book-reviews

  • Spelled a variety of different ways, including bogeyman, bogyman, and bogieman, the Boogeyman is a mythical creature most commonly used by adults to frighten children into good behavior. After graduating from college, horror writer Richard Chizmar returns to his hometown to focus on his fledgling career, only to find the whole town enveloped in its…

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  • She could have made herself small and unthreatening. She could have hovered over people’s shoulders like a pet or a children’s toy, as was the fashion among older shipminds. But she’d lived through a war, an uprising and a famine, and she was done with diminishing herself to spare the feelings of others. The Shadow’s…

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  • Ad/PR. Many thanks to Penguin Random House Christian Publishing and WaterBrook for this ARC via Netgalley. The Inklings were a group of writers, including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, who met on an informal basis to discuss and read their literary works. In The Inklings Detective Agency, the author asks what might have happened if…

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  • “No, no, no. You’re wrong, Rishard. The lawyer left that note with the bartender as a clue,” says April. A single mother in her 40s. A four-time divorcee who always wears Hawaiian shirts and crocs. A beautician who loves gossiping. A retired school principal and a cantankerous Vietnam War vet. These are the members of…

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  • April Wrap-Up

    Ad/PR. April was a month filled with great reads. From cozy mysteries to horror, from sci fi to historical fiction, from ebooks to physical copies to audiobooks, from ARCs and review copies to Read Christie 2026 and the A-Z Cozy Mystery Challenge, I read my way through murders and mysteries, celebrated Terry Pratchett Day and…

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  • I had been assured that our new life in Gloucestershire would be peaceful and uneventful. Lady Emily Hardcastle and her maid Florence Armstrong have left London for the quiet life in the English countryside. But on one of their very first peaceful walks, they come across a dead body in a clearing, and their plans…

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  • Ad/PR. Many thanks to BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for this ebook. “Everyone’s voice deserves to be heard.” At the Bristlecone retirement community, a small group of retirees meet once a week to discuss their writing. When Margaret, the oldest member of the group, who never shared any actual writing, suddenly passes away, it sets in motion…

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  • Steal five dollars and you were a petty thief. Steal thousands of dollars and you were either a government or a hero. In honour of Terry Pratchett Day, I’m reviewing Going Postal, one of my favourite Terry Pratchett novels, featuring one of my favourite Discworld characters, Moist von Lipwig. Moist is a career criminal, but…

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  • “The place looked like an earthly paradise. With its sunshine, its sea, its coral reef, its music, its dancing, it seemed a Garden of Eden. But even in the Garden of Eden, there has been a shadow—the shadow of the Serpent” Miss Marple is vacationing on the Caribbean island of St. Honoré, courtesy of her…

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  • Ad/PR. Many thanks to Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op and Highland Quill Publishing for this ARC via Netgalley. ‘Let’s photograph crumbling castles at foggy dawn,’ you said. ‘It’ll be atmospheric,’ you said. You left out the part where it might get us killed. Travel writer Joana and her friend and photographer Brian are working on a Scotland…

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