VBT# The Family Lies - Lorna Henderson - July 2026 There's a particular kind of ache that comes with childhood memories you can never quite trust again, and Lorna Henderson taps straight into it with The Family Lies. I went in expecting a straightforward family drama and came out with my heart in my throat and my loyalties in the wrong place entirely but more on that later. The story opens with a memory that colours everything after it: fourteen-year-old Suzie and her cousin Rachel on holiday in Canada with Aunt Linda, in what turns out to be their final day together. A car accident takes Linda and Rachel, and Suzie carries that loss for thirty years, never imagining she'll ever learn what really happened. Then her mother dies, and the past comes crashing back in. A box in the attic. A patient named Nicole who seems to know far more than she should. And cousin Jake, conveniently poised to inherit his father's estate now that Suzie's mother is gone. Lorna Henderson l...

Review: The Sketch Artist - Amanda McKinney - September 2026 I'll admit it: this one caught me before I'd even read the blurb. That cover pulled me in first, all moody and atmospheric, the kind of image that makes you stop scrolling. But what sealed the deal was the setting - a small town creeping up on the 40th anniversary of the Fall Camp Murders, with a horrifying wrinkle: they executed the wrong man. That premise alone had my mind spinning with possibilities before I'd turned a single page. Our heroine, Harper Leighton, has one of the most fascinating jobs I've come across in a thriller. She's a courtroom sketch artist, she spends her days studying the faces of dangerous people, reading their guilt in the smallest flickers of expression. It's such a clever occupation to build a mystery around, because it means Harper is trained to see what others miss. So when she becomes the one being watched, the irony lands hard. The story kicks into gear when Harper...

Review: Lost in the Fire - Robin Mahle - July 2026 This is the third of Robin Mahle's books I've picked up through the Zooloos Book Tours, and after enjoying the first two so much, there was no way I was passing this one by when I saw it on offer. There's something lovely about finding an author whose books you can trust to deliver, and Mahle has become one of those for me. Lost in the Fire doesn't ease you in gently. It opens with real force, the main character's house going up in flames, and within the first few pages we lose both her husband and her son to the fire. I'll admit this part gave me pause, as a mother myself I kept thinking, surely your first instinct is to go for your child? It sat a little uneasily with me, but it didn't stop me turning the pages. Avery wakes up in hospital afterwards with amnesia, and this is where the story really gets its hooks into you. She can't remember being married. She can't remember having a son. And now ...

Review: Just One Catch - Nikki Vogel - July 2026 T he premise alone had me hooked before I'd even opened the first page. Harper and Lauren have just lost their parents in a sudden accident, and grief hasn't even had time to settle before the will reading turns their world upside down again. Lauren has been disinherited entirely. Everything, the $3 million, the freehold house, all of it, goes to Harper. But there's a catch (just one, as the title promises): she only gets it if she divorces her husband, Kyle. That's such a deliciously uncomfortable question to sit with, isn't it? Would you give up your marriage for a fortune, if your own parents seemed to be all but begging you to from beyond the grave? And worse, would you start to wonder what they knew that you didn't? As the story unfolds, Vogel does a lovely job of letting suspicion creep in slowly, like a kettle coming to boil on the stove. Kyle starts to seem like exactly the kind of man your parents wou...

    Review: The Daughter in the Cellar - Yvette Davies - July 2026 There's something about a UK psychological thriller that just hits differently, isn't there? Less blood-splatter, more slow-creeping dread , the kind that settles into your bones over a cup of tea rather than jumping out at you. That's exactly what I found in The Daughter in the Cellar , and it's why I ended up loving it so much. At its heart, this is Violet's story, a woman who wanted nothing more than to be a mother, but was born without a uterus and never got the chance. Instead of accepting a life without that dream, she's spent years finding "daughters" of her own, brunette girls she takes and keeps, hoping this time it will stick. Three didn't last. Now there's Florence,  a young woman who thought she'd simply met a kind stranger willing to help her one ordinary night, only to wake up locked in a cellar, realising far too late what kind of help she'd actually acce...

Review: I Dare You - Book #1 Ruin Me Duet - Monica James - July 2026 I have to be honest  I was hooked before I even opened the first page. That blurb alone had me convinced this was going to be a 5-star read, and honestly? I love it when a book actually lives up to that kind of hype, because it doesn't always happen. This one did, and then some. The story kicks off with a bang (quite literally)  a popular cheerleader turns up dead, and from there we're pulled into this gripping dual timeline of past and present as we piece together not just who killed her, but who Hallie Holiday really is. We get her before, the girl she used to be, and her after ,  the version of herself she built from the ashes of one brutal night that changed everything. Watching that transformation unfold, layer by layer, was honestly one of my favourite parts of the whole book. Three years on, Hallie is living under a new name, tucked away in a town where nobody knows her history, just trying to s...

Synopsis: Don't Let Her In - J.M O'Rourke - July 2026 Lesley seems like a perfectly normal woman. Until you ask her to leave. Gillian wants to do right by her elderly Aunt Myra. A safe nursing home. Daily visits. A peaceful final chapter for the woman who has been like a mother to her. A plan that’s derailed when a stranger turns up on the doorstep claiming to be Myra's long-lost niece, Lesley. She says she’s here to look after Myra. Within days, Myra’s bank accounts are being drained and Lesley has taken full control of the house. And Gillian , the woman who has always been there for Myra isn't allowed through the door. When she demands to see her aunt, the threats begin. Smashed windows. A slashed tire. Headlights chasing her down a lonely country road. But Gillian isn’t backing off. Suspicious that Lesley isn’t who she says she is, Gillian digs into her past. And discovers a secret far more horrifying than anything she could have imagined. A chilling, tw...

Review: Forever Defiant - Book #2 Fourth and Forever Series - Eve L. Mitchell - July 2026 There's something wonderfully fitting about a book landing in my hands on my own birthday. Forever Defiant published on the 7th of July, and reading it felt like unwrapping a gift made just for me  the kind of serendipity that makes this whole reviewing hobby of mine feel a little bit magical. From the first chapter, I was hooked, but it wasn't Dustin Slater's wicked smile that pulled me in hardest , it was Hadley. I don't think I've resonated with a heroine quite this much in a long time. Watching her chase the truth, notebook in hand, utterly unwilling to back down even when powerful men wanted her silenced, stirred something very personal in me. Journalism has always been my own quiet dream one I chased extramurally through years of study, and one I've kept alive for two decades now, writing for online magazines and review sites in whatever spare hours I could find.  ...

Review: The Stolen Twin - Jade Lee Wright - July 2026 A split second is all it can take to change a life forever, and that truth sits heavily at the heart of The Stolen Twin by Jade Lee Wright. This is one of those stories that quietly settles into your bones as you read, wrapping itself around the idea that family, trust, and truth are far more fragile than we ever like to believe. Bella’s world is already full when the story begins. She and her husband have just adopted twin girls, and life is a blur of nappies, exhaustion, and love. So when she finally steps out for a Christmas party, it feels like a small moment of normality , something light after months of giving everything to motherhood. But that fragile balance is shattered in an instant when her husband calls to say one of the twins is missing. From there, the novel stretches across fourteen years of grief, unanswered questions, and a family living in the shadow of absence. Robyn is gone, and Bella and her husband are left rai...

Review: Until the Next Letter - Hannah Claire - June 2026 There are some books that don’t just tell a story , they settle around you like a warm blanket on a quiet evening, and Until the Next Letter by Hannah Claire is exactly that kind of read. If you loved Cecelia Ahern’s PS I Love You, then this book will feel like coming home again to those same emotional, letter-driven vibes. It also reminded me of Steena Holmes’ Dear Abby series, where family secrets and emotional journeys are gently unravelled one page at a time. At the heart of this story are sisters Libby and Rachel, whose world is turned upside down when their mother passes away and leaves behind a series of letters. These aren’t just sentimental notes of love and goodbye ,each letter is a carefully crafted breadcrumb leading them into their mother’s hidden past. As they follow her instructions, they begin travelling through the countryside, uncovering truths that were never meant to be spoken aloud while she was alive. What ...