Review: Queen of Wilmette - Book #7 Queens of the Castle - U.M Hiram - January 2022 Queen of Wilmette by U.M. Hiram is a story about love, second chances, family, and finding the strength to build the life you deserve even when the past refuses to stay behind you. Milan Alessia Jackson has already been through her fair share of heartbreak and hardship. After surviving a contentious relationship, she carries scars that have shaped the woman she has become. Thankfully, she had her grandaunt, who served as her protector, guardian angel, and source of strength until her final breath. Milan's journey is one of resilience, and I really enjoyed seeing a heroine who has been through so much but still refuses to let her past define her future. Then there is Vikkas Germaine, Milan's childhood friend and the man who has always held a special place in her heart. Life separated the two of them, but fate and Vikkas's father Khali ( the OG King of the Castle) has other ideas. Their reuni...

Review: Queen of North Shore - Book #3 Queens of the Castle Series - Sierra Kay - January 2022 I always enjoy a book that reminds me that women can be strong, successful, vulnerable, and still figuring things out all at the same time, and Queen of North Shore by Sierra Kay was exactly that kind of read. Solange Porter thought she knew what her life looked like. She had her husband, Emeril, and a future they had planned together. But when Emeril dies, Solange is left not only grieving the man she loved but also dealing with one huge surprise: she is now the head of a tech company she never wanted to run. Talk about being thrown in at the deep end! What I really enjoyed about Solange was that she wasn't suddenly this perfect #girlboss who had all the answers. She was grieving, questioning herself, and trying to navigate a company where many of the staff weren't exactly thrilled about her being in charge either. I found her journey relatable because sometimes life throws us into s...

Review: Echo Road - Melinda Leigh and Kendra Elliot - July 2024 There are some authors whose books I will pick up without even needing to read the blurb, and Melinda Leigh and Kendra Elliot are definitely two of those authors for me. They are both among my favourite female thriller writers, so I was incredibly excited to dive into Echo Road. But what makes this book even more special is that it brings together two characters I already love: Mercy Kilpatrick and Bree Taggert. And honestly? This pairing was everything I hoped it would be. Mercy and Bree are both strong, intelligent, and determined women who are not afraid to put themselves in danger when justice is on the line. They also share something deeply personal: both women have found themselves raising their siblings' children after their siblings were murdered. That shared experience gives their connection an extra layer and makes their partnership feel natural rather than forced. These are two kick-ass women who will go to ...

Review:  Red Flags - J.E Rowney - September 2025 There's a particular kind of magic that happens when you're scrolling on your Kindle, half looking for something new and half just killing time before bed, and a cover reaches out and grabs you by the collar. That's exactly what happened with Red Flags. I'm a sucker for a good thriller, and I love it when fiction gets a bit edgy, so the vibe pulled me in straight away. What I didn't expect was for this book to take me somewhere so much deeper than I'd bargained for, curled up with a cup of tea, expecting a bit of drama and instead getting a proper, sit-with-you-after-the-last-page kind of read. At the heart of it all is Clara, and honestly, my heart went out to her from the very first chapter. She's the sort of woman who just wants what most of us want, someone to build a life with, a hand to hold, a person who chooses her and keeps choosing her. But love hasn't been kind to Clara. Every date is a fresh ...

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: All The Lies They Told - Robin Mahle - August 2025 There's a particular kind of dread that comes from watching two families you already suspect are hiding something. Robin Mahle taps straight into it in All The Lies They Told, and I devoured every page. I'll admit I came into this one with high expectations. I've toured several of Robin Mahle's thrillers now through Zooloos Book Tours , and she's never once let me down  but this book, loosely inspired by the real-life Delphi case, felt like it demanded even more from her, and she delivered. The setup is deceptively simple: Lexi Brewer and Skye Metcalf were once inseparable, the kind of friends who walked home from school together sharing secrets like currency. Now they barely speak. Their families barely speak. And then, on one ordinary evening, both girls simply don't come home. What follows isn't just a missing-persons investigation, it's an excavation. Robin Mahle peels back layer after lay...

Review: Dig Two Graves - Gigi Johnston - September 2024 I'll be honest with you, dear readers, I finished this book at 1am, wide awake, silently cheering for a killer. That's not something I say often, but Dig Two Graves earns it. Gigi Johnston opens with a premise that guts you before the story even gets going: two children, a boy and a girl, trapped in a children's home that was supposed to protect them and instead became the place that broke them. The boy escapes. Years pass. He comes back  not as a victim, but as a reckoning. One by one, the adults who hurt him start turning up dead, and I found myself flipping pages hoping he'd get to the next name on his list before anyone stopped him. Gigi Johnston has a rare gift for writing vigilante justice that never feels gratuitous, every death lands with weight, but never sympathy for the ones who deserved it. Meanwhile, on the other side of the case, Officers Brady and Jones are doing what good detectives do: followi...

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 Secrets Next Door - Sally Royer-Derr - March 2024 Happy birthday to me  and what better way to celebrate than curled up with a twisty thriller and a cup of tea? Today feels like the perfect day to share my thoughts on The Secrets Next Door by Sally Royer-Derr, because honestly, this book gave me the kind of gift only a great story can: the thrill of not seeing it coming (well, almost). There's something so unsettling and delicious about a thriller that asks, "How well do we really know the people closest to us?" That question sits at the heart of this story, and Sally Royer-Derr uses it like a scalpel. Talia thinks she knows her life inside and out , her marriage to Zach, her bond with her identical twin Tabitha, even the sprawling generosity of Tabitha and her husband, who bought Talia and Zach the house right next door. Sounds cozy, right? Like something out of a dream where family stays close and life is sweet. But then Anne moves in. Anne, a thriller wr...

Review: The Unmaking of  June Farrow - Adrienne Young - October 2023 Well, hello lovely readers, and happy birthday to me! There's something rather fitting about curling up with tea, cake crumbs on the blanket, and writing this review on my birthday, because this book felt like the kind of cosy, curl-into-the-sofa read that deserves a special occasion. Consider this my little gift to you. I first spotted The Unmaking of June Farrow floating around bookstagram, and I'll admit, the cover and buzz had me expecting a witchy fantasy romp. What I got instead was something far more tender and layered,  a time-slip story wrapped in small-town Southern warmth, family secrets, and just a touch of magic. The story opens in 1986, when a baby named June Farrow mysteriously appears and is taken in by her grandmother. Fast forward to the early 2000s, and June is now grieving her Nana's death, left with only her Nana's old friend Birdie and sweet local boy Mason for company. She...