Petra’s Ghost – Irish and Camino Trivia Time!
Well, it’s less than a week before my dark thriller, PETRA’S GHOST hits the shelves here in Canada (a month later for you Yanks and Brits). So, since the novel follows Daniel, an Irish ex-pat who walks the Camino de Santiago, I thought we’d have some Irish and Camino themed trivia to celebrate. How many…
Social Creature By Tara Isabella Burton
Props to Stacey Maddon, my friend and past Writing Mystery teacher, who put me on to this novel. It was in Stacey’s class that I started what would become the first Candace Starr crime novel, The Starr Sting Scale (Dundurn Press, Feb 2020). So, I guess I have more to thank Stacey for than his…
The Blood Spilt By Åsa Larsson
Before reviewing this book, I had to look up the term “Nordic Noir.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_noir) Basically, it is crime fiction that is set somewhere in Scandinavia that is short on metaphor and long on bleak landscapes. The weather in that part of the world lends itself well to bleakness apparently, particularly in the north. And this…
Book Review: The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
Okay, this time I wasn’t going to be fooled by initials into reviewing a book that was really written by a dude. C.J. Tudor’s first name is Caroline. Her friends call her Caz. I also write under initials my initials. My first name is Carole. The only nickname I had that ever stuck was the…
The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani
I am really getting into these English translations. As with The First Prehistoric Serial Killer by Teresa Solana, The Perfect Nanny was originally written in another language. In this case, French rather than Spanish. The author is Moroccan born but Parisian living, Leila Slimani. She won France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Goncourt for this…
The First Prehistoric Serial Killer & other stories By Teresa Solana
What a great bunch of fiction, well written and witty, and full of unnatural death. You can’t ask for much better entertainment for a girl like me. Teresa Solena is one of Spain’s best known crime writers, and while her stories are often dark, they are always funny. And none of that humour gets lost…
Snap By Belinda Bauer
There are a lot of scary stories told from the perspective of children these days. Whether it is the resurrection of Stephen King’s IT or the mass popularity of Stranger Things, young people are at the forefront of bad things happening. I think it is a result of people getting tired of the “terrified woman”…
Interview with Erika Rummel
Bio Erika Rummel has taught history at the University of Toronto and Wilfrid Laurier U. She divides her time between Toronto and Los Angeles and has lived in villages in Argentina, Rumania, and Bulgaria. With more than a dozen published books on social and intellectual history, she is also the author of five thrilling fiction…
The Woman in the Window By A.J. Finn
Okay, I said I wasn’t going to pick up any more novels with “woman” or “girl” in the title this year, but a friend gave this to me to read and I am not one to look a gift-book in the mouth. It is also not a book by a woman author. But I thought…
Black Water Rising By Attica Locke
Jay Porter wants to give his heavily pregnant wife, Bernie a decent birthday present. So, he arranges for a “moonlight cruise” on the bayou. He should have stuck with jewelry. The boat is basically a barge strung with mismatched Christmas lights and the bayou is a narrow strip of muddy water thirty metres below Houston’s…