Boldly drawn characters shoulder mysteries set among elite Washington power brokers.
A photojournalist notices too many odd things for her own good.
Sophie Medina is struggling to deal with the death of her husband, a CIA spy supposedly killed in an accident. Even former Secretary of State Quill Russell, a family friend, won’t reveal much, but he does ask Sophie to shoot photos for a book about his Virginia home as an anniversary gift for his wife, Vicki. On an early morning trip to shoot the last of the photos, she sees Vicki naked in the pool with a man who isn't her husband. Upset, Sophie flees, determined to say nothing. Stopping at her mother’s nearby home, she learns about the handwritten will of her recently deceased grandfather, a famous photographer, which leaves everything but his cameras to a small arts school. When she meets former boyfriend Jack O’Hara, now a Jesuit priest, for a run and dinner, they find an unconscious man lying in an alley; Jack recognizes him as Supreme Court Justice Everett Townsend, and Sophie sees he’s the naked man from Vicki’s pool. The justice is disliked by many and has a reputation as a womanizer. Maybe that’s why his wife, Diana, who Jack says is a living saint, seems all too eager to have him cremated as soon as he’s died. A young formerly homeless man named Javier Aguilera, whom Sophie's been helping to become a photojournalist, tells her he was in the ER when Justice Townsend came in—except it wasn’t Justice Townsend. Javi says it was a homeless man with dementia who was Townsend's doppelgänger and who was known around town as “the Professor.” That information sets Sophie on a frustrating trip to try to prove what she’s come to suspect.
Boldly drawn characters shoulder mysteries set among elite Washington power brokers.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781448308033
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
An emotionally grounded romantic thriller with enough steam to satisfy genre fans.
In Wolff’s novel, a chance encounter between a pop star and a football player leads to a complicated romance.
Sloane Walker, the ultra-famous popstar known to the world as the Black Widow, has kept her defenses high ever since two consecutive boyfriends died under tragic circumstances. Although she had nothing to do with either death, much of the public blamed her anyway, fueling a narrative that she found that she couldn’t escape. Now, she has a reputation for being icy and unapproachable—the emotional armor she wears to shield herself from further pain. Her inner circle is small by design, and she’s determined never to let anyone else in. However, everything changes the night that she meets Mateo “Sly” Sylvester, an up-and-coming NFL quarterback, at a post-concert meet-and-greet. Mateo attended the show with his beloved abuela, a devoted Black Widow superfan. The moment he meets Sloane, he’s struck by the tension between her cold, calculated image and the vulnerable woman he glimpses during her interaction with his grandmother. Sloane is caught off guard by Mateo’s quiet insightfulness, and how he seems to see her for who she really is. Mateo feels a deep sense of responsibility for the well-being of his family members, and that fierce protectiveness extends to Sloane as he begins to earn her trust. He becomes determined to show her that love doesn’t have to end in tragedy. Over the course of Wolff’s novel, both Sloane and Sly are revealed to be well-developed characters, and the plot moves briskly. A sinister threat emerges, apparently from an obsessed fan, and readers will find themselves even more invested in the main characters’ relationship as the stakes grow higher. Sloane, who’s used to such unwanted attention from members of her fan base, is determined to brush off the danger—but this time, it feels different: more targeted and disturbing. As the risk intensifies, and Sloane and Mateo’s relationship threatens to derail their careers, readers will follow along as they decide if their love is powerful enough to survive the fallout.
An emotionally grounded romantic thriller with enough steam to satisfy genre fans.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781649379177
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A little humor, a little romance, a little detection, but no solid takeaway.
Murder disrupts a bookstore’s grand opening in Winthrop, Washington.
Tess Harrow is going all out for the launch of Paper Trail, the painstakingly renovated bookshop on the site of her father’s old hardware store. Not only has she scheduled her latest novel, Fury Under the Floorboards, for release the night of the store’s launch party, but she’s allowed her daughter, 15-year-old Gertie, to plan a menu of tasty treats, including sushi-grade tuna flown in fresh that morning from Seattle. So she’s less than thrilled when her mother, mega-diva Bernadette Springer, shows up even earlier than the fish with her boyfriend, Levi Parker, in tow. Parker is famous all over Instagram, accused of murdering two women in New York and one in Detroit, although no one’s been able to make the charges stick. But this time, he’s the one who ends up in the morgue. Relieved as Tess is that her mother won’t be Parker’s next victim, his death derails the plans for her gala reopening big-time. First, journalist Mumford Umberto ditches his plans for an extended interview with Tess in favor of covering the crime. Next, podcaster Neptune Jones sets up shop down the street, drawing away the huge crowds that Tess expected at Paper Trail. Worst of all, Sheriff Boyd, who Tess keeps hoping will declare his feelings for her, invites Neptune to stay at his house and help him crack the case. Tess spends so much energy grieving the injustice of it all that she barely has time to solve the mystery, even when it looks as if her mom is a prime suspect. Although Berry’s dialogue is crisp and funny, her scattershot plotting may leave some readers wishing for a bit less.
A little humor, a little romance, a little detection, but no solid takeaway.Pub Date: May 30, 2023
ISBN: 9781728248660
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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