fiction
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The first sign of trouble came disguised as gossip. Like a curl of smoke, it slipped through my bookshop’s half-open windows with meandering confidence, snaking its way through the Latin Quarter. When the rich and prominent Fournier, owner of the glamorous Maison Fournier department store in Paris, dies under very public circumstances right after having…
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Book 1 in the River Cruise Cozies series. Adelle is retired and bored, so when her friend asks her for help, she agrees to cover for her as a tour host for a small group of women going on a river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam. She is looking forward to meeting new people, but…
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My January reading was dominated by great debut novels, from Tudor-era action in A Bastard’s Bosworth to delicious Japanese food in The Kamogawa Food Detectives, gothic Holmesian mystery in the early 1900s with Strange Beasts, a character-driven crime drama in Blood Between Us, colonialism and identity in A Memory Called Empire, strong women, representation and…
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“Fenway,” Nathaniel Ferris said, putting on his pontificating voice, “with me as your father, people are always going to think you’re in my pocket…” When Fenway Stevenson loses both her mother and her job, she reluctantly accepts her estranged father’s offer of an apartment and a temporary job as a coroner in Estancia, her old…
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Her mother had never visited Elkhorn Slough. And no one had ever been murdered there. But there was a first time for everything. Mother-daughter murder night, is what Beth and her mother Lana would call it when they would relax together, watching detective shows in bed all evening. Now Beth is living a quiet life…
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There was nothing safe; there were only gradations of exposure to danger. Mahit Dzmare is the newly appointed ambassador to the Teixcalaanli Empire. Coming from a small, independent mining Station, Mahit’s diplomatic mission is to try to ensure that the Empire allows the Station to continue to stay independent while still allowing for trade and travel…
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“Haven’t we always looked out for each other, Hep? Helped each other?” When Hep Anderssen’s older brother Bill unexpectedly shows up at her door one night, claiming that he has hit a deer on the road, Hep does what she always does and helps him keep his accident a secret. But when news of a…
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“Family secrets, a celebrity murder, a wrongful conviction, Hollywood drama. It’s got everything.” An intolerable celebrity actor goes missing, and DI Ryan Hale and his team get a taste of the drama of Hollywood productions with all its lies, deceit, backstabbing, and power plays. At the same time, Ryan is presented with new evidence concerning…
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Book 1 in the Harker & Moriarty series. A brilliant gothic fantasy horror mystery set in Paris in 1903. Samantha Harker, the daughter of Jonathan and Mina Harker, works for The Royal Society for the Study of Abnormal Phenomena. Originally a researcher, Sam is desperate to leave the library and be assigned as a field…
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I reckon we always meet the people we’re supposed to meet. Which is why you ended up walking through that door. The Kamogawa Diner in Kyoto run by former police officer Nagare and his daughter Koishi has no sign out front, no menu and no online presence. And yet, customers find their way there from…
Mostly Murders 