🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 A mesmerizing Nordic mystery, uniquely premised, cleverly plotted, and impossible to put down. Agnes Glin, our third-person-POV narrator, is twenty-seven years old and has lived her entire life in California, although her heritage on her father’s side is Icelandic. Agnes, with her white-blond hair, is still reeling from a…
🌟🌟🌟💫 Based in and around Portland, Oregon, this legal thriller is peppered with several plot twists, a central and darkly terrible crime, a bevy of suspicious characters, and a long and circuitous road that may or may not lead to justice. Charlie Webb is an average guy, and an equally…
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 An enthralling read by the Icelandic author Ragnar Jonasson, the first of his that this reader has experienced, but certainly not to be the last. This sequel to “The Darkness” can be read and enjoyed successfully as a standalone novel, (as I did,) with the loss of some backstory…
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 The first I’ve read in this immensely popular series, featuring Lt Eve Dallas, — this will definitely not be the last. With an appeal that crosses genres, this story is as much about Dallas and her “tribe” - beginning with her ongoing romance with her spouse, the mega-rich and…
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 Absolutely gripping and quite possibly the scariest book this reader has encountered this year, this real-life memoir, written by a first-person female former practicing member of Christian Fundamentalism (at its most devout) is a harrowing deep-dive into toxic patriarchal religious dogma and its stealthy indoctrination of the most horrifying…
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 Lenny Marks is an unusual heroine. At thirty-seven years old, Lenny hates to be touched, abhors noise and disorder, is socially inept, and is something of a genius when it comes to anagrams (which, along with watching old episodes of Friends, is her go-to self-soothing behavior). One could imagine…
🌟🌟🌟🌟💫 An edge of your seat thriller that has it all - a creepy mansion occupied by a strange and repressed family; a child, old before her time, who is truly unsettling; a murder (maybe?) tied to a mystery; and a first person POV heroine who is female, authentic and…
🌟🌟🌟🌟 “It’s only when we feel safe, not judged, not crazy, that a lot of other people feel some of the exact same things, that we can better identify what we are really feeling, and what we really need. We can better hear our own voice. And not just with…
🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2 Atmospheric and evocative, Book 3 in the Two Rivers (Inspector Matthew Venn) series, this author (and this series) can be counted on for all the elements of a top-notch police procedural, with the bonus of a team of detectives, led by Inspector Matthew Venn, as well-developed, multi-layered and interesting…
🌟🌟🌟💫 With plenty of suspects, this intricately-plotted legal thriller kept me engaged right up through the twists and turns and eventual chilling ending. The horrific murder of an entire family, - mom, dad, adult son and teenage daughter - has the Portland, Oregon community reeling. When Robin Lockwood, criminal defense…