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Modern Gothic Tale of Witches & Werewolves Needs Less Words, More Bite -- (Review of Atlas of Unknowable Things)

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The cut-throat, “publish-or-perish” world of academia.   Ancient manuscripts.  An historian with a secret side quest. An ex-bestie turned bitter rival. A tiny, elite college, nestled high in the stunning peaks of the Rocky Mountains... where winter is always coming. These are the bones of McCormick Templeman’s gothic-leaning thriller,  Atlas of Unknowable Things .     Ever since Robin Quain and her best friend, a fellow historian, fell out, it seems like nothing’s been going right. Her beloved dog crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Her boyfriend unceremoniously dumped her. And, she hasn't experienced a breakthrough in her dissertation—arguing the European witch hunts were as much about getting rid of powerful women as eradicating suspected practitioners of witchcraft—leaving her PhD more pipe dream than reality. Until, that is, she runs across a letter mentioning correspondence between Joan of Arc and the infamous French knight, Gilles de Rais, which sparks new avenues...
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When Being an Influencer is Murder... Review of the thriller "Made You Look"

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Jetting off for cool photoshoots in exotic places.  Being the instantly-recognizable face of high-end luxury products and fantasy experiences. Enjoying the rush from seeing “likes” numbering in the hundreds of thousands on your last Instagram post or TikTok video. Ah, the glamorous life of the Influencer... Or so it’s easy to think.  But, like the old saying goes, “all that glitters is not gold”, there’s a less-shiny, less-sexy side to being a social media darling. Tanya Grant peels back the curtain to give us a peek at what being an internet sensation is  really  like in her debut thriller,  Made You Look .      A week-long, all-expenses-paid trip to Reverie Retreat, a posh, not-yet-open-to-the-public ecolodge nestled deep in the Catskills. For mega-Influencer Sydney Kent—along with her little entourage of fellow influencers, stylist, photog, and publicity manager—it’s a sweet gig, posting content hyping the new retreat prior to its grand opening...
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Halloween Town or Murder Town? Sometimes it's the same thing... (Review of No Rest for the Wicked)

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Small towns. Unless you’ve lived in been a regular visitor to one, they’re kinda hard to wrap your head around. Like realizing your neighbors know  so much  about you... stuff which  everyone   else in town eventually winds up knowing, too. (Small towns, they do love to talk.)   But gossip is rarely truth—at least, not the full truth—which means all sorts of misunderstandings can happen.   And, when the veracity of such isn’t questioned (or refuted)? Hurt feelings, disappointments, and resentments can linger for  years ... as in Rachel Louise Adams’s debut thriller,  No Rest for the Wicked .     Dolores Hawthorne fled Little Horton, Wisconsin (aka “Halloween Town”, thanks to its lavish celebration of the seasonally-macabre) nearly two decades ago... and didn’t plan on returning.   Ever.   But, when someone from the FBI calls her in L.A., saying her father, ex-mayor of Little Horton and former U.S. Senator, has gone missing—and ...
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There's More to Your Local Librarian than Meets the Eye... (Review of The Librarians)

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Some jobs just lend themselves to stereotypes.   Take librarians. Say the word, and almost everyone envisions  something .   For most people, that probably looks like an older female—matronly, with grey hair, a cardigan over her buttoned-up dress, high-Rx glasses, sensible shoes, and a stern expression. (Lots of “shushing” with this one.)   The rest go straight into fantasyland, with the “Sexy Librarian” trope—beautiful younger woman, long hair in a messy bun, buxom chest straining at the buttons of her shirt, snug pencil skirt, not-really-necessary glasses, and impractical high heels. (The secret dominatrix just waiting to get her freak on.)    So it’s like a breath of fresh air, that Sherry Thomas offers up not one, but  four , stereotype-busting librarians in her latest mystery novel,  The Librarians ... and tosses in a murder or two for them to solve, as well.     A cozy, suburban branch of the Austin, Texas public library system....
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Weddings of the Super-Rich Aren't Like Yours... and That's a Good Thing(!)-- (review of A Killer Wedding)

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Who  doesn’t  love a great big wedding?   The idea of two people, symbolically sharing their Happily-Ever-After with those nearest-and-dearest... even for the semi-cynical amongst us, it’s hard to resist.   But make it a  celebrity  to-do—where one of them is famous (or infamous), or insanely-wealthy—and suddenly, it’s a whole different ballgame.   [Plus, zero chance most of us would merit an invitation...]   If any of us had the opportunity to attend The Wedding of the Year, we’d RSVP “Yes!”, wouldn’t we?   Especially if we had no clue, going into it, that we’d be RSVPing to the scene of a murder... as in Joan O’Leary’s  A Killer Wedding .     It’s quite a coup when Christine, a lowly staff writer for elite  Bespoke Weddings  magazine—which only covers the  most -fabulous nuptials—is singled out to cover the Wedding of the Year, the Ripton-Murphy union.    Grandmother-of-the-groom, octogenarian Gloria ...
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Making Deals with a Devil... (Review of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World)

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The job market is TOUGH. So what’s a recent college grad to do, armed with a shiny degree in whatever, saddled with a mountain of debt... and finding few—if any—job prospects?   Go to work for a secretive multinational corporation dealing in “problem-solving”... essentially, a “fixer” for issues no one dares talk about, outside of hushed boardrooms?    You bet.   And then one day, make a deal with what may be an  actual  agent of Hell... all for the sake of a promotion?   I mean, sure, that's a plan.   Of course, such deals never come without a few strings... as one young man quickly discovers in Mark Waddell’s darkly-satirical take on climbing the corporate ladder,  Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World .     After several years of feeling like the lowest man on the totem pole in Dark Enterprises’ Human Resources department, earnest, cardigan-clad Colin receives the dreaded notice: he has one week to fix his latest screw-up, or f...
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The Monsters Come Out to Play Online -- (Shadow Play book review)

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By now—a quarter of the way through the 21 st  century—we probably couldn’t survive without the internet.   We use it for shopping. Keeping up with friends and family. Work. Job hunting. Looking for love. And finding answers to every  “How do I fix this?”  or  “What do I do now?”  question that pops into our heads.   But it isn’t  just  a shopping mall/phone-and-snail-mail alternative/meeting place/encyclopedia.   Because while it  does  draw us together, it also allows for anonymity... a murky, shadowy space where con artists, conspiracy theorists, and bullies converge.   And sometimes, where maniacs come out to play.   Thriller author Sara Driscoll’s latest,  Shadow Play , looks at the downside of online.     When physical therapist Krista agrees to be part of a weekly, live-streaming show offering relationship and life advice with her best friend, Hailey, it sounds like a fun hobby.   After all,...
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