An enjoyable and intriguing novel that will keep readers engaged until the final page.
Miller offers a romantic mystery that dives deep into Long Island history.
Luce Porter is a TV producer whose tongue is as sharp as her wit. She’s had her share of romantic missteps, and at this point, no man can get under her skin—well, almost no man. Andy Holman, a gorgeous New York City police detective who arrested her for a minor infraction 10 years prior, still manages to push her buttons. He uses personal connections to score invites for Luce and her TV crew—including her new intern, Kat Downing—to the Annual Ghost Ship Mystery Dinner, hosted by eccentric society matriarch Adeline Bowers on Long Island Sound. They learn about “the Phantom,” aka the MorningStar, a ship that vanished off the coast of Long Island in 1790, allegedly resulting in the deaths of all but one of the passengers onboard. It’s contents and purpose were unknown, but clues suggest that it was involved in the slave trade. Many people have claimed sightings of the vessel over the years. As Luce and Andy try to unravel the mystery of the MorningStar, they run into people who are determined to bury the truth—and possibly anyone standing in their way. Miller presents a tightly written mystery that will keep readers guessing as well as a romance that’s full of sassy banter and sexual tension. But her novel offers much more, as she bases the story on the actual history of the Execution Rocks Light, a lighthouse with a complicated legacy, and reveals uncommon knowledge about the North’s involvement in the buying and selling of enslaved people. It also addresses disability-related issues that Kat, who uses a wheelchair, faces in her daily life. Overall, Miller delivers a story that’s substantial and relevant despite its lighthearted moments. Some may find the resolution of Luce and Andy’s romance unsatisfying, but the happy ending will have readers excited for a potential sequel.
An enjoyable and intriguing novel that will keep readers engaged until the final page.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73610-110-0
Page Count: 236
Publisher: Pendant Cove
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.
Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.
A week after the night she chases but fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body herself as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s splenetic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. government project to research biological agents that could control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”
Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3888-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
The heroine’s 62nd appearance is a hit-or-miss mystery best suited for readers already invested in her complicated life.
Lt. Eve Dallas is sucked into a murder that may well be overshadowed by another crime—and by the news that Roarke, her billionaire husband, is implicated in both felonies in an unexpected and troubling way.
Disturbed from her sleep, Aileen Carville arises to discover her wealthy husband, Nathan Barrister, coshed to death by a heavy amethyst from the collection of his late father, Zip Global founder Henry J. Barrister. His corpse is lying outside an open vault that everyone in the family insists they hadn’t known about until a couple of months ago, and it’s filled with priceless paintings and sculptures and jewels taken years ago from an A-list of museums, one of which—the Royal Suite, a legendary emerald setting—has evidently been stolen once again. The bombshell revelation that Henry must have commissioned the thefts himself leads to two questions—how did the thief who killed Nathan know about the vault and its contents, and what possessed Nathan’s wealthy father to steal and hide all these goodies in the first place?—that are much more interesting than whodunit, though only one of them will be satisfactorily answered. Another bombshell revelation follows: Roarke’s confession to Dallas that he stole the Royal Suite from London’s Tate Gallery when he was still a teenager, years before he turned away from a life of crime himself. Since Interpol is much more interested in the theft than the murder, there’s a real danger that they’ll decide Roarke was once again the thief. So, Dallas faces the double challenge of solving the crimes and keeping her beloved husband out of the frame.
The heroine’s 62nd appearance is a hit-or-miss mystery best suited for readers already invested in her complicated life.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781250414526
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
