.

DEEP BLUE TROUBLE is out on January 5^th in the UK.

What do you do when you find out that your husband has been lying to you since the day you met?

Vivian Miller has been happily married to Matt for ten years and they have four children. Vivian is a CIA analyst working on the Russian account and for the last months she has been trying to find Russian spies in the United States. One morning, Vivian manages to enter the computer of a man thought to be the handler of a sleeping Russian cell. But her excitement to this discovery is short-lived because Vivian finds a photo of her husband among the pictures of other Russian spies. From now on, Vivian struggles with the fact that her marriage is built on a lie and she makes a decision after another that leads her to a dangerous spiral from which she can’t seem to find a way out.

Karen Cleveland is a former CIA analyst and she drew from her experience to write a superb and captivating plot. What I liked about this spy thriller is not only the twisty story, but also the author’s detailed exploration of Vivian’s mind as she struggles with her discovery. The descriptions of Vivian’s emotions, her fears, her guilt, her excuses on why her husband’s picture is on the computer of a Russian criminal, her refusal to accept who her husband really is, are vivid and realistic.

There are many twists, many moments that made me gasp in surprise and many others that made me sit on the edge of my seat eager to see what would happen next. I stayed up late at night to finish reading it because I couldn’t go to sleep not knowing how it would end.

This is a fast-paced and intense story about a woman struggling between her loyalty to her country and keeping her family safe. There is suspense, there are emotional moments, there is romance, there is everything that a brilliant novel needs.

NEED TO KNOW is published on January 25^th in the UK.

Anna Fox suffers from agoraphobia, the fear of being outside, and for the last ten months she has been inside her house watching old movies, counseling online other people who are agoraphobic like her, taking medications and drinking an alarming quantity of wine. In her former life, Anna was a child psychologist married to Ed with whom she has a daughter, Olivia. But now Ed and Olivia are gone and Anna only talks to them on the phone.

Anna spends her days spying on the neighbors and, at the moment, she is drawn to the Russells, the family who just moved next door: Alistair and Jane and their sixteen-year-old son Ethan. Anna starts to spy on them from her window but one night she sees something terrible, something that she wasn’t supposed to see. But when no one believes her story, Anna has to take the matter in her own hands.

What I loved about this book is that Anna is an unreliable character. The story is told in first person but, because of her drinking and medications and because of her psychological situation, you don’t know if she is telling the truth. As the truth about her past, about the cause of her phobia slowly unravels, the suspense raises and I couldn’t wait to read what would happen next.

If the first book I read this year is anything to go by, this is going to be a great year book-wise. THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW is the terrific, remarkable, and engrossing exploration inside a woman’s mind, her fears, her guilt, and her hopes. A. J. Finn’s writing is superb, captivating, and keeps you glued to the page. I loved the attention to details and the descriptions of Anna’s feelings are so vivid and evocative that I could really feel for her.

If you loved The Girl On The Train you will adore this. Unreliable drunk main character, she spies on people, she sees something horrible, nobody believes her. The right ingredients for the perfect thriller. Add an Hitchcockian setting and you have an unputdownable book.

Full of complex and well-drawn characters, a well-developed, twisty, and completely absorbing novel, suspenseful but also a bit emotional, I stayed up late at night reading and I refused to go to bed until I reached the end which resulted in me going to work next morning sleep-deprived but a very satisfied and happy reader.

THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW is out on January 25th in the UK.

Fifteen years ago, twelve-year-old Harper McClain came home from school to find her mother brutally murdered.

Now, Harper is the top crime reporter of Savannah’s newspaper and she spends her nights chasing crimes along with her photographer friend Miles. One afternoon, the body of a woman is found in her home by her young daughter and when Harper arrives on the crime scene she can’t help but notice the many similarities to her mother’s murder. Harper quickly becomes obsessed with this murder and, as the police seems to get nowhere, she starts investigating on her own. The more she investigates, the more she finds obstacles along the way, even from people very close to her. As the obsession takes over her life and threatens to destroy everything she’s worked for, Harper needs to find the killer before it is too late.

I was first drawn to THE ECHO KILLING from the blurb, which I found intriguing and captivating, and then when I read the first page I was completely hooked. I liked the character of Harper, she is smart, sharp, and determined. I liked the setting of Savannah, in Georgia, which is very well described with its evocative streets and tourist areas. I loved the plot which is dark, twisty, and fast-paced. And I liked that there is some romance as Harper starts a relationship with her long-time friend, detective Luke Walker, which is complicated by the fact that police and journalists shouldn’t be personally involved.

If all of the above isn’t enough, I will add that the author’s writing is brilliant and absorbing.

THE ECHO KILLING novel ends with a few unanswered questions but it is the first book in a series, so I am really looking forward to reading more about Harper.

THE ECHO KILLING is out on January 1st in the UK.

Sophie Whitehouse gave up her job to stay at home with her children and play the perfect wife to James, a junior minister in London and a great friend of the Prime Minister. They seem to have a perfect marriage and a perfect life until disaster strikes. For the last five months James has been having an affair with Olivia, a young researcher in his office, and not only the affair made the first page of the newspapers but Olivia has accused James of raping her.

Kate is a prosecutor who looks for justice for the victims of sexual violence. Her job is not easy, she has to listen to gruesome details and not always she is able to get justice for the victims. But when she is assigned the case against James Whitehouse she knows she has to win, even if the odds are not really in her favor.

The trial begins. Sophie’s love for her husband is so strong that she stands by his side, while Kate works hard to prove that James is not the good man that everyone believes him to be. As details of the affair between James and Olivia come to light, both Kate and Sophie have to face a past that led them to this moment.

The novel is told by different points of view, mostly Kate and Sophie, and it weaves between the past and the present, between London and Oxford. For almost a year I have been hearing really good things about this book and when I finally read it I found out why everyone was so excited about it.

This is not a fast-paced novel as the author really focuses into the characters’ psychology. Despite the slow-paced rhythm, the plot is really captivating and, as the novel develops, more secrets are revealed, the tension rises, and the twists and turns kept me glued to the page of this legal thriller. What I liked most about this novel are the two female main characters, Kate and Sophie. There were a few moments in the novel when I didn’t like them because of their choices both in the past and the present, but in the end they come out as two strong and determined characters.

I am not a fan of sexual violence in books (some authors are too descriptive and give too much details) but in this novel the detailed descriptions are not too graphic or too shocking, although I cringed a few times and felt for the characters. This a thought-provoking novel about current issues like sexual violence, harassment, men in power, but also deals with themes of marriage, trust, love, family, and dark secrets.

Engaging and complex characters, a compelling plot, and an unpredictable ending create a sharp and provocative novel.

ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL is out on January 11^th in the UK.