Tag: women authors

The Perfect Lie by Jo Spain

I’ll admit it. Jo Spain had me from the first chapter in her latest thriller, The Perfect Lie, set in Newport, Long Island. Maybe it was the protagonist, Erin Kennedy being an Irish ex-pat. I live with one of those. Which sort of makes me Irish by injection. Or maybe it was Erin’s Bellport Bay…

By C.S. O'Cinneide June 10, 2021 Off

Still Life by Val McDermid

Still Life begins with a corpse being pulled out of the Firth of Forth by a group of lobster fishermen. Definitely not your typical catch of the day. The body belongs to a man who was a suspect in his brother’s disappearance and probable murder over a decade ago, but he did a runner when…

By C.S. O'Cinneide December 1, 2020 Off

The Less Dead by Denise Mina

My mother used to work as a social worker, reuniting adult adoptive children with their natural parents. She’d be the first to tell you that those reunions can be wonderfully rewarding. They can also be a complete flippin’ disaster. That’s the thing with birth families, just like Forest Gump’s iconic box of chocolates, “you never…

By C.S. O'Cinneide October 1, 2020 Off

Darling Rose Gold By Stephanie Wrobel

Rose Gold and her mother, Patty, have a complicated relationship in the dark domestic thriller, Darling Rose Gold. This is in part due to Patty being in prison for the last five years. Incarceration tends to put a damper on most family get-togethers, particularly birthdays when everybody expects cakes with a file in them. But…

By C.S. O'Cinneide April 15, 2020 Off

Darlington by Tripsy South

“Sometimes it was just best to shut the f*** up and let the wisdom flow over you.” – (p. 217) Such was the approach I attempted to take while reading Darlington. This novel is a sort of Kerouac-like stream of consciousness that follows a few months in the life of Tommy Darlington – a part-time…

By C.S. O'Cinneide November 17, 2019 Off