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The Forty-Year Grudge, by Liza Tully (REVIEW) — A Weekend of Memories, Margaritas... and Unfinished Business

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When Olivia Blunt—assistant to the World’s Greatest Detective—spies a reunion invitation in boss Aubrey Merritt’s office mail, she’s ecstatic. Surely her stern boss will jump at the chance to hang out—and maybe even let loose a little—with the sorority sisters she hasn’t seen in four decades... right? Instead, the older woman promptly dashes Olivia’s hopes, declaring she most definitely does  not  plan to attend such annoying silliness. Several days later—after a visit from the husband of an old sorority friend—Merritt has changed her tune, though... and expects Olivia to accompany her. Why? Because the man’s wife—a retired Brigadier General who surely made many enemies during her career—is hosting the reunion at their New Mexico ranch... and has received a death threat. Handwritten, on the back of one of the invitations. And just like that, the unlikely detective and her (still frequently-disappointing) assistant are desert-bound, in Liza Tully’s follow-up to last year’s firs...
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The Chateau on Sunset, by Natasha Lester (REVIEW) — Jane Eyre Gets a Feminist Updating

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  A newly-orphaned girl finds her happy life upended when she’s unceremoniously shipped off to an irritable aunt whom she’s never met.   Both are relieved when the young woman is old enough to get a job as governess to another unwanted girl... and when she winds up falling in love with her boss, it feels like a fairy tale come true. The fairy tale takes a nasty turn, though, when she discovers that the man has been keeping a very big secret from her... and once again, she’s all alone. And it’s there, in the void, that she finally finds herself. Sound familiar?  (Hopefully that’s a rhetorical question, and you instantly recognized the plot of Charlotte Brontë’s  Jane Eyre .) But it’s also the basic premise of a clever reimagining of the Gothic classic, in Natasha Lester’s mesmerizing novel,  The Chateau on Sunset .   When young Aria Jones finds herself abruptly dumped on the sidewalk outside of an imposing hotel on L.A.’s Sunset Boulevard in 1957—so foreign ...
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Beneath a Broken Sky, by Joshua Moehling (REVIEW) — After the Twister, the Danger is Just Beginning...

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There are many “constants” in life—things you can rely on to happen or to be true.   One is that whenever there’s a widespread emergency—courtesy of either man or Mother Nature—two types of people will show up. The first are those there to help. Doesn’t matter if they’ve personally been affected or not, they want to do good. The second type are those solely there to take advantage of a bad situation.  Both play their parts in Joshua Moehling’s latest mystery,  Beneath a Broken Sky .   If you’ve ever had the terrible misfortune to be  in  a tornado—or even just to be  near  one—then you  know . You know the unbelievable sight of roofs blown off, outbuildings and lawn furniture sent pinwheeling who knows where... or whole buildings blown to smithereens. You understand the devastation of downed power lines everywhere you want to go... and of decades’—or  centuries’ —old trees, shattered and broken beyond what your heart can comprehend. When...
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Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet, by Emma Mills (REVIEW) — Big Dreams, Bigger Falls... and Finding Where You Belong

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  “Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day  You learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play  If you got hunger for what you see, you’ll take it eventually  You can have everything you want but you better not take it from me...” ~Guns N’ Roses     Everyone  who moves to L.A. comes here for  something . Hoping to make it big... or to make a fresh start where nobody knows you. Maybe just to get far away... from  whatever  was left behind. Dreams and plans rarely go the way you’ve imagined, though. Fame can take years—or forever remain out of reach. Fresh starts without any sort of network of family or friends can be incredibly lonely.  And as for what you might’ve been running from, well... who’s to say you won’t be running straight into something equally bad? Still, even if how you end up doesn’t look how you’d hoped, it’s bound to be interesting. Surprising.  And sometimes, you might discover that what y...
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The Anniversary, by Alex Finlay (REVIEW) — Terror That Returns Like Clockwork

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It might be hard to believe, but there   was   life before self-driving cars were an option. Before AI and the internet gave us split-second access to  all  manner of information.  Before cell phones were practically glued to our hands. So let’s go back to one such “before”—specifically, the early 1990s—for a few minutes.  Grunge was taking over the music scene, and the number of channels on cable TV was exploding. And although we  knew  serial killers existed... for the most part, it was still in a “ stuff-that-only-happens-somewhere-else ” kind of way. Thriller master Alex Finlay leads us into that world—a quite ordinary one... until a serial killer starts terrorizing everyone—with his latest,  The Anniversary .   It could’ve been just another day in a small Nebraska town... except on this one day of the year—May 1, 1992—folks are a little jittery. You see, terrible things have been happening on this particular day for a while, now. Yo...
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Reykjavik Fusion (TV Series REVIEW) — Where Fine Dining Meets Dirty Money

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Imagine for a moment that you’re a chef—brilliant, by all accounts—until one day, everything goes horribly wrong. You lose your career, your family, and your reputation. (Oh, and also your freedom, because you wind up in prison.) The police think you burned down your own restaurant for an insurance scam—even though you insist you didn’t. So you do your time, and it’s not great... but because this is Iceland, it’s not unbearable, either.  You make friends with other inmates—and get to impress them with your talent, because you’ve earned kitchen privileges. And then you’re released... carrying the baggage of being an ex-con. Reykjavik Fusion  is the story of what happens next. And that “next”? Should’ve come with a big ol’ warning sign.   When Jónas (played by Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) gets a job cooking at an elementary school, he considers himself lucky; no one else had shown any interest in hiring him.  But when parents learn the new cook making such tasty meals for th...
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Sanctuary, by James Cleary (REVIEW) — Inside a Fortress, Is the Greater Danger Outside... or Within?

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  It’s the   end of the world as we know it... but only the super-rich feel fine. (Well, closer to fine, anyway.)   In an America that could exist in the not-so-distant future, every nightmare scenario has become reality. The oceans have encroached on the coasts, submerging entire cities.  The fertile farmlands of the country’s midsection have completely dried up—no longer fit to produce either crops or livestock—leaving them nearly-unlivable dust bowls. Unable to afford even the basics—ample food, safe housing, medicine, modern technology and equipment—and being refused government assistance, the general populace is stirring. Angry. Hungry. Tired. Restless.  Millions of powder kegs set to ignite. The government is well aware of the imminent danger—as are the multi-billionaires whose money runs all of the men in power. And those wealthier-than-Croesus individuals? They’ve been planning for this eventual outcome a very long time... building luxury bunkers for the...
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