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THE NIGHT HUNTER, by Natalie Moss, follows the return of Danielle and her sister Grace to their isolated family house nestled within a wildlife reserve. Disguised as a safari adventure, each sister invites two friends to ease the journey, which turns into a nightmare when a murder rocks their first morning in the bush. As the search for answers progresses, those involved are forced to confront difficult truths, complicated relationships, and the consequences of decisions made years earlier. The story combines mystery and suspense, with a strong focus on its central characters.

I found this to be an engaging read. I enjoyed the way Natalie Moss gradually revealed information at a steady pace, balancing the story with characters that felt like real people, complete with flaws, conflicting motivations, and personal histories that influenced their choices. Several twists caught me by surprise, and I appreciated that the revelations felt earned rather than simply inserted for shock value. The result was an engaging mystery that kept me curious about where the story was heading.

Thank you to Natalie Moss, Berkely Publishing Group, BookBrowse, and NetGalley for providing me with an advance review copy of this book. I enjoyed the suspenseful journey and the well-crafted mystery, and I look forward to reading more of the author's work. All opinions expressed are my own.

THE PIE & MASH DETECTIVE AGENCY is a cozy crime mystery about Jane Pye and Simon Mash, an eccentric millennial couple who impulsively enroll in a private-detective night class. As they tackle a real cold case involving the decades-old disappearance of women named Nellie Thorne (five vanishings over fifty years), they dive into the heart of the cozy mystery genre: amateur sleuthing, quirky characters, and fast-paced discovery. Armed with enthusiasm, trench coats, and minimal training, Jane and Simon navigate eerie legends and secrets, making this an inviting and accessible read for fans of lighthearted mysteries.

THE PIE & MASH DETECTIVE AGENCY is an engaging cozy mystery that stands out for its clever blend of humor, suspense, and amateur sleuthing. The layered mystery, paired with the dynamic of Jane and Simon's contrasting personalities, makes the novel both entertaining and smart. The intertwined timelines and unexpected twists kept the story fresh and compelling.

Thank you to BookBrowse, NetGalley, and Berkley Publishing Group for the advanced copy. Thanks also to JD Brinkworth for such an entertaining book—I look forward to the next!

Rosie Storey's DANDELION IS DEAD is chaotic, tragic, raw, and funny. What makes it special is the rollercoaster of emotions filled with contradictions. Poppy is grieving the loss of her sister, Dandelion, and clinging to her partner in an unfulfilling relationship. As an escape, she pretends to be Dandelion on a dating app, meeting Jake, who is newly divorced and spending weekends with his son, Billy. When Dandelion and Jake meet, something clicks.

The story is told in three parts: The Lie, More Lies, and The Truth. Poppy and Jake, both imperfect and flawed, tell their side of the story, and all the characters are rich and unforgettable. Even though the story starts out slowly, it picks up nicely, with secrets, trauma, and a complex, emotionally rich narrative that is unwilling to follow a straight line. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I believe it would make a great selection for a book club.

Thank you to BookBrowse, NetGalley, and Berkley Publishing Group for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review. And thank you, Rosie Storey, for this delightful and pleasantly surprising debut.

Margaret Finch is precise, intelligent, and invaluable to the charming botanist Dr. Deaver, whom she finds dead in his office. While others believe he died of natural causes, Margaret has her doubts, and her attention to detail makes her a perfect sleuth, quickly finding unlikely allies to help her uncover the truth.

I enjoyed every page of this charming, slightly offbeat mystery led by a clever, tenacious, and loyal protagonist. Margaret's scientific plant tidbits were curious and educational. If you like mysteries with quirky characters, precise schedules, and a hint of the strange, The Botanist's Assistant is for you!

Thank you to BookBrowse, NetGalley, and Berkley Publishing Group for the advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review. And of course, thanks to Peggy Townsend for this delightful read. I hope to meet Margaret Finch again!

Making Friends Can Be Murder is a cozy mystery with a unique premise. It revolves around a group of women ages 17 to 69, all named Sarah Jones, or so they think. When one of Sarah Jones is murdered, this group of unique personalities decides to go sleuthing to solve the case themselves, well, maybe with the help of a nun (with a mysterious past) and a couple of FBI agents because, of course, it is not just about murder.

The chapters, narrated by different members of The Sarah Jones Project, were a little confusing at the beginning, but then each Sarah Jones gets a nickname: their age. The main Sarah character, 30,  is a gym trainer, new to town, loves being part of TSJP, and works as an undercover agent for the FBI, all while getting tangled up in a fraud case. The other Sarahs include a crime blogger (69), two teachers (39 and 44), a nanny (27), and a high school kid (17). Their diverse backgrounds add a delightful touch of humor, making the story an entertaining and enjoyable read.

I thank BookBrowse and NetGalley for generously providing me with an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review. And, of course, a big thank you to Kathleen West for creating to this delightful read!

We'll prescribe you a Cat is a heartwarming and cozy series of short stories about people during troubled times visiting an elusive clinic in Kyoto that prescribes cats. Each chapter focuses on different patient-cat relationships, with the cats portrayed as therapeutic companions guiding their owners through their emotional turmoil. The stories are all cohesive and intertwined, and I found the main characters delightfully unusual. There is also an element of surrealism regarding the Doctor and the Nurse (why are people confusing them for someone else?), as well as the clinic (sometimes there, sometimes not).

I found this an uplifting and fun book that highlights the therapeutic power of cats (and possibly other pets), offering a unique perspective on the healing bond between humans and their feline friends. If you love heartwarming stories, quiet slice-of-life vignettes, and/or reading about the shenanigans of cats, this book is perfect for you! Also, the ending was quite a surprise!

Many thanks to BookBrowse, NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for this fun advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review!

The cleaner, by Brandi Wells, is such an odd book. The story is told through the eyes of an unnamed office cleaner who works the night shift. She is seen by few colleagues and appreciated by none. Sharing her work with the reader, we learn from the beginning that she is unreliable and falls into chaos in her efforts to help colleagues she feels responsible for, and to save the company from the CEO… at least this is what she thinks she is doing.

The general premise of the book sounded promising. But the constant invasion of people’s privacy (searching desk drawers, removing/destroying documents and personal belongings, even hacking computers) in order to sabotage those she thinks are ungrateful was bizarre, making her character unappealing. Unfortunately, the novelty of the story wore off quickly. There was no bombshell, just minor ebbs and flows that felt repetitive and went nowhere. The ending was a letdown.

Many thanks to Bookbrowse and NetGalley for the advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review!

Divorces can be messy. STRONG PASSIONS by Barbara Weisberg follows the story of the divorce battle between Mary and Peter Strong, offering an interesting look into married life and divorce in the late 1800s. In the first half, the author provides the perfect amount of background history on the couple and their families to give an understanding of important relationships. The second half reads like the transcript of the Strongs' divorce trial.
Mary Stevens and Peter Strong were born to privilege in New York. Mary was raised in a home with a puritanical atmosphere but slightly veered from the ideal of a passive, perfectly genteel young lady. Peter enjoyed the life of leisure of a well-to-do gentleman, the occupation of choice for many young men of his class, with his law degree from Columbia sitting on a shelf, unused. After marrying, Mary ceased legally to exist, and her desire for a dwelling of her own would never be realized: the couple lived at the Strong family estate in Queens, New York, under the thumb of Peter's mother. Peter, leading a free-wheeling carefree life on his mother's dime, often left Mary to fend for herself, providing no emotional support even during her miscarriages. Mamie and Allie, Mary's children, were her joy. Edward, Peter's widowed brother, was living in the bedroom across the hall from Mary and Peter.
The Strong v Strong Divorce Trial opened on November 23, 1865, lasted for five weeks and captivated the nation. Only seven months after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, the case provided a war-torn country with a shocking distraction and an unusual glimpse into the private world of New York's powerful and privileged elite. Peter and Mary each accused the other of adultery, requested a divorce, and asked for custody of the children. The freedom to legally remarry depended on obtaining a divorce decree, at least for the party judged innocent. The guilty party generally was barred from remarrying during the innocent party's lifetime. Peter demanded full custody of his daughters considering it to be his traditional paternal right. Mary having a will few could withstand, ran off with younger daughter, Allie, at the start of the trial.
Strong Passions reads like a novel, although it is a true story. The author makes the ins and outs of the late 1800s justice system (regarding divorce) in New York understandable. The obvious bias against women is an integral part of this story.
Thank you WW Norton & Company and BookBrowse for the print ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a moving story about the rescue of an injured baby Eastern Screech Owl named Alfie. It recounts a heart-warming story of dedication, perseverance, and ultimate success by both Safina and Alfie. It provides details about Alfie's progress and final release back into the wild, Safina's struggles helping Alfie, as well as the timing of her release to increase her chances of surviving in the wild, and how they create a strong bond that makes them integral parts of each other's lives. Amazingly, we watch how Alfie's instincts take over after being orphaned, learning how to hunt, fend off predators, find a mate, select appropriate nesting and living quarters, and raise her owlets - all while letting Carl Safina peek into her life. Interspersed with Alfie's story, Safina includes snippets of thoughts about philosophy, world religions and indigenous beliefs, and around the relationship between humanity and nature. This can sometimes be a little bit distracting from Alfie's story, but interesting as food for thought nonetheless.

This is a multi-generational story narrated by Minh (grandmother), Huong (daughter), and Ann (granddaughter). The story begins with Minh's death followed by Ann's return to her grandmother's decrepit house situated next to a Banyan tree, where she reconnects with her mother. It is in this house, full of keepsakes and secrets that we learn about their own stories of love, connections and pushbacks, contrasting how the different generations made their parent-child dynamics as well as mother-partner choices. We learn about Minh's time in Vietnam and her close relationship with Ann, Huong's relationships with men and her estranged daughter, Ann's pregnancy and her rocky relationship with her rich boyfriend and old friends. As Ann and Huong spend more time together, they reassess their relationships and goals in life, and begin to realize how truly they love each other. Thai's writing is descriptive, beautiful, heartfelt and piercing!

Set in 1740, this is the story of the treacherous journey of six English warships, the Wager among them, with the secret mission of capturing Spanish silver and gold near the tip of South America. While rounding Cape Horn, and battling an outbreak of scurvy, the weather conditions turned atrocious, and the Wager became separated from the rest of the squadron. Shipwrecked on a desolated island, the surviving crew struggles against the elements, splitting into two groups: one that mutinied against their Captain, David Cheap, and a smaller group that remained loyal to him. Five months after the shipwreck, self-elected Captain Bulkeley and his mutinous group of 80 members set off in a schooner, losing and abandoning more than half of its crew on their on their way to Brazil, eventually arriving back in England at the beginning of 1943.

Here their troubles continued, as the survivors made it back with conflicting stories, knowing that they were guilty of some crime or another that would earn them the death sentence. To justify his actions, John Bulkeley even published his story based on his personal log as a way of justifying their actions. Five and a half years after setting out from England, Captain Cheap arrived back in England along with two of his loyal men, ready to defend his honor. In an attempt to determine the truth, the English admirals start a trial to investigate these contradicting versions of the truth, and a way to contain the catastrophic results and costs of this expedition.

Based on personal and detailed diaries of the captains and seamen, this book has elements of true crime and history. It gives you a true sense of daily life on a ship, the crowded conditions, the dangerous work, deaths due to typhoid fever and scurvy, the starvation when supplies run low, and what struggling to survive in an inhospitable land does to your psyche, all described in chilling detail.

The story centers around a possible Nazi attempt to kill Franklin D. Roosevelt (USA), Winston Churchill (UK), and Joseph Stalin (USSR) while they met at the secret summit of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, in 1943, while WWII is raging. The book details the history of these three different men, how their countries were plunged into the war, the decisions they made to work together to strategically end WW2, and the very pressure this war has put upon them mentally, emotionally, and physically. In parallel, Franz Mayr, a Nazi spy in Iran, upon finding out about this meeting hatches a secret assassination plot that would have altered the course of the war and rewritten history. 

The book is easy to follow, with a clear and concise voice narration of the story that skillfully relates the drama and suspense involved, making it seem like historical thriller rather than a history book. I enjoyed the book and recommend it if you are interested in WWII, politics and a story that moves fast and never lets up. 

The Last Russian Doll is a sweeping historical fiction novel, with two equally compelling, engaging and entertaining storylines that blend past and present that interweave to build up a sense of mystery. Starting in Russia in 1915, Tonya's story spans decades encompassing the Revolution of October 1917, Russian Civil War, Stalinist purges of the 1930s, siege of Leningrad during World War 2 and beyond. All of these events affect Tonya and those close to her in dramatic ways, forcing her to make impossible choices to protect herself and those dear to her. Rosie's story takes place in 1991, an equally pivotal time in Russian history. Hers is the era of perestroika and glasnost that would ultimately result in the collapse of the Soviet Union, but a new regime does not mean that old wounds can be forgotten. These turbulent events in the country of Rosie's birth reflect her own life, where she continues to be haunted by memories and unanswered questions of her earlier life. A treat to read!

Inspired by true events, Take My Hand is a profoundly moving novel that moves between 2016 and 1973. Civil Townsend is a black nurse in 1970's Montgomery Alabama working at the Family Planning Clinic whose patients were mostly from poor black families. When Civil begins questioning whether India and Erica, just 11 and 13 years old, actually need birth control, she's reprimanded by the clinic's director. She also soon discovers that the non-FDA approved birth control (Depo-Provera) she is giving to the very young girls is controversial since it has shown links to cancer development. Throughout the chapters she worries about the young girls as if they were her own, even when the unthinkable has happens. Many years later, Civil needs to make peace with what happened forty some years earlier and retelling the story to her daughter Anne will hopefully bring it. Take My Hand is a well written, compelling, absorbing and captivating novel, were the protagonists refuse to be forgotten. Thank you Bookbrowse for the opportunity to read and review this advanced reader's copy of this book!