I’ve been waiting 3 years for a new release from Lauren Carr. And here it is!

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

In the shadows of the missing, the truth lies buried.

Helen Clarke-Matheson believed she had escaped the shadows of her past, building a new life with Chris. But the past has a way of resurfacing, and when her sister arrives with a DNA test, Helen’s world is once again turned upside down. Her sister shattered the family history Helen believed to be true. Her young father hadn’t abandoned his family, and her delusional mother didn’t wander away from her children.

Chris Matheson and the Geezer Squad, a quirky team of retired seasoned sleuths working under the guise of a book club, are drawn into a deeply personal investigation. They must wade through decades of buried secrets and conflicting accounts to uncover the truth behind the parents’ disappearances. As they peel back the layers of deception to unravel long-forgotten clues, they confront the lingering specter of murder and long-hidden crimes. Can they piece together the fragments of the past to bring closure to Helen and her siblings, or will the truth remain buried forever?

Reviewed by Laura Fabiani

I loved the Hartman clan and of course the Geezer Squad! And the scenes with Chris’ beloved German Shepherd Sterling were heartwarming.

The ending was touching and it was perfect, tying it all together. There is some reference to past events that are covered in the previous books, but this book can be read as a stand-alone, without the necessity of having read the other 4 books. However, if you like twisty mysteries, here are the previous books and my reviews. You won't be bored with a Lauren Carr mystery book in your hands, that's for sure.

As soon as I read the title with its clever play on words, I cracked a smile. Carr has delivered another twisty and complex mystery in her fourth book in the Chris Matheson Cold Care Mystery series!

Selling over half a million books worldwide, Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, Thorny Rose, Chris Matheson Cold Case Mysteries, and Nikki Bryant Cozy Mysteries—thirty titles across five fast-paced mystery series filled with twists and turns!

Ends April 7, 2023

 

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Michelle Cox is the author of the Henrietta and Inspector Howard series as well as “Novel Notes of Local Lore,” a weekly blog dedicated to Chicago’s forgotten residents. Her books have won over 50 international awards and have been praised by Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Foreword, Elle, Redbook, Brit&Co., POPSUGAR, Buzzfeed, and many others.

Unbeknownst to most, Michelle hoards board games she doesn’t have time to play and is, not surprisingly, addicted to period dramas and big band music. Also marmalade. She lives in Chicago with her husband, three children, and one naughty Goldendoodle and is hard at work on her latest novel.

End Nov 28, 2022

If you like fiercely loyal heroines, thrilling whodunits, and the magic of old cinema, then you’ll love Kari Bovee’s enthralling second book in the Grace Michelle Mystery Series.​

Hollywood, 1924. Promoted to lead costume designer of a star-studded film, Grace Michelle should be on top of the world. But between her husband’s debt, her sister’s recent death, and the troubled teenaged girl she’s fostering, she’s struggling to please everyone and still keep a smile on her face. And when a Tinseltown shindig turns deadly, Grace is horrified to discover her young charge unconscious alongside the director’s grisly corpse.

Determined to prove the girl’s innocence, Grace’s own haunted past fills her sleep with prophetic nightmares. And no sooner has she sought clarity from a medium than a second body lands the scared teenager in the slammer.

Can Grace turn the camera on the real culprit before another victim ends up on the cutting room floor?

Grace in Hollywood is the second book in the riveting A Grace Michelle Mystery historical series. If you like fiercely loyal heroines, thrilling whodunits, and the magic of old cinema, then you’ll love Kari Bovee’s enthralling tale.​
GRACE IN HOLLYWOOD (Grace Michelle Mystery) Book Tour Giveaway

Lauren Carr's first book in the Nikki Bryant Cozy Mystery series is now out on audiobook! 

Audiobook release date: August 5, 2020
Content Rating: G. This is a true cozy mystery. No sex. No on-stage violence. No swearing. Just good clean fun!

Book Description:

Folks in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania, claim that where Nikki Bryant goes, trouble is not far behind. Her refusal to back down from a challenge has made Nikki Bryant a top investigative journalist.

When an online friend nudges her to join him in a pact to reconnect with their first loves, Nikki and her boxer dog Elmo leave the bright lights of Las Vegas for the charming town of Pine Grove. There, she must face the biggest challenges in her career and life—the first love she had left behind and her father’s unsolved murder.

But before she has time to unpack her car, Nikki stumbles upon the dead body of local news anchor, Ashleigh Addison, her childhood rival. Could Ashleigh’s death be connected to an explosive news story that she had teased about airing live? Did that explosive story have anything to do with the murder of Nikki’s father?

With the clues in her father’s cold case hot again, Nikki intends to chase down the story of her life until she catches his killer—no matter what it takes.

Lauren Carr is the international best-selling author of the Mac Faraday, Lovers in Crime, Chris Matheson Cold Case, and Thorny Rose Mysteries—over twenty-five titles across three fast-paced mystery series filled with twists and turns!

​Connect with the author: Website ~ Twitter ~ Facebook ~ Instagram ~ Pinterest ~ Bookbub

Ends Oct 16, 2020

Book Details:

Book Title: A Child Lost (The Henrietta and Inspector Howard Series #5) by Michelle Cox
Narrated by: Jayne A Entwistle
Length: 14 hrs and 53 mins
Category: Adult Fiction
Genre: Historical Mystery
Content Rating: Rated R for 2 sex scenes that are somewhat explicit but which are tastefully done. There is periodic swearing (not excessive), religious profanity but no violence.


Book Description:

A spiritualist, an insane asylum, a lost little girl...

When Clive, anxious to distract a depressed Henrietta, begs Sergeant Frank Davis for a case, he is assigned to investigating a seemingly boring affair: a spiritualist woman operating in an abandoned schoolhouse on the edge of town who is suspected of robbing people of their valuables.

What begins as an open-and-shut case becomes more complicated, however, when Henrietta, much to Clive’s dismay, begins to believe the spiritualist's strange ramblings.

Meanwhile, Elsie implores Clive and Henrietta to help her and the object of her budding love Gunther locate the whereabouts of one Liesel Klinkhammer, the German woman Gunther has traveled to America to find and the mother of the little girl Anna, whom he has brought along with him.

The search leads them to Dunning Asylum, where they discover some terrible truths about Liesel. When the child Anna is herself mistakenly admitted to the asylum after an epileptic fit, Clive and Henrietta return to Dunning to retrieve her. This time, however, Henrietta begins to suspect that something darker may be happening. When Clive doesn’t believe her, she decides to take matters into her own hands...with horrifying results.


In May, I read the ebook copy of this book, the fifth one in a series that I have been enjoying very much! So, of course, I was thrilled when the opportunity came up to listen to the audiobook too. I already listened to the audiobooks of the first book A Girl Like You, the second book A Ring of Truth, the third A Promise Given, and the fourth A Veil Removed, all of which I enjoyed as much as when I read them in print format. So far this one is my favorite!
It has all the characters I have come to know well, an excellent mystery with a great twist and, of course, the 1930s Chicago setting. But what I loved the most is how the author has fleshed out, even more, the characters of our dynamic sleuthing duo, Henrietta and Clive. We get to see more of their vulnerable sides within the context of the realities of married life.

In this aptly titled Book 5 of the series, Henrietta and Clive have informally begun to solve cases together. There is a spirit medium who has settled in an abandoned schoolhouse and she may be defrauding her clients. Henrietta's sister Elsie seeks their help in locating the mother of Anna, a 4-year old child who was left in the care of Gunther, the custodian Elsie is falling for. Their search leads them to the infamous Dunning insane asylum.

I've always had an interest in mental health, especially when it's a topic in historical fiction because so little was understood in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the author's notes, Cox mentions that Dunning Asylum actually existed, and she did a good job of including the depravity that went on there without turning the novel into a horror story. I blazed through the last hundred pages as the suspense built, much like it did in the first book of the series.

There is not a dull moment in this book. Cox's characters are so well portrayed in their physical traits, their manner of speech, their actions, their personalities as well as through their dilemmas and moments of joy. Cox sure knows how to create characters that are memorable and distinct. And they stay true to character throughout the story or series.

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Michelle Cox is the author of the multiple award-winning Henrietta and Inspector Howard series as well as "Novel Notes of Local Lore," a weekly blog dedicated to Chicago's forgotten residents. She suspects she may have once lived in the 1930s and, having yet to discover a handy time machine lying around, has resorted to writing about the era as a way of getting herself back there. Coincidentally, her books have been praised by Kirkus, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist and many others, so she might be on to something. Unbeknownst to most, Michelle hoards board games she doesn't have time to play and is, not surprisingly, addicted to period dramas and big band music. Also marmalade.

Connect with the Author: website ~ facebook ~twitter ~ instagram ~ goodreadsJayne Entwistle is an award-winning audiobook narrator known most notably for her narration of the Flavia De Luce series by Alan Bradley. She received the prestigious Odyssey Award for The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley and the Odyssey Honor Award for The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry. In addition to several Earphones Awards, AudioFile magazine has included her narration on their list of Best Audiobooks of the Year. When not immersed in fabulous books, Jayne can be found on-screen in television shows such as The Good Place, Feud: Bette and Joan, You're the Worst, and Maron. Originally from the North of England, Jayne currently lives in Los Angeles.

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In May, I read the ebook copy of this book because I was enjoying the series and wanted to read all 5 books! So when it was released in audiobook format I wanted to revisit the story by listening to it. I already listened to the audiobooks of the first book A Girl Like You, the second book A Ring of Truth, and the third book A Promise Given, all of which I enjoyed as much as when I read them in print format. And I can say the same for this book too.

This fourth book in the Henrietta and Inspector Howard series takes on a different turn as it deals with the death of Clive's father upon the couple's return from their shortened honeymoon. It also delves more closely into Elsie's life, as she struggles to find her own way, now that her grandfather is determined to marry her off to any wealthy bachelor who will have her after her scandal with the Lieutenant.

Once again, I immensely enjoyed yet another book starring the dynamic duo of Clive and Henrietta. In this book, their roles as husband and wife solidify as they return to Highbury and settle into married life. Clive must now take over his father's company. As he begins to go through his father's things, his detective antenna signals foul play and murder. Henrietta wants very much to be involved in helping him, and they finally face-off with past enemies.

Surprising is how Elsie's story takes off in this book. Through her, the reader gets a taste of what was expected of young women from wealthy families with domineering men at the helm. Elsie gets a chance to study in a women's college and she finds her calling, but she must fight her own lack of self-confidence. I enjoyed her story very much (and it did take a big chunk of the book) so I was somewhat disappointed that her story ended on a cliffhanger.

Apart from this, the author's writing is excellent with superb storytelling and great character building. As in all her other books, the author includes references to past events and gives the backstory from the previous books so they were fresh in my mind and added to my enjoyment of the series. I'm totally invested in this series, in the world of Henrietta, Clive, and their respective families. I feel like these novels could be turned into a TV miniseries. I guess that's why I'm loving the audiobooks so much.

Narrated by: Jayne Entwistle

Length: 14 hours 21 mins
Category: Adult Fiction
Genre: Historical Mystery
Content Rating: PG-13 + M (There are sexual scenes, not too explicit, some violence)

BOOK DESCRIPTION: