Our heroine solves her mysteries with aplomb against a delightful Scottish background replete with good friends and a loyal...
A clique of rich women make life so miserable for someone that it leads to murder.
Paislee Shaw, owner of Cashmere Crush in Nairn, Scotland, is all for a peaceful life raising her son and knitting, but an invitation to a fundraiser for the local food bank involves her in yet another murder. Paislee packs her wares and goes to join several friends sharing a table at the recently renovated Social Club and Art Centre, including her newest friend, Blaise O’Connor, who's well off and devoted to her husband, Shep, the pro at the local golf course. Blaise is verbally attacked by the nasty alpha mom Kirsten Buchanan, whose husband helped Shep get his job and knows a lot of secrets she isn’t afraid to spill. The day features a lot of backbiting between Kirsten and her sycophants, Mari, who's bulimic, and Christina, who drinks. Sales go well until the ill-fated baking contest: When Kirsten tastes her own shortbread before presenting it to the judges, she goes into anaphylactic shock—and her EpiPens are missing. Despite Paislee’s best efforts at CPR, Kirsten dies. Kirsten had a severe peanut allergy well known to all her friends, but the personal chef she'd just fired is the prime suspect. Paislee thinks he's innocent and hopes to convince her attractive nemesis, DI Mack Zeffer, of that fact, when she isn't busy dealing with her son being bullied and her grandfather’s hidden secrets.
Our heroine solves her mysteries with aplomb against a delightful Scottish background replete with good friends and a loyal dog.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2603-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
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It's hard to read but hard to look away from.
When two women who share a birthday meet, a journalist becomes the subject of her own true-crime mystery.
On their 45th birthdays, Josie Fair and Alix Summer meet at a pub and discover they were born not only on the same day, but in the same hospital. Alix is a successful journalist, and Josie convinces Alix that her story is worth telling: Josie met her husband when she was 13 and he was 40. “I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed?” she confesses to Alix. “But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do. And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.” From this premise Alix creates a Netflix series, Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin! which investigates Josie’s life as she reconciles what happened to her as a teen and seeks a new path. With the story unfinished, the narrative unfolds in the present tense, with prose that jingles like song lyrics: “He turns to see if the girl is behind him, and sees her wishy-washy, wavy-wavy, in double vision through the glass windows of the hotel.” Alix is both intrigued and repulsed by Josie, but she initially gives her the benefit of the doubt. After all, Alix’s husband, Nathan, has a drinking problem, and Alix knows what it’s like to be reluctant to leave a bad situation. But Josie seems more interested in being part of Alix’s seemingly glamorous life than she is in fixing her own, and when three people end up dead and Alix’s life is turned upside down, the evidence points to Josie—and turns the TV series into a murder mystery. Transcripts from Alix’s interviews alternate with the narrative, offering increasingly varied perspectives on Josie’s story as told by her neighbors, friends, and family members. With so many versions of events, the ending shatters, leaving readers to decide whose is the truth.
It's hard to read but hard to look away from.Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781982179007
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
A meager mystery, but it’s always worthwhile catching up on the interactions between Nora and her friends.
A bookstore owner and her pals have more than one mystery to solve.
Nora Pennington is the owner of Miracle Books in Miracle Springs, North Carolina, where she's surrounded by a group of good friends who call themselves the Secret, Book, and Scone Society: Hester Winthrop, a baker; Estella Sadler, a salon owner; and June Dixon, a hotel guest manager. And ever since a fire at her home, Nora’s been living with her partner, Sheriff Grant McCabe. Now she’s thrilled to be hosting her first-ever author evening at Miracle Books. Cozy mystery author Allie Kennedy is promoting her new book, The Dry Bar Murders, and Nora and her staff and friends have their hands full getting ready for that event as well as an upcoming Halloween Fun and Fright Night, which will include activities for kids as well as a demonstration by psychic medium Lara Luz. McCabe, for his part, is trying to catch someone dumping hazardous waste all over town. Nora’s biggest disagreement with McCabe is over his deputy, K9 handler Paula Hollowell, who goes out of her way to be nasty to Nora and her friends. The day of the Halloween event, Lara arrives with her boyfriend, Enzo Russo, and a bad cold. Nora is surprised when Hollowell arrives and even more so when Allie Kennedy shows up, glaring at Hollowell. The psychic readings start well enough, but suddenly Lara turns pale, gasps for air, and dies despite Hollowell’s CPR attempts. A frantic Enzo shoves Nora, giving her a concussion. Lara evidently died from a bad reaction to Narcan—it turns out she had a heart condition that didn't interact well with the drug—and the investigation shows that she’d angered many people by accepting valuable pieces of jewelry that had belonged to the dead, which Enzo sold in his pawn shop.
A meager mystery, but it’s always worthwhile catching up on the interactions between Nora and her friends.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781496743824
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
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