Audiobook Review ~ Once Gone by Blake Pierce

Women are turning up dead in the rural outskirts of Virginia, killed in grotesque ways, and when the FBI is called in, they are stumped. A serial killer is out there, his frequency increasing, and they know there is only one agent good enough to crack this case: Special Agent Riley Paige.

Riley is on paid leave herself, recovering from her encounter with her last serial killer, and, fragile as she is, the FBI is reluctant to tap her brilliant mind. Yet Riley, needing to battle her own demons, comes on board, and her hunt leads her through the disturbing subculture of doll collectors, into the homes of broken families, and into the darkest canals of the killer’s mind. As Riley peels back the layers, she realizes she is up against a killer more twisted than she could have imagined. In a frantic race against time, she finds herself pushed to her limit, her job on the line, her own family in danger, and her fragile psyche collapsing.

Yet once Riley Paige takes on a case, she will not quit. It obsesses her, leading her to the darkest corners of her own mind, blurring the lines between hunter and hunted. After a series of unexpected twists, her instincts lead her to a shocking climax that even Riley could not have imagined.

Audiobook Review ~ Ink Witch by Lindsey Sparks

Three years ago, the gods abandoned us. We've been alone ever since.

Kat Dubois is immortal, and she’s retired. She’s long since hung up her sword and left assassinating immortals to someone else...anyone else. She’s now a hard drinking, sass-flinging Seattle tattoo artist with the innate ability to read people’s fortunes using her charmed deck of tarot cards. Her days of bloodshed are over, and she has nothing but time--an eternity, in fact--to hide from her past.

Until someone from her past shows up on her doorstep with news that her beloved older brother and mentor, Dominic, has gone missing. Kat may be the only person with the right skills--and access to the right magic--to track him down. She must confront her past if she’s to have any chance of finding and saving her brother. She must fight her demons. She must embrace the power within her.

She must become the Ink Witch.

The Write Reads Blog Tour Review: Dead Teenager Movie by Cethan Leahy

In this YA slasher, a horror-obsessed girl joins a group of wealthy teens for a wild weekend in a remote house, only to discover that the local murder rumours may be far more real – and far closer – than she imagined.

She loved scary movies… until she had the starring role.

A spree of murders is haunting Cork city, leaving behind stories of ghost parties and dismembered janitors, of dead diner owners and folkloric entities.

Die-hard horror buff April ignores it all for one perfect weekend of debauchery with Carl and his group of rich, hot and dangerously irresistible friends.

Together, they head to the West Cork countryside for an unforgettable trip before college begins. But in a remote mountainside house with views to die for, the dream party turns into a nightmare. Because some stories don't stay stories. And someone, or something, inside the house wants more than fear. They want blood.

Red Adept Publishing Book Review: Hush, Delilah by Angie Gallion

On the surface, Delilah Reddick’s life looks perfect. Her husband is a pillar of the community, and with her as his quietly supportive wife, they appear to be the picture of success and happiness. But there are deep cracks in the foundation, dark secrets Delilah has never shared with anyone.

Delilah knows what her husband is capable of when the evil inside him finds its way to the surface, but running would only delay the inevitable. Chase would hunt her to the ends of the earth before allowing her to take his only son from him. Delilah would rather die than leave her fourteen-year-old behind, but when her son begins displaying his father’s violent tendencies, she knows she must act.

In her quest to save her son, Delilah sets off a chain of events that could rock the community and reveal the darkest secret of them all. After years of staying quiet, Delilah must find her voice before her husband silences her forever.

Friday Featured Spotlight ~ BBNYA2025 Blog Tours: Finalists 11 & 10

 

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon CA

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon CA

BBNYA2025 Blog Tour Spotlight ~ 11th Place Finalist: Christmas in Castleby by J.M. Simpson

When Tess Dutton arrives in Castleby to help in her sister’s restaurant for the Christmas period her worst nightmare awaits. Tess finds her sister unconscious at the bottom of her stairs, and a restaurant fully booked until Christmas.

Ex-Navy chef Griffin Jones returns to his late mother’s house trying to put his past behind him. He can’t forgive himself for what he did, and someone from his past won’t let him forget either.

Griffin steps in to help Tess in the restaurant, but he is haunted by his past. As he grows closer to Tess and their attraction blossoms, Tess receives a visit from an ex-lover, who wants to rekindle their romance.

Tess struggles when she finds out about Griffin’s past.

But he’s being persecuted.

And then Tess’s life is threatened.

Someone is so full of hate and so intent on revenge, that the only solution is to kill.

Welcome to Cottonmouth by Jay S. Bell ~ Audiobook Review

What does the US government do with spies and special operators when they pass their expiration date? They retire them to a small town deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas, where they’re certain to cause no trouble.

A collection of broken spies, former double agents, and retired operators lives in secrecy, under the watchful eye of the government in the small, deep-woods town of Cottonmouth, Texas.

Devlin Mahoney is the de facto mayor of these special citizens, charged with keeping them in seclusion, hidden from the world, which he does from the office of the town’s only motel.

But the peace of this sleepy village is shattered when a pair of women, on the run from a vicious criminal, drops into Mahoney’s lap and he’s forced to choose between doing what’s right and doing what he’s told.

Last Breath by Kate Bold ~ Audiobook Review

A modest, Midwestern girl, Kaylie Brooks falls in love with a wealthy man who sweeps her off her feet and transplants her to a mansion in Palm Beach. But ominous signs abound, and Kaylie, out of place, realizes she is with a husband she barely knows. When a woman is murdered, Kaylie realizes she must dig deeper and uncover the secrets of this wealthy community, and of her husband’s past. But is she ready to face what she discovers?

Friday Featured Spotlight ~ BBNYA2024 Blog Tours: Finalists 14 & 13

 

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon CA

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon CA

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie ~ Book Review

In London after the Great War, Tommy Beresford and Tuppence Cowley are out of work and low on funds. The old friends quickly form the Young Adventurers, Ltd. Seeking to hire themselves out to “do anything, go anywhere,” the duo agree to a lucrative locate a survivor of the Lusitania sinking who’s disappeared with a compromising secret. Their assignment sucks them into a conspiracy of murder, kidnapping, and double identities. Behind it is an elusive, omnipresent puppet master who will stop at nothing to eliminate the amateur sleuths before they find what they’re looking for.

In Agatha Christie’s first Tommy and Tuppence mystery, the plucky pair hit the ground running in their search for excitement and adventure―“no unreasonable offer refused.”

2023 BBNYA Book Round Up

 

These books were the 2023 Winner and Finalists that had 

BBNYA Blog Tours this year.

FFS is the Friday Featured Spotlight that has ALL the tour 

posts from that particular tour.

BBNYA2024 Semi-Finalist Spotlight ~ Sledge vs The Labyrinth by Nick Horvath

 

SLEDGE. “THE ULTIMATE ANTI-HERO.” – Horror Reads

When his former lover, Kiira, finds herself the target of a mysterious dark web assassin network, modern-day gladiator, Einarr “Sledge” Laukkanen, embarks on a blood-spattered mission to uncover who lurks at its heart. But as he bludgeons his way down to its lowest depths, one thing becomes terrifyingly clear:

NO ONE ESCAPES THE LABYRINTH . . .

Panic Peak ~ Book Review

How can a single glacier grow dramatically while hundreds are shrinking around the world?

This paradox confronts a young glaciologist Kate Landry as she looks down at her research site buried under shocking mounds of new snow. Little does she know that Mount Olympus is in the bulls-eye for a sophisticated geoengineering experiment being conducted by a scientist who has convinced a secretive international oil cartel to fund his dubious climate modification techniques.

While Kate struggles to understand why the glacier is growing and begins to unravel the entire nefarious scheme, she also struggles to avoid the unraveling of her developing relationship with social psychologist Grant Poole. The more Kate uncovers on the glacier, the more her own life is at risk.

Can she expose the unethical and dangerous geoengineering operation without being caught before she’s stopped? And at what risk to her life?

Friday Featured Spotlight ~ TWR Blog Tour: Generations

 

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon CA

Dead To Me ~ Audiobook Review

Seeing dead people and solving their murders is Darby Adler's bread and butter.

What's not on the menu?

A nosy Fed poking around her crime scenes who seems to know a hell of a lot more than he's saying--especially about the ghosts surrounding Darby and the murderer who's desperate for her attention.

A Man with One of Those Faces ~ Audiobook Review

 

The first time somebody tried to kill him was an accident.

The second time was deliberate.

Now Paul Mulchrone finds himself on the run with nobody to turn to except a nurse who has read one-too-many crime novels and a renegade copper with a penchant for violence. Together they must solve one of the most notorious crimes in Irish history...

...or else they’ll be history.

Welcome to Dorley Hall ~ Spotlight

What if the only way to fix toxic masculinity were to erase it entirely?

Mark Vogel is like the older brother Stefan never had, but one day he disappears without a trace. A year later, after encountering a woman who looks near-identical to Mark, Stefan becomes obsessed. He finds that dozens of young men have disappeared over the years, many of them students at the Royal College of Saint Almsworth, and most of them troubled or unruly. Why are students going missing? Who are these women who bear striking resemblances to them? And what is their connection to the selective student accommodation on the edge of campus, Dorley Hall?

Stefan starts studying at Saint Almsworth for one reason and one reason only: to find out exactly what happened to the women who live at Dorley Hall, and to get it to happen to him, too.

An electrifying début by Alyson Greaves, Welcome to Dorley Hall is an intense exploration of gender and society that will appeal to readers of Torrey Peters, Imogen Binnie and Gretchen Felker-Martin.

The Night Raven ~ Audiobook Review

Lydia has always known she has no power, especially next to her infamous and more-than-slightly dodgy family. Which is why she carved her own life as a private investigator far away from London. When a professional snafu forces her home, the head of the family calls in a favour, and Lydia finds herself investigating the disappearance of her cousin, Maddie. 

Soon, Lydia is neck-deep in problems: her new flatmate is a homicidal ghost, the intriguing, but forbidden, DCI Fleet is acting in a distinctly unprofessional manner, and tensions between the old magical families are rising. For seventy-five years, a truce between the four families has held strong, but could the disappearance of Maddie Crow be the thing to break it?

When We Were Friends ~ Book Review

They were best friends. Sisters of the heart. Partners in crime. Until they got caught…

Five years ago, Frannie Willets committed grand larceny to help her best friend, Lexi Maddox, escape an awful situation. Now paroled and prospectless, Frannie needs to disappear from her dead-end life. To do so, she’ll need her share of the stolen money that Lexi has been hiding all these years. But Lexi has other plans.

By all appearances, Lexi is thriving, but in truth, nothing in her life is going according to plan. She can’t carry a pregnancy to term, her sweet stepdaughter hates her, and even the family’s new rescue dog knows she’s a failure. Lexi’s only path to happiness is making amends with the friend she dearly misses. But the only thing Frannie wants from Lexi is cash.

Out of desperation, Lexi offers Frannie all the money, with one catch: Frannie must stick around for one month. Stranded in their suffocating small town, Frannie gets tangled up in Lexi’s issues, her mother’s questionable dating life, a lonely kid’s desperate attempts to find friends, and a high-school crush’s fantasies about what could have been. Suddenly, leaving doesn’t look as easy as it once did. But when an old enemy surfaces, Frannie realizes her staying endangers everyone she loves. And even though she might have found her heart’s true home, there’s no guarantee she can keep it.

Into the Fire ~ Audiobook Review

Taken from a group home at age twelve, Evan Smoak was trained as an off-the-books government assassin: Orphan X. After breaking with the Program, he reinvented himself as The Nowhere Man, a figure shrouded in shadows who helps the truly desperate. But the government didn’t let go of him easily, sending their best to hunt him down and eliminate him. All of them failed. With his deadliest enemies behind him, Evan is facing a new challenge—what is he going to do now that no one is after him?

Max Merriweather is at the end of his rope. Separated from the woman he loves and barely scraping by, Max is a disappointment to everyone in his life. Then his very successful cousin Grant is brutally murdered. Two months before, Grant left Max an envelope with instructions to take it to a reporter if anything happened to him. Now the reporter is missing and Max’s apartment is ransacked. A man at the end of his rope, he calls The Nowhere Man.

With mixed feelings, Evan takes on this mission, easily finding the men who are after Max and executing a plan to keep him safe. But it isn’t as obvious as it seems—and Evan finds himself enmeshed in one of the most challenging missions of his life, one that he can’t survive on his own. With the help of Joey Morales, a genius-level hacker and the last Orphan recruited into the Program, and the brilliant, off-the-books gunsmith, Tommy Stojack, Orphan X once more heads…Into the Fire.