I Choose You by Gayle Curtis
“Mental illness is sickness of the mind caused by the constant overwhelming battle one has with one’s essence, beliefs and purpose.” (I Choose You, p. 235) If this is the definition of mental illness, then the only sane person in the novel, I Choose You, is the serial killer (ironically the one responsible for this…
Petra’s Ghost a Semi-finalist in Goodreads Choice Awards 2019
I must admit, I almost had a coronary today when I saw that my novel, Petra’s Ghost was voted into the semi-finalist nominee round for Horror in the Goodreads Choice Awards for 2019. There weren’t a lot of ladies on the original list of authors and I am so grateful to the readers who went…
Bunny by Mona Awad
It is tough to nail down the genre of Bunny, A Novel by Mona Awad. Is it noir? Horror? Crime fiction? Is it an acid flashback from that tab you dropped stupidly in college? Or maybe we will just call it Literary, the great catch-all for all exceptionally well-written works that often defy description. Whatever…
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…
Interview with Denise Mina
Bio After a peripatetic childhood in Glasgow, Paris, London, Invergordon, Bergen and Perth, Denise Mina left school early. Working in a number of dead-end jobs, all of them badly, before studying at night school to get into Glasgow University Law School. Denise went on to study for a PhD at Strathclyde, misusing her student grant…
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…