Brooke and Bailey were best friends until Bailey joined the cheerleading team which started a chain of evenets that led to her apparent suicide. Twenty years later, Brooke returns to her hometown and finds Bailey’s missing necklace. Was Bailey murdered and who kept her necklace hidden for so long…?
Prom Queen is a dual timeline psychological thriller showing us the past and present experience of Brooke as she adjusts to the change to her friendship followed by the mystery surrounding Bailey’s death.
Brooke returns home to renovate then sell her late mother’s house. She meets true crime podcaster Hannah who is wearing a familiar necklace. It belonged to Brooke former best friend Bailey who died on prom night 20 years ago. Hannah doesn’t believe that Bailey’s death was an accident or suicide so calls on Brooke to help her investigate with a view to finding a killer.
The book is written from Brooke’s first person perspective in the past and present. The chapters from the past create suspects and suspicion which Brooke follows up in the present day. I felt desperately sad for the best friends as they split but remain neighbours. I’m sure that almost everyone will have gone through teen friendship angst so will be able to identify with Brooke and Bailey.
There is plenty of mystery as Brooke joins in with the investigation to support the podcast. I suspected eveeryone and had no idea about the truth behind Bailey’s death. Brooke receives anonymous notes that add to the tension as someone thinks she is lying and this could place her in danger. I was not expecting the huge twist at the end!
Prom Queen is an intriguing mystery with a strong narrator.
Twenty years ago, someone murdered my best friend the night she was crowned prom queen. Now I’m finally going to prove it…
After Bailey died, I fled our small lakeside hometown and never returned. But now I’m forced back here and I can’t avoid the constant whispers about our prom night, the suspicious looks of the people I grew up with.
Then I bump into a woman in a coffee shop and my eyes are drawn to the silver locket around her neck, glinting in the sunlight. My blood runs cold. I know it’s Bailey’s—she never took it off. And it’s been missing since the night she died.
The shock of seeing it again jolts me back to that terrible night: Bailey under the glittering lights, blowing kisses to a crowd glaring furiously back at her. Bailey wasn’t supposed to be prom queen—and someone made her pay for it.
Officially her death was ruled a tragic accident, but I knew better. I’ve never seen this woman before, so why does she have my best friend’s necklace? There has to be a reason, and this time I’ll stop at nothing to find out what really happened to Bailey the night she died.
Everyone in this town has secrets. But as I edge closer to the truth, I’m afraid of what lengths they’ll go to protect them…
A gripping psychological thriller with a twist that will make your jaw drop, perfect for fans of The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and Lisa Jewell.
Author Bio and Social Media
Laura Wolfe is an Amazon charts bestselling author who writes twisty, fast-paced psychological thrillers and suspense novels published by Bookouture. Her indie titles have also been shortlisted for multiple book awards. Laura is a lover of animals and nature. When she is not writing, she can be found hanging out with her husband and two kids, growing vegetables in her garden, or spoiling her rescue dog. She enjoys living in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Get Laura’s FREE short story (a mini psych thriller), The Perfect Escape: https://t.co/RTGEoz9VgY
1942, Paris. Clarisse is an American photographer living secretly in France under Nazi occupation. She wants to document the horrors she witnesses but she also wants to leave her toxic husband. Both aims are dangerous…
The Secret Photograph is a dual timeline historical novel set in the 1940s and 1980s.
Clarisse is distraught at the terrible sights of children rounded up and separated from their families, violence against Jews, and the terror on the streets of her beloved Paris. She is living under a false identity so is in constant fear of being discovered with forged papers. A chance encounter with the flamboyant ‘peacock’ Louis shows her that she may be able to put her photography skills to good use for the resistance.
I really liked Clarisse’s character. She is passionate and determined about her photography but is being smothered by the tyranny of her husband and the Nazi occupiers. Her false identity means that she is in danger but her humanity means she cannot stand by when she sees the oppression in the streets. Her skill at photography gives her a unique platform for spreading knowledge and awareness of the Nazi atrocities whilst placing her in even greater danger.
The author has researched the experiences of Paris under occupation and the historical and geographical setting bring the characters to life. Clarisse’s first meeting with Louis is really special and I loved his subversion of the enforced wearing of the yellow star. I hadn’t heard of the Zazou subculture before so I enjoyed the inclusion and sympathetic depiction in this book.
The Secret Photograph is an emotional and inspiring historical novel.
Book Description:
Nazi-occupied Paris, 1942. Clarisse clutches her camera as hundreds of police swarm the streets. Through her lens she spots a terrified brown-eyed little girl being carried screaming into a truck, her yellow star hanging crooked from her threadbare coat. Clarisse rushes forward to help, but the truck pulls away…
With a fake name written on the papers in her pocket, American photographer Clarisse Alarie knows the dangers of Paris better than most. Haunted by the sight of children being dragged away and carrying a photograph of the brown-eyed little girl everywhere she goes, Clarisse is desperate to make a difference. Meeting handsome resistance fighter Louis is her chance…
Louis introduces Clarisse to Café Capoulade and his underground network of brave men and women fighting tirelessly to end the occupation. Soon, Clarisse is risking her life every day. Taking photographs of the terror that has overcome the beautiful city, Clarisse follows members of the Gestapo and hides in plain sight in order to gather evidence of their terrible crimes.
But Clarisse soon learns of the over-crowded cattle cars leaving Paris carrying even the smallest children, bound for an unspeakably terrible place… Is she already too late to rescue the little girl with the brown eyes? And when Louis himself is arrested, will Clarisse risk everything the network has worked so hard for to save them both?
Set around true historical events that shook the world, The Secret Photograph is a sweeping and utterly gripping wartime tale of courage and resilience in the face of unimaginable terror. Fans of The Alice Network, The Nightingale and Soraya M. Lane will be totally hooked.
Author Bio:
Siobhan Curham is an award-winning author, ghost writer, editor and writing coach. She has also written for many newspapers, magazines and websites, including The Guardian, Breathe magazine, Cosmopolitan, Writers’ Forum, DatingAdvice.com, and Spirit & Destiny. Siobhan has been a guest on various radio and TV shows, including Woman’s Hour, BBC News, GMTV and BBC Breakfast. And she has spoken at businesses, schools, universities and literary festivals around the world, including the BBC, Hay Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Bath Festival, Ilkley Festival, London Book Fair and Sharjah Reading Festival.
The body of a pregnant teen is found but the victim disappeared two years ago. Where had she been for all that time? Chief Riley is given a photo of another girl being held against her will but can she find her before it is too late…?
The Shadow Girl is the third book in the Maggie Riley series set in America. I have read and reviewed the first book in the series, The Girl Who Lied.
Chief Maggie Riley has a new lieutenant and a new case. A girl’s body and another missing teen but the latter’s mother is convinced that her daughter is safe and well and the photo has been faked. Maggie can’t help but investigate as the fear in the girl’s eyes is so real.
The book is written from multiple perspectives but mainly Maggie’s. Some of the perspectives are not given names so we are kept guessing about their identity which builds the tension. I liked the introduction of Kal as the new lieutenant and felt that the issue of racism was handled sensitively.
Maggie is still haunted by her little brother’s disappearance and the subsequent loss of her detective career five years ago. In this book her mum turns up claiming to have found the man who took the boy but Maggie has doubts. She struggles to negotiate the personal and professional balance. Meanwhile, Maggie’s fiance Steve is still hiding secrets and this book reveals the fear he has of Maggie finding out. I’m looking forward to reading what happens next!
The Shadow Girl is an intriguing and tense crime thriller.
Ever since I tried to escape, he’s been keeping me in the dark. My bones ache with the cold. The longer I sit, trapped alone with just my thoughts, the more I worry… What if this is it? What if I never get to leave?
The sun is rising on another cold winter’s day in Coyote Cove when Chief Maggie Riley finds an unmarked envelope on the steps of the police station. Inside is a photo of a teenage girl, bound and bruised. Maggie’s heart constricts at the terror in her tear-filled eyes. Who is she? What has happened to her? Who would have left this photo, but done nothing else to help?
Maggie moved to Coyote Cove for a quieter life after her beloved young brother went missing five years ago. And this case feels as personal as anything she’s worked on since then. With no one reporting the girl missing, seemingly unloved and forgotten, Maggie vows to rescue her, and bring whoever hurt her to justice.
As Maggie mines the photograph for clues to hunt down the girl and her captor, her search takes her deep into the seedy, dangerous underbelly of the secretive logging camps. Hidden away in the woods, a law unto themselves, Maggie is in uncharted—and deadly—territory.
Then she finds the body of a girl who was said to have run away years ago, one with ties of her own to the loggers. And Maggie knows she’s on the right track. But as her search for the truth intensifies, Maggie’s own safety is threatened. Can she save an innocent girl’s life and get out alive herself, or could this be the one investigation she won’t survive…?
A dark and totally gripping crime thriller, perfect for fans of D.K. Hood, Melinda Leigh and Lisa Regan.
Author Bio
With degrees in Crime Scene Technology & Physical Anthropology, Florida author Shannon Hollinger hasn’t just seen the dark side of humanity – she’s been elbow deep inside of it! She finds writing to be a much cleaner way to spend her time than the autopsy suite. Most days it smells better, too.
Her debut novel, the psychological thriller Best Friends Forever, is the first of a five-book deal with publisher Bookouture.
Her short fiction has appeared in Suspense Magazine, Mystery Weekly, and The Saturday Evening Post, among a number of other magazines and anthologies, and her story Lady Killer was a finalist for the 2021 Al Blanchard Award sponsored by the New England Crime Bake.
Mia heads to the Poland-Germany border to visit her dying grandmother Ilse. Ilse cries out for Szymon and Mia finds a series of postcards between Szymon and Tadeusz at Ilse’s home. Can she find Szymon and bring her grandmother solace in her final days?
The Postcard is a dual timeline historical novel set in 1999 and during the 1930s and 40s.
Mia’s parents died years ago. Now she has escaped a violent relationship but her heart endures more heartache as her beloved grandmother lies dying in hospital. Ilse wants forgiveness for the past but also reassurance that Mia will be looked after in the future. Secrets from the past need to be exposed and atoned for but time is running out.
The book is written from multiple perspectives, both in the first and third person, in the 1930s/40s and 1999. I felt a little separated from the emotion of the book, possibly due to the varying viewpoints. The pace is quite slow at the beginning as we get to know Ilse in the past and present. The plot speeds up as the wartime secrets begin to be revealed to us and to Mia.
I thought that the angle of the book showing the Polish experience of the Nazi regime was quick fresh. The brutality is described almost objectively as the characters have become immune to the suffering in order to survive mentally and physically.
The Postcard is an interesting and well researched historical novel.
The Postcard: A completely gripping and heartbreaking World War 2 historical novel
Holding the faded postcard in her trembling hands, Mia begins to read the one story her grandmother could never tell her, revealing a secret that will change her own life forever…
When her beloved grandmother, Ilse, is taken into hospital, Mia drops everything to travel to Germany and care for the woman who raised her. But when her grandmother briefly wakes up and asks for a man called Szymon, Mia is confused. Who is he? And why does her grandmother need to see him so desperately?
Later that night, Mia returns to her grandmother’s apartment to search for clues. She soon discovers a small parcel hidden inside one of Ilse’s suitcases. When she removes the wrapping, she finds a stack of faded postcards neatly bound together, signed with a name that makes her heart stop in her chest: Szymon.
Desperate to find Szymon before it is too late, Mia unearths a story her grandmother never told her. A childhood friendship and heartbreaking young love on the eve of the Second World War, and of a plan to rescue a young man imprisoned by the Nazis. Mia can’t quite believe her grandmother was so brave, and risked so much to save this man’s life… But did she succeed?
As the final pieces of the past come together, Mia realizes that she is about to find out what really happened to her grandmother during the war. But she doesn’t expect to uncover a secret that will change everything…
Based on a true story, this page-turning and emotional wartime novel follows one woman’s brave decision to save the man she loves from the Nazis. An unputdownable and moving story about courage in the face of unimaginable odds, perfect for readers of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, The Nightingale and The Alice Network.
Carly Schabowski worked as a journalist in both North Cyprus and Australia before returning to Oxford, where she studied for an MA and then a PhD in creative writing at Oxford Brookes University. Carly now teaches at Oxford Brookes University as an associate lecturer in Creative Writing for first and second-year English literature students.
TRIGGER WARNING: misogyny and violence against women including sexual assault
Detective Eve Bennet is called to a polygamous community to investigate a missing newborn and mother. She herself is an apostate from the religious community and shunned while she tries to investigate. Can she defy her own family to locate the mother and child?
Lost Little Angels is the second book to feature detective Eve Bennet but I have not read the first in the series, Only Girl Alive. There are spoilers about events and outcomes from the first book so I would advise reading them in order.
Eve is tenacious and determined. She is also kind and caring. She knows what the community is like and fears for the safety of the women and children at the hands of their husbands and fathers. There is a personal side to the plot as she is targeted by the male members of her family. I really liked the strength of her character and her sense of justice as she tries to rescue women and challenge the dogma of the religious community.
The plot is quite gripping but the latter part of the plot is deeply unpleasant (I can’t give further details without huge spoilers!) I also felt very uncomfortable about the portrayal of the fundamentalist religion although this was contrasted by the positive portrayal of the non derogatory polygamous marriages of a fellow officer. The ending is certainly dramatic and I would read like to read future books in this series as well as catch upon the first.
Lost Little Angels is a tense book with a gripping plotline and strong female lead character.
She wakes suddenly, realizing with a panic that her darling baby daughter should have woken long before now. Racing to the pink-colored nursery, she lets out a deep cry as she opens the door. The crib is empty. Her little girl has vanished.
It’s after midnight when Detective Eve Bennet receives a distraught phone call from an unknown number. The voice at the other end begs her not to hang up—a baby has gone missing. But what the caller says next makes Eve’s heart race. “She isn’t the first. There are many, many more.”
Rushing to the missing girl’s home, Eve finds the house empty, and when she knocks on their neighbors’ doors, not a single person answers. Whoever reported the missing baby doesn’t want to be found…
Secrets are held tight in the small town of Hilldale and as an outsider, Eve knows that the only way to uncover the truth is to persuade someone to talk. She finally has a breakthrough when a young wife goes against her husband’s wishes and tells Eve it’s not just babies being taken—mothers are disappearing too.
The woman leaves Eve a hand drawn map leading her to an isolated trailer park. What she finds there shocks her to her core. But she hardly has time to think before she notices a lone figure watching her every move. She’s not alone.
Can Eve save herself in time to finally unmask the truth before more innocent children disappear forever?
Fans of Melinda Leigh, Kendra Elliot and Lisa Regan won’t be able to put down this utterly gripping crime thriller from a USA Today bestselling author.
Author Bio
Holly Roberts began writing to alleviate stress in her day job, that of a homicide and sex crimes detective. Romance was her go to genre because she required a happy ending. She also touched on cozy mysteries and added six books to her forty book romance repertoire. Now that she’s retired and her mind at peace, she decided to delve into crime thrillers using her background and thirst for research to write the Eve Bennet series.
Holly has two movie/television options under her belt for her amazing life story. Part of the reason is Holly became a police officer at age 45 and led two high profile cases, one involving a serial killer. Now she enjoys the excitement of writing about crime while sitting at home with her two dogs, laptop, and a cup of hot tea close by.
