Review: Home Truths - Charity Norman - August 2024 I picked this one up on my Kindle while scrolling the other day and landed on Home Truths by Charity Norman. I'd heard her name before she's based here in New Zealand now but I honestly had no idea what I was walking into. The first chapter drops you straight into a courtroom, with Livia (who I quickly clocked as the mum of the family) on trial for torturing a man, waiting on the jury's decision. Then the book pulls back to the beginning, to show exactly how this ordinary family fell apart, domino by domino. It starts with her husband's brother dying, and from there Scott spirals into health-conspiracy territory , the rabbit-hole kind, the kind that turns extremist, especially once he starts watching videos and corresponding with a man called Dr. Jack. Meanwhile their daughter Heidi starts shoplifting, using the guilt and pain of it as a strange outlet for everything she's been bottling up. This is a proper slow-b...

Review: The Wrong Woman - JP Pomare - July 2022  Picked up at Xanadu Book Exchange in Papamoa one of my regular haunts for swapping reads. In fact, I'm heading back there tomorrow, and honestly, there's something extra satisfying about finding a great thriller in a secondhand pile, isn't there? Reid never planned to go back. Driven out of his hometown under circumstances he'd sooner forget, he'd made peace with the distance  until a PI job for an insurance agency pulled him right back to the place he'd left behind. He books a hotel, tells himself it'll be straightforward. An open-and-shut case. In and out. But life and small towns rarely cooperate as we all know being readers . What Reid walks into is a tangle of secrets that grows thornier with every thread he pulls. There's a Professor with a wandering eye, a car crash that raises more questions than it answers, and two missing teenage girls whose disappearances seem unconnected until they don't...

Review: The Dead Husband's Cookbook - Danielle Valentine - August 2025 There's something wonderfully cozy about curling up with a book that centers around food, recipes, and the warmth of a kitchen until that comfort turns deliciously sinister. That's exactly what Danielle Valentine serves up in The Dead Husband's Cookbook, which I devoured on the Libby Library App. I'd already fallen for Danielle Valentine's YA thrillers, so I was eager to see what she'd cook up for adult readers. Let me tell you, this didn't disappoint. What makes this book particularly charming is how it weaves actual recipes throughout the story and it's like getting a cookbook and a thriller all in one satisfying package. The book-within-a-book structure reminded me of Catherine Ryan Howard's The Nothing Man, adding layers of intrigue that kept me turning pages late into the night. The premise is absolutely mouthwatering: Maria Capello, a beloved celebrity chef with her ow...

Review: Regrets Only - Kieran Scott - January 2023 I curled up with Regrets Only by Kieran Scott on my trusty Libby app this February, and what a treat it was to dive back into her world. I've been a longtime fan devouring her YA novels years ago and falling hard for everything she wrote as Kate Brian so when I discovered she'd penned a suburban mystery, I couldn't download it fast enough. It felt like reconnecting with an old friend. Kieran Scott absolutely nails the chaos and cattiness of PTA or as they call it in this book PTB culture in this delightfully twisty tale. Our protagonist, Paige Lancaster, returns home to Connecticut nursing wounds from a Hollywood disaster. She's broke, humbled, and bunking with her mom and eight-year-old daughter Izzy. Enter Ainsley Anderson: gorgeous, intimidating, and inconveniently married to John, Paige's high school sweetheart. At the annual Parents and Pinot fundraiser held at Ainsley's magazine-worthy mansion everythi...

      Review: Gone Before Goodbye - Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben - October 2025 I'll be honest with you—when I first heard about this collaboration, I raised an eyebrow. I'm a die-hard Harlan Coben fan, and the thought of him co-writing with Reese Witherspoon had me a little worried. Would it still have that signature Coben punch? Would it feel diluted? Friends, I'm thrilled to report that this book absolutely blew my expectations out of the water. From the very first page, I was completely hooked. If you took Ruth Ware's Zero Days, threw in the adrenaline-pumping action of The Bourne Identity, and sprinkled in some Mission Impossible impossibly high stakes, you'd get Gone Before Goodbye. It's that addictive. Our protagonist, Maggie McCabe, is the kind of character you instantly root for. She's a brilliant Army combat surgeon who's always thrived in high-pressure situations , the kind of person who runs toward danger while everyone else is runnin...

VBT# Not Her Daughter - Book #2 - Robin Mahle - November 2025 You know that feeling when you finish a book and immediately need to know what happens next? That's exactly where Robin Mahle left us dangling at the end of He's Lying About Everything . Well, grab your cuppa and settle in, because this sequel doesn't disappoint. Poor Evelyn . As if discovering your husband's affair wasn't enough trauma for one lifetime, she's now raising his love child alongside her own son Ben . When we catch up with her, she's done what any sensible woman would do—packed up the lot and started fresh somewhere new. But Ben's not making it easy, constantly reminding everyone that Nicky isn't really his sister. Kids, eh? They've got a special talent for making difficult situations even harder. Just when things seem to be looking up—new job at a cosy law firm, a lovely new man in her life, and what appears to be the perfect nanny—Mahle pulls the rug out from under...