Review: The Man in the Photo - McGarvey Black - September 2026 There's a particular kind of book that gets under my skin before I've even turned the first page, and it's this one: stories about people living double lives, walking away from everything they knew, and building someone new out of the wreckage. I don't know what it is about reinvention that fascinates me so much ,  maybe it's the fantasy of a clean slate, maybe it's the horror of realizing you never really knew someone at all  but The Man in the Photo delivers that obsession in spades. The setup alone had me settled into my reading chair with a cup of tea, utterly hooked. Our narrator is doing something so ordinary, so achingly relatable  scrolling through her daughter's holiday photos from Australia  when the ground shifts beneath her. There, in the background of a stranger's snapshot: a blue shirt, a gray beard, a face she buried over twenty years ago. Her fiancé. The father of her child....

Review: Thornbird - E. Kennedy - June 2026 I had high hopes for Thornbird by E. Kennedy because, honestly, the premise sounded like it had been written specifically for me. A serial killer father? A mother who was one of his victims? A daughter who changes her name and creates a whole new identity to escape the shadow of his crimes? Come on  that is basically catnip for a thriller reader! Ten years after infamous serial killer Gabriel Thorn was caught, Ryan Shipley returns to Starling, Tennessee, determined to keep her head down and her true identity hidden. Nobody can know who she really is or the connection she has to the notorious killer. But when fresh eyes begin digging into the old case, the secrets Ryan has worked so hard to bury start clawing their way back to the surface. Cryptic texts, unsettling coincidences and a chilling note all suggest that someone knows more than they should. And as questions surrounding Gabriel Thorn's crimes begin resurfacing, Ryan finds herself r...

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: Me and Her - Kaelin Wennerberg - May 2026 I have to be honest with you when this one landed on my radar as part of Zooloo's Book Tours, I was already sold before I'd even turned the first page. A small town with a serial killer, someone going missing every single year, and a protagonist who has completely reinvented herself? That is exactly my kind of read. Curl up on the sofa with a blanket and a strong cup of tea kind of read. And I am so glad I said yes to this one. Devil's Paradise is the sort of small town that sounds idyllic until you scratch the surface, and Wennerberg does a brilliant job of building that uneasy, suffocating atmosphere. You know the feeling,  the kind of place where everyone knows everyone, and that's not always a comfort. Our protagonist Charlie or Reagan, as we come to learn  fled this town the moment she could, leaving behind not just her address but her entire identity. New name, new appearance, new life. She has worked so hard to ...

Title: My Heart to Remember Author: A.B. Medley Genre: Romantic Suspense Tropes: Unconventional Love Triangle, Protective Hero Strong Heroine, Amnesia, Secret Love, Starting Over Release Date: February 13, 2026 BLURB Identical twins London and Lennon Tyler have always lived as mirror images—one a fearless race car driver, the other a quietly brilliant chef. Their secret talent? Switching places whenever life demands it. It’s always been harmless…until one switch ends in tragedy. One twin wakes in a hospital bed with no memory. The other never wakes at all. Doctors tell the surviving sister who she is. They tell her who she loves—a charming physician who claims to be her boyfriend. She tries to settle into the life she's supposedly lived…until a shaken race car driver storms into her room, calling her by a different name. Her sister’s name. Hospitals don’t make mistakes this big…right? As her body heals, fragments of the accident—and the life she might have lived—start sur...

Review: The Other Killer - Book #3 The Peasedale Woods Killer Series - Heidi Field - April 2026 There’s something quietly powerful about a story of second chances, and The Other Killer by Heidi Field delivers exactly that with a strong emotional core that lingers long after the final page. Set twenty years after the events of Book #2, we meet Mason as he is released from prison for crimes he was involved in as a teenager alongside Gunner. Having only read the previous book, I can honestly say this one still stands strong on its own. Heidi Field does a great job of grounding the reader, allowing you to slip into Mason’s world without feeling lost or overwhelmed by backstory. What unfolds is a deeply human story. Mason is trying , really trying to rebuild his life. He forms connections with Gunner’s daughter and grandson, Pip, and even takes young Kenny, the kid across the road, under his wing. Watching him attempt to carve out something meaningful for himself, including securing a stabl...

Review: The Other Family - Wendy Corsi Staub - January 2022 Kia ora, bookworms! Pour yourself a strong cuppa,  maybe a proper flat white if you're feeling fancy  because oh my goodness, do I have a read for you today. I finished Wendy Corsi Staub's The Other Family in one sitting, curled up on the couch with my cat on my lap and the wind rattling the windows outside, and honestly? That might be the most perfectly atmospheric reading experience I've had all year. Right, let me set the scene for you. Nora and her family are packing up their lives and heading to New York,  new city, fresh start, all that exciting energy of beginning again somewhere unfamiliar. They find a house. They move in. And then, as you do when you're settling into a new place and getting a bit nosy with the neighbours, they discover that their lovely new home was the site of a horrific family slaughter years ago. Naturally, they're gutted. Why weren't they told? Who keeps something like...

Review: She's Going to Pay - Alexandra Ivy - October 2025 There are books you pick up expecting a pleasant evening, and books that take your evening hostage. She's Going to Pay by Alexandra Ivy is firmly the latter. I sat down with this one on a quiet weeknight with a cup of tea and the best of intentions and I was still reading at gone midnight, absolutely unwilling to leave Jesse Hudson's world behind until I knew how it all ended. It's that kind of book. Jesse Hudson didn't leave Canton, Missouri, so much as she escaped it. As a teenager she watched her stepmother and stepsister disappear under a cloud of suspicion, her father become a murder suspect, and then he vanishwed too  leaving her to wait, and wait, before finally walking away altogether. Years of bartending jobs and keeping moving followed. When she finally returns, it's meant to be quick and clean: sell her father's old bar, close the chapter, and leave for good. But Canton has other idea...