One Last Step by Sarah Sutton (A Tara Mills Mystery #1)

Synopsis:

ONE LAST STEP (A Tara Mills Mystery—Book One) is the debut novel in a new FBI mystery series by debut author Sarah Sutton.

Two hikers go missing along the Appalachian Trail, leaving only a bloodstained forest behind them, and when another hiker collapses on someone’s porch in New Hampshire, murdered by crossbow, the local police realize they have a serial killer on their hands––and need to call in the FBI.

FBI Agent Tara Mills is young, brilliant and new to the force. With a promising career in front of her, she faces the ultimate test when she is assigned the case. It soon proves to be more challenging than she ever could have imagined––an impossible riddle that leaves even her seasoned partner stumped.

Meanwhile, something about the case stirs a darkness within her––a tortured past that even her long-term boyfriend doesn’t fully understand. As nightmares consume her, she only hopes that her past will not come back to ruin her once again.

As more hikers go missing, and with her job on the line, Tara finds herself on a race against time as she combs through the forest’s trails. Peeling back each layer, she soon realizes that she is up against a true diabolical mastermind. And just when she thinks she has it all figured out, her instincts lead her to the most shocking truth of all.

Review:

Fabulous start to a new series. FBI agent Tara Mills is assigned her first case with a veteran agent Warren. Hikers are disappearing on the Appalachian Trail and it’s up to them to catch the killer before more people die. The only clues left behind are a broken compass, carving of a sunset and the blood of the victims.

Tara and Warren soon realise this killer is too clever to be caught by making mistakes, he is too clever and too calculated. Tara also has to work this out whilst fighting her own demons from the past, also realising that to do that she will have to face what happened to her and finally find out the full truth.

This is a fab, fast-pacing thriller with everything you need to keep turning the pages – serial killer, wrong turns, nightmares and plenty of suspects.

Thank you to the author and TBConFB.

Rating: 5/5

Available from:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

The Family Way by Tony Parsons

Synopsis:

It should be the most natural thing in the world. But in Tony Parsons’ latest bestseller, three couples discover that Mother Nature can be one hell of a bitch.

Paulo loves Jessica. He thinks that together they are complete – a family of two.
But Jessica can't be happy until she has a baby, and the baby stubbornly refuses to come. Can a man and a woman ever really be a family of two?

Megan doesn't love her boyfriend anymore. After a one-night stand with an Australian beach bum, she finds that even a trainee doctor can slip up on the family planning.
Should you bring a child into the world if you don't love its father?

Cat loves her life. After bringing up her two youngest sisters, all she craves is freedom. Her older boyfriend has done the family thing before and is in no rush to do it all again. But can a modern woman really find true happiness without ever being in the family way?

Three sisters. Three couples. Two pregnancies. Six men and women struggling with love, sex, fertility and the meaning of family.

Review:

Another brilliant book from my own collection. This has been on there for years and I remember actually getting this through BookMooch website, which I used alongside Read It Swap It.

I have never read books by Tony Parsons but I will do now. This is a very truthful, poignant story of three sisters, abandoned by their own mother and left in care of eldest sister Cat, who was only twelve at the time. It is a story of their own need for a family unit and realisation that their ideas of family might not be how life will eventually play out.

Cat has a successful job, older boyfriend who doesn’t want children. Meghan is in her last year of medicine before being qualified as a GP and Jessica is happily married and seems to have it all. Except the baby she is longing to bring into the world.

Their worlds and relationships start falling apart when Meghan finds out she is pregnant. After a one night stand. All three sisters find that they have some growing up to do, facing their past and looking into the future and what they want it to look like.

It’s a brilliant, real-life-like story and as a mum I found it very touching and emotional.

Rating: 5/5

Available from:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

The Blackstone Key by Rose Melikan (Mary Finch #1)

Synopsis:

1795, and a young woman called Mary Finch travels in haste from Cambridge to the Suffolk coast. She has been invited to meet her wealthy uncle - and so end a twenty-year estrangement. But before she reaches her destination she discovers a dying man on the road. He is a stranger, and yet he is carrying an oddly familiar watch bearing her uncle's initials. He also seems to know who Mary is, and hints that she is in terrible danger.

His whispered warning soon exposes Mary to a ruthless conspiracy that threatens not only her family's reputation, but her very life. Far from home, Mary must learn quickly how to distinguish friend from foe. Can she trust the two men who want to help her?

What is their interest in the mysterious Blackstone Key? Does it guard a secret treasure, or might it have a more sinister purpose...?

The first in an exciting new mystery series, The Blackstone Key is a gripping and vivid historical adventure that will appeal to fans of such classic tales as Jamaica Inn.

Review:

This has been on my bookshelves for years as my physical books tent to be slightly forgotten whilst I get busy with e-books. However, I do still love holding a ‘proper’ book and the ability to turn pages and smell the paper. Therefore, I delved into my vast TBR collection and came out with The Blackstone Key.

This was a treat. First in a trilogy, but really stands out well as its own book. The main heroine, Miss Mary Finch, finds herself entangled in a spy and smuggler mystery well suited for the end of 18^th century Suffolk, when the French were at war and the threat of invasion was imminent.

Mary travels to Suffolk to finally meet her estranged uncle, when she comes upon a dying man. This one terrible incident sets into motion a whole lot of other mysterious events and brings together a group of unlikely characters. It is up to Mary to work out whom to trust – is it the poor Captain Holland or the dashing Mr Deprez.

This is a proper historical mystery, with great twists and turns. Characters are well defined and reader is left guessing the truth until the very end. Fabulous book.

Rating: 5/5

Available from:

Amazon UK

Amazon US