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 ...

VBT# Review - The Other Mother - Book #2 The Peasedle Woods Killer Series - Heidi Field - November 2025 Oh, come and settle in with me for a moment, grab yourself a warm drink and get comfortable, because today's tour stop has me with plenty to say! When the lovely folks at Zooloos Book Tours knocked on The Phantom Paragrapher's door with Heidi Fields' The Other Mother, I cleared my reading chair, pulled the blanket over my knees, and dove straight in. And what a tangled, twisty web awaited me. Right from the opening pages, the premise alone had me hooked like a fish on a line. Suzannah is pregnant with her third child. Her first is in prison. Her second is dead. If that tagline doesn't make you sit bolt upright and demand answers, then I honestly don't know what will. It's the kind of setup that lodges itself in your brain at two in the morning and refuses to leave quietly. Suzannah herself is a fascinatingly complex creation. She is deeply flawed, morally mu...

Review: Don't Look Behind You - Book #1 Don't Look - Emily Kazmierski - May 2021  Hello, my lovely bookish friends! Grab your favorite cuppa and settle in, because today I'm chatting about a thriller that had me reading late into the night with all the lights on. Emily Kazmierski's Don't Look Behind You dropped me right into Megan's world , a girl trying to build a normal life with her Aunty Karen in a quiet smalltown, living under a new name. But here's the twist that got my heart racing: Megan is the one who got away from the Mayday Killer , and he's not finished with her yet. Talk about unfinished business that'll keep you up at night! The Mayday Killer is methodically working his way closer to Megan's new haven, leaving a trail of victims connected to her past. The Mirror Museum scene particularly gave me chills, there's something deeply unsettling about a killer who targets places meaningful to your family. As I read curled up on my...

Review: The Butcher and Liar - SL Woeppel - September 2025 Playing catch-up with my reviews as usual! This was my final read for October, which turned out to be a surprisingly quiet month with only 14 books crossing my path. But what a book to end on. The Butcher and the Liar grabbed me from the first page because I'm absolutely fascinated by stories exploring how families cope when they discover a parent or loved one is a killer. That moment when everything you thought you knew shatters. Then fast-forward to the present day, where those children are grown and desperately trying to build new lives, only to have their carefully constructed identities exposed to the world. It's the kind of premise that keeps me turning pages late into the night. When Daisy was just a young girl, her father a butcher by trade graduated from slaughtering animals to murdering women. He struck me as a bit of a Dexter-type killer, methodical and clean in his horrifying work. Now, decades later at t...

Review: A Flicker in the Dark - Stacy Willingham - January 2022 Sometimes the best reads come from the most unexpected places. This psychological thriller had been lingering on my want-to-read list for ages, taunting me from my digital shelves. Then serendipity struck at a recent bookstagrammer event here in Tauranga – you know how these events go, where one person's unhauled treasure becomes another's page-turning obsession. A fellow book lover was clearing out her collection, and there it was, practically calling my name from her pile of discards. What a find it turned out to be! From the moment I cracked open the spine, I was transported into a world that immediately reminded me of The Prodigal – that brilliant TV series that keeps you guessing until the very last scene. Stacy Willingham has crafted something equally compelling here. We're introduced to Chloe Davies, now a practicing psychologist carrying the weight of an unthinkable legacy. Twenty years ago, when she ...

Review: Out for Blood - Book #1 Private Investigator Logan Fox - Adam Nicholls - May 2022 There's something deeply satisfying about finding a crime thriller that doesn't just tick all the boxes but manages to surprise you along the way. Adam Nicholls' "Out for Blood" did exactly that for me, delivering a gritty serial killer story that had me glued to the pages well past my usual bedtime. The story follows Logan Fox, a former detective turned private investigator who's been running from his demons for six years. When his family was brutally murdered during a serial killer case, Logan's world imploded. He left the force, turned to private investigation, and built walls around himself that would make a fortress jealous. But when a new serial killer emerges, one who's carving up female victims and stealing body parts, Logan finds himself reluctantly pulled back into the darkness he's been trying to escape. What hooked me immediately was the personal...

Review: The Serial Killer's Support Group - DB Stephens - November 2024 You know how us book nerds scroll through Libby at 2am looking for our next literary obsession? Well, that's exactly how I stumbled upon this gem. The title alone had me hooked – serial killers AND a support group? As someone who devours thrillers faster than Tim Tams at a morning tea, I was immediately intrigued. Initially, I expected something along the lines of Grady Hendrix's The Final Girl Support Group – you know, that perfect blend of horror and dark humor we love. Instead, this read more like Darby Kane's The Last Invitation, with its intricate web of secrets and moral ambiguity. The story opens on New Year's Eve with Jess trapped in an abusive relationship with Lewis. Having watched her mother endure similar trauma, she'd sworn never to become that woman. When a hospital worker offers her an escape route, Jess finds herself in a church support group surrounded by other survivors – s...

Review: Scythe and Sparrow - Book #3 The Ruinous Love Trilogy - February 2025 It’s no secret that The Ruinous Love Trilogy has been one of my favorite dark romantic comedy series, and I dove into Scythe and Sparrow with sky-high expectations after devouring Butcher & Blackbird and Leather & Lark. Brynne Weaver’s previous books set the bar incredibly high with their perfect blend of wit, chaos, and heart, but unfortunately, this final installment didn’t quite hit the mark for me. Fionn Kane, the nerdy yet emotionally scarred town doctor, and Rose Evans, the edgy motorcycle performer with a penchant for murder, seemed like they would deliver the same fiery chemistry and complex connection that made the first two books so irresistible. Sadly, I struggled to connect with their relationship—and that lack of emotional resonance made this one a tougher read. Thematically, Scythe and Sparrow tackles grief, trust, and second chances, but the execution felt uneven. The "friends ...

Review: Her Final Confession - Book #4 Detective Josie Quinn - Lisa Regan - November 2018 One of the things I love about being a book reader is that I can donate my books to the second-hand bookshop in Tauranga - Xanadu and then as a bonus get credit to grab new second-hand titles that sound like they could be up my alley.  I had seen a few of Lisa Regan's on Netgalley and read a couple of her thrillers, so was excited to see one of her titles on the shelves at Xanadu. This book was one I picked up after my first title was a DNF and wow, this one moved so quickly and I was surprised at how fast I managed to read it. The book starts in Portland in 1993 where we see Billy meet biker Lincoln Shore and then the book jumps to the present time where Josie and her partner have been called to a crime scene where a young man is dead and a twist - the house belongs to Detective Gretchen Palmer; someone they can't seem to get a hold of. How is she connected to this we soon learn that Gr...