Audiobook Review: Bad Scene by Max Tomlinson

Bad Scene
Author: Max Tomlinson

Narrator: Margy Stein
Series: Colleen Hayes (Book 3)
Publication: Oceanview Publishing (November 22, 2021)

Length: 9 hours and 12 minutes

Description: 1978 San Francisco - a cult leader in Ecuador - one woman’s struggle to reconnect with her lost daughter before it is too late.

When PI and ex-con, Colleen Hayes, learns that a local neo-Nazi group is talking about shooting the mayor, she thinks it’s just another rumor - until her source, a humble street newspaper vendor, winds up in SF General, beaten to a pulp.

To add to her grief, she discovers that her runaway daughter, Pamela, might have joined a shadowy religious group, building a church in South America near a volcano that is about to erupt. Death is the path to perfection according to the charismatic young preacher - and the date is fast approaching.

Colleen is desperate to find a way to stop her daughter from making the ultimate mistake before she - along with hundreds of others - lose their lives.

My Thoughts: Colleen Hayes, ex-con and current PI, is looking for her daughter Pamela in 1978 San Francisco. She and her daughter have had a bad relationship ever since Colleen killed her ex-husband who was abusing Pamela and spent nine years in prison. 

Pamela is the sort of young woman who falls for every sort of cult that is available to her. After leaving a cult most known for dealing drugs, she has fallen into a suicide cult heading for a Jonestown-like solution. 

While Colleen is searching for Pamela, she uncovers a plot to kill the mayor which she is eager to pass on to the cops who don't seem to do anything about it. Colleen's investigations also take her into neo-Nazi territory where she attends a rally with a member of a biker gang who might have information about Pamela's whereabouts. 

A trip to Ecuador to rescue her daughter from her latest folly is also a part of this story. She finds a pregnant Pamela and brings her back to San Francisco where they can work on their relationship if Colleen can keep them both alive. 

I enjoyed this mystery both for its strong main character and for the setting. San Francisco in the 1970s is set out in great detail for the reader. 

I bought the Kindle copy July 26, 2022, and the audiobook odd-on July 3, 2026. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Brimstone Hollow by Archer Sullivan

Brimstone Hollow
Author: Archer Sullivan
Series: Annie Gore (Book 2)
Publication: Minotaur (August 11, 2026)

Description: Following her powerful debut in The Witch’s Orchard, private investigator Annie Gore returns in Brimstone Hollow, bringing readers back to the mountains that author Archer Sullivan, a ninth-generation Appalachian, knows so well.

There isn’t much that happens in the Appalachian Mountains that Private Investigator Annie Gore hasn’t seen. Before she was an Air Force Special Investigator, she was born and raised in those rolling hills, and lately Annie's cases have called her away from her Louisville office and closer to the small towns of her youth than she ever anticipated. But when her newest client asks if she’s ever been to a snake-handling church, Annie knows she’s about to enter unknown territory.

Katie May has been estranged from her father―one of Appalachia’s last infamous snake handling preachers―for twenty years. But when Katie finds out he’s been fatally bitten, and a funeral was held within twenty-four hours, she questions whether someone deliberately rushed the process. Despite Annie’s doubts, she takes the case. After all, when she looks at Katie, she sees a version of herself: a girl who needs to understand her father in order to understand herself.

As she navigates the hidden hollers and dangerous secrets of this insular Eastern Kentucky town, Annie works fast, hoping to find the truth in record time for her client―and before too many memories from her own childhood surface. But it soon becomes apparent that someone wants Annie’s investigation to stop―by any means necessary.

My Thoughts: Private Investigator Annie Gore is sitting in her office one day doing paperwork when her next client walks in. Katie May has been estranged from her father for more than 20 years, but when she learns he has died and been buried within 24 hours, she wants to know if there was something fishy going on. 

Annie finds herself deep in the Appalachian Mountains looking into the death on one of the few remaining snake handling preachers. Annie has found herself in a town filled with secrets and with preacher Ezra King's death being only the first in a series. 

Annie does get some help from the local Chief of Police but his is very busy with the Memorial Day festivities and crowds along with a fatal house fire. When Annie's beloved car's brakes are tampered with, she knows she's attracted someone's attention. And when the likely suspect for the tampering is also found dead, Annie has even more questions. 

As she uncovers the preacher's secrets connections are made to drug dealing and gambling. All of these activities are taking place in an insular mountain town also filled with secrets. 

I enjoyed this story. I liked that Annie took on her most recent client to help her learn about her father which reminds Annie of her own search to learn her father's secrets. The setting was wonderfully realized, the action nonstop, and the characters intriguing. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: The Matchmaker's Cottage by Kat Sloane

The Matchmaker's Cottage
Author: Kat Sloane
Publication: Berkley (August 11, 2026)

Description: A cozy fall romance wrapped in small-town charm reunites the owner of a bed-and-breakfast with her childhood sweetheart for a celebrity matchmaking scheme which has them both seeing stars

Julia Schaeffer might run the most romantic little bed-and-breakfast in Upstate New York, but as far as that infuriating Ethan Duchamp is concerned, this older, wiser Julia has a strict “no vacancy” policy. Sure, she’s teetering on the edge of a financial cliff, and his half-baked plan to pair up his celebrity clients at her inn will undoubtedly be good for business…but how much forced proximity with the man who abandoned her is she supposed to take?

Ethan needs this to work. The dreamy, autumnal—and blissfully secluded—cottage from his childhood summers is the ideal setting for playing matchmaker to Hollywood’s next power couple. It’s the only way to save his PR career from the tabloid toilet. He knew that the inn and Julia’s warm, comforting homemade touch would inspire real feelings—he just didn’t expect them to be his. Again.

But as old wounds reopen, and their connection rekindles, Julia and Ethan are forced to confront the truths they’ve both tried to bury. In a town where nothing stays hidden for long, they’ll have to decide if they can rebuild what was lost—or if their second chance will be derailed by scars that have yet to heal.

My Thoughts: Best friends from childhood through college reunite in this romance set in a bed-and-breakfast in Upper New York State. 

Julia Schaeffer has purchased the summer camp where she and Ethan Duchamp spent most of their childhood summers. She's turned it into a B&B but is drowning under the bills that have piled up. She's always suffered from anxiety attacks, but they are definitely getting worse with the current stress.

Ethan works for a PR firm and, after a PR disaster, needs a win. He chooses Julia's inn as the place to publicize a PR romance between two young stars - Katy and Noah - who have their own reasons for PR to distract from problems in their lives. 

Katy and Noah became friends while working on a movie together and are scheduled to star again in the sequel. They are good buddies, but there is no romance between them. The romance that grows at the B&B is that between Julia - called Gem by Ethan since they were kids - and Ethan. Each has mental health issues of various kinds and a great fear of ever beginning something again with the other. 

Add in a new romance between Katy and Julia's cook/housekeeper and the arrival of a former client of Ethan's who has fabricated a romance between the two of them and you have a tense and twisty sort of romance. 

Fans of romances with real-life touches will enjoy this story. I found the relationships among the various characters to be interesting and complex enough to make the romance between Julia and Ethan sort of secondary to the story. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Death at a Scottish Halloween by Lucy Connelly

Death at a Scottish Halloween
Author: Lucy Connelly
Series: Scottish Isle Mysteries (Book 5)
Publication: Crooked Lane Books (August 11, 2026)

Description: When Dr. Emilia McRoy stumbles upon a dead body in a haunted house, she resolves to find the killer before another body can fall.

Halloween isn’t the only cause for fright in the fifth Scottish Isle mystery, perfect for fans of Paige Shelton and Connie Berry.

It’s the week of Halloween—or as they say in Scotland, All Hallows' Eve—and the town of Sea Isle is full of spooky celebrations. Dr. Emilia McRoy loves being part of her new community and is eager to help out in any way she can. But the festivities are interrupted when she and her assistant, Abigail, find a dead body in a haunted house. A real one. They’re too late to save the victim, but they’ll do whatever it takes to find his killer.

There’s just one problem: There are too many suspects.

Constable Ewan would prefer the good doctor and her friends stay out of the investigations, but that isn’t how Dr. Em rolls. As she and her gang investigate, they realize the killer is searching for something—and has no problem murdering anyone who gets in the way of finding it.

Dr. Em must stay one step ahead if she’s to survive this Halloween season alive—either that or she might just end up the next victim.

My Thoughts: It is Halloween week in Sea Isle and the town goes all out to celebrate. Dr. Em and her friends are all involved in the local haunted house. However, they aren't expecting to find a murdered man in one of the exhibits. And certainly not one killed by the butcher knife that was part of Em's tableau. 

Duncan Craig was an artist who also worked on offshore oil rigs. He was a newcomer to the town. His sister and best friend were working on his tableau with him but went ahead of him to the pub while he rearranged the scene a bit. Em and Abigail discover the body when they are checking that no one was left behind after closing. 

The big surprise comes the next day when a woman with a small child comes to identify Duncan's body. However, neither his sister nor his best friend knows her. She is apparently looking for a different Duncan Craig. This one owns an antiques shop and was off on a buying trip attending estate sales in the area. 

Ewan and his deputies are now on the hunt for the missing Duncan Craig while trying to figure out who stabbed the other Duncan Craig.

Unfortunately, Em discovers a man slumped outside her doctor's office door when returning from another festivity. This one turns out to be the missing Duncan Craig. He appears to have died of being frightened to death. He had undiagnosed diabetes and an enlarged heart which contributed to his death. 

These murders are baffling. Is someone out to rid the world of Duncan Craigs? Do the two men have anything in common? Ewan and Em and her Scooby gang have their work cut out for them in this fifth in the Scottish Isle Mysteries series. And they have to fit their investigations in around a variety of Halloween celebrations. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: Shattering Dawn by Jayne Ann Krentz

Shattering Dawn
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz
Narrator: Eva Kaminsky
Series: The Lost Night Files (Book 3)
Publication: Recorded Books (January 7, 2025)
Length: 8 hours and 43 minutes

Description: An unsettling investigation teaches two suspicious people how to trust, in the next thrilling novel of the Lost Night Files trilogy by New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz.

Amelia Rivers, a member of the Lost Night Files podcast team, hires private investigator Gideon Sweetwater to catch the stalker who has been watching her. Amelia suspects that whoever it is may be connected to the shadowy organization responsible for the night that she and her two friends lost to amnesia—a night that upended their lives and left them with heightened paranormal talents.

Gideon believes that Amelia is either paranoid or an outright con artist, but they have a chemistry he can’t resist. He takes the case despite his skepticism. For her part, Amelia has second thoughts about the wisdom of employing the mysterious Mr. Sweetwater. She is wary of the powerful attraction between them and deeply uneasy about the nightmarish paintings on the walls of his home. She senses these were inspired by his own dreams.

Amelia knows she doesn’t have time to find another investigator, and Gideon is forced to reckon with the truth when he disrupts what was intended to be Amelia’s kidnapping. Now the pair is on the run, with no choice but to return to the haunting ruins of the old hotel where Amelia’s lost night occurred. They are desperate to stop a killer, as well as the people who are conducting illegal experiments with a dangerous drug designed to enhance psychic abilities. If they are to survive, they will have to trust each other and the passion that bonds them.

My Thoughts: The final book in the Lost Night Files trilogy stars Amelia Rivers and Gideon Sweetwater. 

Since her lost night, Amelia has had her psychic gift of aura reading enhanced. She has also developed a phobia about the dark of night and attracted a stalker. She goes to private investigator Gideon Sweetwater for help finding and discouraging her stalker. 

Gideon is still recovering from a previous case when he rescued a young man from a cult. He has a stalker of his own. Fascinated with Amelia, he decides to take her case despite his doubts about her aura reading ability. Gideon has psychic powers of his own which are causing problems in his life. 

They travel to the deserted desert hotel where the events of Amelia's lost night occurred and make some discoveries and learn more about each other. 

This episode brings many of the events of the trilogy to a satisfying conclusion while still leaving the door open for further books. I enjoyed the romance between Gideon and Amelia. The growing relationship between Gideon and Amelia entertaining to watch. I also enjoyed the paranormal aspects of this story.

Fans of the earlier books in this trilogy will also enjoy this concluding story.

I bought this one November 11, 2025. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Murder at Blackfriars by Jennifer Ashley

Murder in Blackfriars
Author: Jennifer Ashley
Series: A Below Stairs Mystery
Publication: Berkley (August 11, 2026)

Description: In Victorian London, valiant cook and amateur sleuth Kat Holloway must help the man she loves solve the murder that will finally uncover his mysterious past, from the New York Times bestselling author of A Silence in Belgrave Square.

Kat Holloway’s beau, Daniel McAdam, has always had a past shrouded in mystery. He knows nothing about his origins, only that he was rescued from the streets many years ago. So when someone claiming to know where Daniel came from turns up dead moments before meeting with him, Daniel goes on the hunt for the killer. It soon becomes clear that to see justice served, Daniel will have to figure out who he truly is. When he asks Kat for her assistance, she readily complies, knowing she’ll do whatever she must to protect the man she’s come to love.

The quest takes Kat and Daniel deep into the East End, where they face dangerous foes from Daniel’s rugged past who will stop at nothing to keep Kat and Daniel from uncovering their secrets. As Kat begins to learn things about Daniel’s history, she fears that the darkest secret—his true name and lineage—will tear apart the tender bonds they’ve begun to form.

My Thoughts: This episode of the Below Stairs mysteries is filled with changes for the main characters and two different mysteries to solve. 

Kat Holloway's fiancé Daniel McAdam has received a message from a man who might be able to shed some light on Daniel's past. However, the man is murdered while on his way to a meeting with Daniel and Kat. It is not at all clear if he was killed because of the information he had for Daniel or for some other reason. 

As Kat investigates the man's lodgings, she meets a friend who tells her that the murdered man had a lead to a house that took in abandoned children but was dissolved when the woman who ran it died with the children sent to a workhouse.

Kat calls on her friends and resources to investigate further while Daniel is concentrating his investigation on finding the man's killer. He is reluctant to hope that the mystery of his past can have a solution.

Kat also receives a blow when she learns that the family that has been caring for her daughter since she was born will be moving away for a job opportunity. Her twice weekly visits with her daughter won't be possible because of the distance to the family's new home. She and Daniel need to save up funds before they can marry and provide a home for her daughter. 

Kat has also begun a new business selling baked goods at a local market as a first step in starting her own business when she marries. 

A lot of things happen in this episode. It is certainly one of changes for both Kat and Daniel. I enjoyed the mysteries. I love the Victorian detail that permeates the story. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (August 3, 2026)

 It's Monday, What Are You Reading? is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date.

It’s Monday!  What Are You Reading is where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week.  It is a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list.

Want to See What I Added to My Stack? links to Stacking the Shelves hosted by Marlene at Reading Reality.

Other Than Reading...

This was another nice quiet summer week. My brother and I went out to eat on Wednesday evening to use a coupon I had gotten from Texas Roadhouse. I'll finish my steak leftovers for dinner today. Otherwise, I spent a lot of time reading review copies, listening to audiobooks, and watching Braves baseball. 

This coming week will be busier. I have doctor's appointments Monday and Tuesday. Then the week goes quiet again. My appointment Tuesday is with my dentist. I really expect to be sent home unseen since my chronic cough is still very much present which may make cleaning my teeth difficult if not impossible. We are also thinking about going to Olive Garden for dinner this week but haven't made firm plans yet.

It took a couple of days into August, but I have finally gotten my review stack under 40. It is sitting at 39 as I'm writing this. I read five review copies this week and added three. I also added two audiobooks to my stack which join their Kindle copies. One has already been read and the second is on the stack for this week. 

July Report

I read 39 books this month. Twenty were mine and nineteen were review copies. Eighteen of the books I read this month were audiobooks for a total of a bit over 197 hours. This month most of the books I read came from my TBR mountain and my review stack. Only two of the books I read this month were rereads. 

I added 26 books to my LibraryThing account in July. Nine were audiobooks and eleven were review copies. I used five Audible credits. Five of my new additions are still on the TBR pile and are also on my calendar. 

Here is my State of the Stack post which helps me keep track of my review books. I didn't quite make my July goal of getting under 40 review books on my stack. The review stack is sitting at 41 books. I still have twelve September releases to finish even though I have already read four. I have another twelve on the October pile and eleven on the November pile. 

Read Last Week

• Until She Dies by Kendra Elliot (Review, September 8) -- Next in the Noelle Marshall series. My review will be posted on August 27.
• The Long Call by Ann Cleaves (Audiobook, Mine since July 21) -- First in the Matthew Venn mystery series. My review will be posted on August 26.
• The Shattered King by Charlie N. Holmberg (Audiobook, Mine since July 21) -- First in an epic fantasy duology. My review will be posted on August 28.

• The Chase by Felix Francis (Review, September 8) -- Classis Dick Francis mystery. My review will be posted on September 1.
• Back to the Garden by Laurie R. King (Audiobook Reread) -- First in the Raquel Liang series.
• Those Who Are Gone by Laurie R. King (Review, September 8) -- Second book in the Raquel Liang series. My review will be posted on September 1.

• The Heron's Cry by Ann Cleaves (Kindle mine since May 28, Audiobook mine since July 28) -- Second Matthew Venn mystery. My review will be posted on September 4.
• Fighting Edge by Margaret Mizushima (Review, September 8) -- Next in the Timber Creek K-9 mystery series. My review will be posted on September 2.
• Fury in Death by J. D. Robb (Review, September 8) -- Excellent entry in the In Death series. My review will be posted on September 3.

Currently

• The Mystic and the Missing Girl by Vikki VanSickle (Review, September 8)
• Golden in Death by J. D. Robb (Audiobook reread)

Next Week

• A Field Guide to Death & Deceit by Michelle L. Cullen (Review, September 15)
• The Case of the Christie Conspiracy by Kelly Oliver (Audiobook, mine since June 14)
• A Deadly Entanglement by Cathy Pegau (Review, September 15)

• I Am the Monster Under the Bed by Emily Zinnikas (Review, September 15)
• The Case of the Body on the Orient Express by Kelly Oliver (Audiobook, mine since June 14)
• Lily Starling and the Voyage of the Salamander by Christian Hurst (Kindle mine since May 13; Audiobook mine since July 31)

Reviews Posted

• The Night Island by Jayne Ann Krentz (Audiobook)
• Probable Caws by Donna Andrews (Review copy)
• Death on the Books by Victoria Gilbert (Review copy)

• A Trade of Blood by Robert Jackson Bennett (Review copy)
• Time Travel for Beginners by Jaclyn Moriarty (Review copy)
• (Mostly) Human Resources by Grace Viall (Review copy)

Want to See What I Added to My Stack Last Week?

Review:

• Written in Starlight by Sloane Brooks (Review, October 13)
• Sunflower Season by Danica Nava (Review, November 3)
• Thunderbird Ranch by Laura Griffin (Review, November 10)

Bought:

• Lily Starling and the Voyage of the Salamander by Christian Hurst (Audible Plus)
• The Heron's Cry by Ann Cleaves (Audible Credit)

What was your week like?