#BookReview American Duchess by Karen Harper @WmMorrowBooks @FreshFiction!

American Duchess: A Novel of Consuelo Vanderbilt by Karen Harper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Before Meghan and Harry, another American ‘princess’ captured the hand of an English aristocrat. Now, Karen Harper tells the tale of Consuelo Vanderbilt, her “The Wedding of the Century” to the Duke of Marlborough, and her quest to find meaning behind “the glitter and the gold.”

On a cold November day in 1895, a carriage approaches St Thomas Episcopal Church on New York City’s Fifth Avenue. Massive crowds surge forward, awaiting their glimpse of heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt. Just 18, the beautiful bride has not only arrived late, but in tears, yet her marriage to the aloof Duke of Marlborough proceeds. Bullied into the wedding by her indomitable mother, Alva, Consuelo loves another. But a deal was made, trading some of the vast Vanderbilt wealth for a title and prestige, and Consuelo, bred to obey, realizes she must make the best of things.

At Blenheim Palace, Consuelo is confronted with an overwhelming list of duties, including producing an “heir and a spare,” but her relationship with the duke quickly disintegrates. Consuelo finds an inner strength, charming everyone from debutantes to diplomats including Winston Churchill, as she fights for women’s suffrage. And when she takes a scandalous leap, can she hope to attain love at last…?

From the dawning of the opulent Gilded Age, to the battles of the Second World War, American Duchess is a riveting tale of one woman’s quest to attain independence—at any price.

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AMERICAN DUCHESS tales the fictional story of Consuelo Vanderbilt. In 1895 Consuelo wed the Duke of Marlborough. This was not a love match; she was already in love with another man. She only went to the altar after being bullied relentlessly by her mother, Alva. The marriage was a business deal— the Vanderbilt money for a title and the prestige that comes with the title. And, it could have all ended there. She could have stayed subdued like many other women in her class. However, Consuelo finds her inner strength, fights for the things she believes in and perhaps she will even find true love?

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#BookReview A Baker Street Wedding by Michael Robertson @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress

A Baker Street Wedding by Michael Robertson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The wedding of Reggie Heath and the celebrated actress Laura Rankin was reported in all the tabloids—which is to say, it was a disaster.

Now, in a remote village on the British coast, locked in by sea cliffs on one side and moors on the other, the newlywed’s plane—piloted by Laura—has landed. Reggie doesn’t understand why Laura has picked this god-forsaken hamlet for their honeymoon. What is she keeping from him?

The answers are in Laura’s past, but she’s not saying, and Reggie is out of his depth. He must have help—or his worst fears and more will be realized.

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I did get a sense of recognition when I started to read A Baker Street Wedding. Not that I had read any of the previous five books in this series. It's rather I think I've seen the first book in the library, read the blurb, but never borrowed it. Now, I want to hit myself in the head for not doing so because this book was hilarious.

Reading the latest book in a series, without having read the previous books mean that you can feel pretty lost. However, I quickly found my footing when it came to this book and the more I read the more I felt at home. Also, I really felt that I need to read the previous books.

Lawyers Reggie Heath and his brother Nigel are the ones responsible for answering the Sherlock Holmes letters that are sent to Baker Street. That's part of the deal for them to rent the place. In this book, the letter part gets a bit sidelined when Reggie's wedding to Laura turns into a dramatic paparazzi stunt. Nigel meanwhile has flown to LA to try to save his relationship. At the office is secretary Lois at a loss of what to do when a strange man shows up and starts to investigate where Reggie and Laura have gone.

I really enjoyed reading this book and I'm thrilled to have found the two first one available to listen to. I recommend this book to Sherlock Holmes fans!

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!

#BookReview Dead Memories by Angela Marsons @WriteAngie @bookouture

Dead Memories by Angela Marsons
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

She ruined their lives. Now they’re going to destroy hers.

‘Someone is recreating every traumatic point in your life. They are doing this to make you suffer, to make you hurt and the only possible end game can be death. Your death.’

On the fourth floor of Chaucer House, two teenagers are found chained to a radiator. The boy is dead but the girl is alive. For Detective Kim Stone every detail of the scene mirrors her own terrifying experience with her brother Mikey, when they lived in the same tower block thirty years ago.

When the bodies of a middle-aged couple are discovered in a burnt-out car, Kim can’t ignore the chilling similarity to the deaths of Erica and Keith – the only loving parents Kim had ever known.

Faced with a killer who is recreating traumatic events from her past, Kim must face the brutal truth that someone wants to hurt her in the worst way possible. Desperate to stay on the case, she is forced to work with profiler Alison Lowe who has been called in to observe and monitor Kim’s behaviour.

Kim has spent years catching dangerous criminals and protecting the innocent. But with a killer firmly fixed on destroying Kim, can she solve this complex case and save her own life or will she become the final victim?

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Angela Marsons has once again written a great crime novel that is a page-turner for page one until the end. I always get very, very happy when I see that a new novel is soon to be released since I've become quite addicted to the series.

Kim Stone is faced with her own terrible experiences all through this book. It's like someone out there knows all the things that have hurt Kim all through her life and tries to break her. And, it all starts with the police finding two teenagers chained to a radiator. Kim can't help seeing how this event is a copy of how she and her twin brother were found years ago. Who hates Kim so much that they would go to this far?

Dead Memories is an absolutely fabulous crime novel and I loved reading the book. Kim is being monitored by profiler Alison Lowe who's side story is also very interesting. I came to really like Alison Lowe and I hope she will show up in more stories. Kim and Alison have a tense relationship. To be honest I can't really remember their previous encounter more than I know which book Alison showed up in previously. Too many books read since then...

Anyhow, this book is great, I loved trying to figure out who was behind it all, especially since the list of people hating Kim is not that short. She even has a fan club, in prison...

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!

#BookReview Who Killed the Fonz? by James Boice @jamesboice @simonbooks @FreshFiction

Who Killed the Fonz? by James Boice
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The legendary 1950s-era TV show Happy Days gets reinvented as a gritty 1980s noir.

Late October, 1984. Prince and Bruce are dominating FM radio. Ron and Nancy are headed back to the White House. Crockett and Tubbs are leading men everywhere to embrace pastels. And Richard Cunningham? Well, Richard Cunningham is having a really bad Sunday.

First, there’s the meeting with his agent. A decade ago, the forty-something Cunningham was one of Hollywood’s hottest screenwriters. But Tinseltown is no longer interested in his artsy, introspective scripts. They want Terminator cyborgs and exploding Stay Puft Marshmallow men. If he isn’t interested in that sort of thing, his agent tells him, he’s gonna have to find new representation.

Then later that same day he gets a phone call with even worse news. His best friend from childhood back in Milwaukee, back when everyone called him Richie, is dead. Arthur Fonzarelli. The Fonz. Lost control of his motorcycle while crossing a bridge and plummeted into the water below. Two days of searching and still no body, no trace of his trademark leather jacket.

Richard flies back for the memorial service, only to discover that Fonzie’s death was no accident—it was murder. With the help of his old pals Ralph Malph and Potsie Weber, he sets out to catch the killer. Who it turns out to be is shocking. So is the story’s final twist.

Who Killed The Fonz? imagines what happened to the characters of the legendary TV series Happy Days twenty years after the show left off. And while much has changed in the interim—goodbye drive-in movie theaters, hello VCRs—the story centers around the same timeless themes as the show: the meaning of family. The significance of friendship. The importance of community.

Fast-paced and full of nostalgia, Who Killed the Fonz? is an ingenious twist on a beloved classic that proves sometimes you can go home again.

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The year is 1984, and Richard "Richie" Cunningham gets bad news from his hometown in Milwaukee. Arthur Fonzarelli, his best friend when he was growing up, the Fonz is dead. Fonzie was driving his motorcycle when he crossed a bridge and lost control and into the guardrail. He went over the handlebar into the water, but no body has been found. Crushed Richard gets back home to the memorial service for Fonzie. In Milwaukee, the memories of his youth come back, but he also realizes the death of the Fonz may be something other than accidental. It may have been murder.

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#BookReview Die Last by Tony Parsons @arrowpublishing @TonyParsonsUK @FreshFiction

Die Last: by Tony Parsons
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As dawn breaks on a snowy February morning, a refrigerated lorry is found parked in the heart of London's Chinatown. Inside twelve women are discovered - all dead from hypothermia.

But when DC Max Wolfe looks in the cab of truck, he finds thirteen passports.

One woman has survived. Where is she? And what sort of danger is she in?

The hunt for her will take Max into the dark heart of a terrifying world where nothing and nobody is safe ...

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There are some series that become so special for you that the characters feel like old friends. The Max Wolfe series by Tony Parsons is one of them for me. Now, it has been a while since I read the previous book in the series, but it didn't take me long to get back into the life of Max and his daughter Scout and of course their dog Sam.

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#BookReview Gone by Midnight by Candice Fox @candicefoxbooks @arrowpublishing @FreshFiction

Gone by Midnight by Candice Fox
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

They left four children safe upstairs.
They came back to three.
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On the fifth floor of the White Caps Hotel, four young boys are left alone while their parents dine downstairs.

But when one of the parents checks on the children at midnight, they discover one of them is missing.

The boys swear they stayed in their room. CCTV confirms that none of them left the building. No trace of the child is found.

Now the hunt is on to find him, before it’s too late – and before the search for a boy becomes a search for a body...

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I LOVE this series! When I got the chance to read GONE BY MIDNIGHT didn't I hesitate, I had to read it straight away. And WOW! The first book was great, the second was fabulous, this one is awesome!

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#BookReview The Dutch Wife by Ellen Keith @eakeith @parkrowbooks @FreshFiction

The Dutch Wife by Ellen Keith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amsterdam, May 1943. As the tulips bloom and the Nazis tighten their grip across the city, the last signs of Dutch resistance are being swept away. Marijke de Graaf and her husband are arrested and deported to different concentration camps in Germany. Marijke is given a terrible choice: to suffer a slow death in the labour camp or—for a chance at survival—to join the camp brothel.

On the other side of the barbed wire, SS officer Karl Müller arrives at the camp hoping to live up to his father’s expectations of wartime glory. But faced with a brutal routine of overseeing executions and punishments, he longs for an escape. When he encounters the newly arrived Marijke, this meeting changes their lives forever.

Woven into the narrative across space and time is Luciano Wagner’s ordeal in 1977 Buenos Aires, during the heat of the Argentine Dirty War. In his struggle to endure military captivity, he searches for ways to resist from a prison cell he may never leave.

From the Netherlands to Germany to Argentina, The Dutch Wife braids together the stories of three individuals who share a dark secret and are entangled in two of the most oppressive reigns of terror in modern history. This is a novel about the blurred lines between love and lust, abuse and resistance, and right and wrong, as well as the capacity for ordinary people to persevere and do the unthinkable in extraordinary circumstances.

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THE DUTCH WIFE is a dual storyline book. In 1943 we get to follow Marijke de Graaf as she is forced to choose between a slow death in a labor camp or join the camp brothel. She picks the later in the hope of meeting her husband who has been sent to the camp where the brothel is. Years later, in 1977 we follow Luciano Wagerer's ordeal during the Argentine Dirty War as he is arrested and thrown in a prison he most likely will never leave.

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#BookReview Once a Liar by A.F. Brady @parkrowbooks @FreshFiction

Once a Liar by A.F. Brady
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

From the author of The Blind comes an electrifying story of deception, duplicity and suspense

Peter Caine, a cutthroat Manhattan defense attorney, is extremely adept at his job. On the surface, he is charming and handsome, but inside he is cold and heartless. A sociopath practically incapable of human emotions, he has no remorse when he fights to acquit murderers, pedophiles and rapists. When Charlie Doyle, the daughter of the Manhattan DA--and Peter's former lover--is murdered, Peter's world is quickly sent into a tailspin as the DA, a professional enemy of Peter's, embarks on a witch hunt to avenge his daughter's death, stopping at nothing to ensure Peter is found guilty of the murder.

Peter sets out to prove his innocence, and as he pieces together his defense, he finds that it's those closest to us who are capable of the greatest harm.

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Peter Caine is a merciless Manhattan defense attorney who may seem to be charming on the outside. However, beneath the mask, he is a cold and heartless man who doesn't care about other people's feelings. He doesn't even harbor any feelings for his own son Jamie, and he is less than pleased when he has to take him in after Peter's ex-wife dies. But, his life will change dramatically when his ex-lover, the daughter of the Manhattan DA is murdered and Peter is one of the suspects.

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