The Sister's Twin, What You Never Knew, Hadley and Grace, and This World So Fierce

 

From Description:  How do you solve a murder when the victim is still alive?

Lily Spencer knows her twin is fated to die. And she can’t stop envisioning the end.

A stranger in the night.
A vicious blade.
The tarot card he will leave behind.

Lily’s clairvoyant friend has foreseen it all. And her eerie insights are never wrong.

A killer is coming to the care home where the sisters live. It’s only a question of when. And why.

In desperation, Lily turns to curmudgeonly sleuth Ray Flowers for help.

She may be elderly but she’s anything but defenceless. And she’s not giving up on her sister.

Not without a fight.

Someone is killing vulnerable old people, but who is the person planning the murders and why?   Lily and Rose are essential to the plot, but Elspeth Moore is by far the most entertaining character!  Give Elspeth a tarot deck and a cricket bat, and she's got things under control.  Well, almost.   Ray Flowers is reluctant to get involved...until he is forced to believe.  I enjoyed this one.

Read in March; review scheduled for  April 11.

NetGalley/Joffe Books

Mystery.  April 1, 2021.  Print length:  201 pages.

From Description:  

Idyllic Avril lsland, owned by the Bennett family, where their hundred-year-old cottage sat nestled in acres of forest. Forty-year-old June Bennett believed that the island had been sold after the summer of her father's disappearance when she was only twelve years old. It's months after the shocking death of her older sister May in a fatal car accident, that June finds out that the cottage was never sold. Avril Island is still owned by the Bennett family and now it's hers.

Old secrets and an old friend await June on Avril island.  What June thought she knew about that last summer on the island when she was twelve--is not nearly what she thought.

I wanted to know all the secrets, but from very early in the book June's character seemed less than realistic.  In the end, I wasn't even satisfied knowing the secrets.

Read in March   

NetGalley/Crooked Lane Books

Mystery.  April 13, 2021.  Print length:  304 pages.  

Hadley's husband is abusive and Grace's husband has a gambling habit.  When Hadley decides to take the two kids and leave Frank, she plans on getting some of his money first.  Grace, who works for Frank, has also decided to take the money Frank owes her and with her infant son make a get-away.

Kind of the heist from hell when the two women get into it during their separate attempts at theft.  As it turns out, they are going to need each other as the two hit the road with kids in tow.

Favorite character: Skipper who has lived with Hadley for most of his eight years and is special needs.  

It does have the escape element of Thelma & Louise, but this time there are three kids added to the mix.

Read in March.

Kindle Unlimited.  2021.  344 pages.

From Description:  
Trish and Nikki are Orphans who live on the poor side of town. But they know what it means to have a family that cares, even if that family is not blood. Their foster parents can't have children of their own, so they raise children who come to them from a world of pain and loss. When the family is asked to take in one more, they can't refuse. But it might be one more than they can handle.

"The World So Fierce" is a story of the other side of tragedy. The orphans are a surrogate family, but when they take in one more child could their family break? What happens when one orphan can't turn his life around?

A family who fosters and adopts children who need a home and a family--agrees to take in seventeen-year-old Mike, who is preparing to leave state custody.

The hope that Mike will be able to turn his life around is part of Bud and Molly's basic philosophy, but will he be able to join the family as a member or will he be a destructive influence?  Even with the best of intentions, can everyone be saved?

Mary Marcotte is a blog friend, a retired teacher, and an avid quilter.  This is her debut work that takes place in South Louisiana, a world Mary knows well.

Read in April.

Orphans/FosterFamilies.  2020.  90 pages.