When Washington, DC homicide detective Marko Zorn is called to the city’s Cathedral, he finds a gothic scene: A bloodied corpse lies below the balcony, clutching a tarot card in its right hand.
It’s not just any corpse but that of the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington. And that card? A clue to the dead prelate’s mysterious past in the mountains of Mexico, where he witnessed the appearance of the cult of Holy Death.
No stranger to underworlds, Marko is swiftly drawn into a secret society—a world of incense and stained glass, stretching from that mountainous Mexican village all the way to the Vatican. The Archbishop’s murder, he learns, is part of a vast plot to infiltrate the Catholic Church and then extend Holy Death’s influence over secular society. The closer he gets to the cult’s heart of darkness, the more the bodies pile up.
Can Marko find the Archbishop’s killer and pull back the curtain on the cult before it is too late?
A spellbinding tale in the tradition of Dan Brown and David Baldacci, Day of Wrath is the most atmospheric novel of Eskin’s acclaimed Marko Zorn series.
My Review
Day of Wrath is going straight to the top of my favourite books of 2026 Part Three. Maybe even make my favourite books of the year. I adored it. I read it in two days. I love that it’s fast-paced, hard-hitting, filled with dark humour in Zorn’s musings and conversations, and entertaining. The relationship between homicide detective Marko Zorn and potty-mouthed partner Saoirse, who no-one wants to work with, is brilliant.
While Day of Wrath may not win any prizes for its poetic beauty, it packs the kind of punch that could knock you off your feet. First of all we have Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, Vincent Holmes, lying dead in the Cathedral, a Tarot card in his hand. There were two witnesses, a soppy nun-novitiate and a homeless man with a facial scar. What did they see?
It wasn’t an accident according to Zorn. Vincent Holmes was murdered. Who would have wanted him dead? Everyone loved him. So is it part of a plot by a murderous secret society known as the Holy Death cult, or Santa Muerte, who are trying to infiltrate the Catholic Church via the Vatican conclave? Once achieved, they can take over the world. Good old-fashioned stuff.
The plot is quite complicated, but having been partly brought up Catholic and having studied Catholicism as part of my degree, not to mention all the religious cult-based novels I’ve read over time, I probably know quite a lot about the Jesuits, and many unorthodox religious practices. Not that I’m suggesting the Jesuits are unorthodox. Or political. Heaven forbid.
Day of Wrath would make a great film or Netflix series. I’d certainly watch either.
Many thanks to @lovebookstours for inviting me to be part of the #DayofWrath blog tour.
About the Author
Otho Eskin burst onto the thriller scene in 2020 with his acclaimed debut novel, The Reflecting Pool, introducing readers to the unforgettable Marko Zorn—a Washington, D.C. homicide detective who plays by his own rules, never carries a gun, and is guided by a strong moral compass.
The Reflecting Pool was followed by Head Shot, Firetrap, Black Sun Rising, and most recently Day of Wrath, published on 14th July 2026. Each novel in the Marko Zorn series has received widespread critical acclaim, with several being named Amazon Editors’ Picks for Best Mystery, Thriller or Suspense.
Before becoming a novelist, Otho enjoyed a distinguished career as an attorney, serving in both the U.S. Army and the United States Foreign Service. His diplomatic postings took him to Washington, Syria, Yugoslavia, Iceland and East Berlin during the Cold War.
Throughout his career, he served as Vice-Chairman of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, participated in negotiations for the International Space Station, led negotiations on international seabed mining agreements, and represented the United States on the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. A fluent speaker of French, German and Serbo-Croatian, he also regularly addressed international conferences and testified before the U.S. Congress and government commissions.
His years in the Foreign Service provided a wealth of inspiration for his fiction. While stationed in East Berlin during the Cold War, the East German intelligence service (Stasi) included him in a propaganda publication titled Who’s Who in CIA, falsely identifying him as an American spy. The publication formed part of a wider Soviet-backed disinformation campaign aimed at undermining U.S. Foreign Service officers working overseas.
Alongside his novels, Otho is also an accomplished playwright. His works include Act of God, Murder as a Fine Art, Duet, Julie, Final Analysis, and Season in Hell, among others, and have been professionally produced around the world. Duet received its UK premiere at the Theatre at the Tabard in April 2024.
Otho Eskin lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife, writer Therese Keane, and continues to draw on his remarkable life experiences to create intelligent, compelling thrillers that combine authentic political intrigue with gripping suspense.
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+ audio book, childhood, family, fiction, folklore, ghosts, gothic, gothic horror, mythology, review, superstition, witches
The Ghost Woods by CJ Cooke
In the midst of the woods stands a house called Lichen Hall.
This place is shrouded in folklore—old stories of ghosts, of witches, of a child who was not quite a child.
Now the woods are creeping closer, and something has been unleashed.
Pearl Gorham arrives in 1965, one of a string of young women sent to Lichen Hall to give birth. And she soon suspects the proprietors are hiding something.
Then she meets the mysterious mother and young boy who live in the grounds—and together they begin to unpick the secrets of this place.
As the truth comes to the surface and the darkness moves in, Pearl must rethink everything she knew—and risk what she holds most dear.
My Review
My second book by this author. I was on the blog tour for The Lighthouse Witches a couple of years ago. This time I listened on Borrowbox.
I found The Ghost Woods very engaging and I really enjoyed it. It’s narrated by both Mabel in 1959 and Pearl in 1965. They are both sent to Lichen Hall where they will deliver their illegitimate babies, who will then be adopted. Numerous young women come and go – a few stay and work for the owners of the hall, the Whitlocks.
Pearl knows who the father of her baby is, but doesn’t reveal it to anyone. Mabel is very naive, saying she has never had an intimate relationship, but we, the reader, guess the truth. At least I did.
Pearl is educated, a nurse from a well-off family, but her parents don’t want the scandal of a child born out of wedlock, and the hospital where she works sacks her, saying she can’t come back after the baby is adopted. This is Scotland in 1965, no different from Ireland, the usual location for this type of story.
Lichen Hall is a peculiar place, with a history of superstition, witchcraft, and haunted ‘ghost woods’. In 1965, the ‘moody’ teenage grandson (today he probably be diagnosed with autism) of the Whitlocks keeps chickens in the woods and who are the mother and baby that everyone denies exist.
It all comes together eventually and the ending is quite sinister and horrifying in equal measures. Just up my street as I do love a Gothic tale.
About the Author
C.J. Cooke is an acclaimed, award-winning poet, novelist and academic with numerous other publications written under the name of Carolyn Jess-Cooke. Her work has been published in 23 languages to date. Born in Belfast, C.J. has a PhD in Literature from Queen’s University, Belfast, and is currently Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow, where she researches creative writing interventions for mental health. C.J. Cooke lives in Glasgow with her husband and four children. She also founded the Stay-At-Home Festival.
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An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland.
Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other’s fears, whims and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges—one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the island itself, with its mossy rocks, windswept firs and unpredictable seas.
Full of brusque humour and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story. Tove Jansson captured much of her own experience and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of the novels she wrote for adults. This new edition sees the return of a European literary gem—fresh, authentic and deeply humane.
My Review
I read this as the August choice with my U3A book club. It was suggested by a member of the group, Toby, who is Danish (though born and brought up in England) and had similar experiences as a child.
I have always been a fan of Tove Jansson and love the Moomins, but I had never read anything by her for adults. I also knew a fair bit about her.
Because I read this on my Kindle, the version I downloaded (and only me it seems) was the anniversary edition with another whole chapter by Sophia Jansson, Tove’s niece. Tove never had any children of her own. Sophia tells us a few interesting things. ‘Sophia’ in The Summer Book is based partly on her, partly on Tove’s childhood and partly made up. She tells us about the island where she spent summers with her grandmother ‘Ham’. Bringing us up to date, Sophia’s own first grandchild was born during Covid and Sophia had to isolate for two weeks before she could visit. Since then, her granddaughter has already spent summers with her on the island. According to Toby it is usual for Scandinavians to have holiday cottages where they spend months of the year.
But back to the book. Sophia, who is six at the start, is living with her elderly grandmother, and father (who takes a back seat in the story). Sophia’s mother has died, but we hear little about her. Grandmother tries to make the child’s life as normal as possible, more with physical activities than emotional support. This was the 1960s.
The book is a series of vignettes, and I have chosen a few examples. We all seemed to like the one about the cat. Sophia has a kitten called Moppy. She wants it to be a fluffy, soppy cat that sleeps on the bed and cuddles her. Unfortunately Moppy just kills things and brings them home. When visitors arrive who wanted a cat to keep the mice away, they got a fluffy lap cat. So they swap. But Sophia now misses Moppy so they swap back. No-one tells her that she made her choice and should live with it.
Then there is the poor child who comes to stay. She has never experienced Sophia’s lifestyle and everything frightens her. They are very unsympathetic and the child never comes again.
At one point, new neighbours build a large house nearby, which Grandmother thinks is unsuitable for the environment. And they still haven’t moved in, so she takes Sophia and they pick the padlock and break in. Not the best example to set a child.
I liked a lot of the stories, but there is no plot, so while I appreciate the beauty of the prose and the relationship between grandmother and granddaughter, I wouldn’t have wanted it to be any longer. I also found Sophia a bit of a brat (as I know did others), but again Toby told me that Scandinavian children are often much more forthright in their manner than us Brits, who would probably have reigned Sophia in much more. And been more overprotective.
Highly recommended as a book club choice.
About the Author
Tove Jansson was born and died in Helsinki, Finland. As a Finnish citizen whose mother tongue was Swedish, she was part of the Swedish-speaking Finns minority. Thus, all her books were originally written in Swedish.
Although known first and foremost as an author, Tove Jansson considered her careers as author and painter to be of equal importance.
Tove Jansson wrote and illustrated her first Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood (1945), during World War II. She said later that the war had depressed her, and she had wanted to write something naive and innocent. Besides the Moomin novels and short stories, Tove Jansson also wrote and illustrated four original and highly popular picture books.
Jansson’s Moomin books have been translated into 33 languages.
Something terrible has happened to Jack but no one seems to want to talk about it.
His uncles can tell him about everything from quantum physics to how to hunt for deer, but they can’t seem to tell him anything about their own sister or why Jack doesn’t feel sad for her in the way he should, or why Grandad tries to shoot Jack’s dad when he gets out of the hospital.
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Still, there’s work to be done in the oily wonderland of his uncles’ garage; there’s his beautiful aunt Rose to hypnotise him and his loving grandparents to console him; then there’s JJ, who wants to fight him one day and save him the next.
But with so many questions, in a family with so many secrets, it is difficult for Jack to understand the person he is becoming. How can a simple boy learn to become a king?
My Review
What a remarkable book this is. Ryan deals with suicide and mental health in such a sympathetic way. The writing is sublime and all the characters from fourteen-year-old Jack (he’s twelve at the beginning of the book), to his uncles Theo and Haulie, uncle JJ (who is only two years older than Jack but has learning difficulties), his grandparents and his Auntie Rose. Jack fantasises about Rose, but then she’s beautiful and he’s a hormonal teenager. She is still his Mam’s sister however.
I felt really sorry for Jack’s father, Tom. I thought that there was a tiny bit of blame placed on him just because he’s an immigrant. Almost as if no-one is surprised he went a bit doolally. After all, he’s from Czechoslovakia. I know, because my parents emigrated from Eastern Europe during the war. Maybe that’s why Where Are The Kings resonated with me more than Heart Be At Peace. It’s also unusual for the father to be institutionalised for mental illness, rather than the mother. Women were usually the ones treated for their ‘nerves’.
My mother suffered from chronic anxiety and agoraphobia and talked endlessly about how she would throw herself out of the window if she went upstairs, or stab herself with the scissors if you left them near her. Only she never did either. But Jack’s Mam drowned herself in the lake and we travel through Jack’s feelings as the story progresses. We don’t discover why she did it until the end of the book.
Where Are The Kings is very moving and I confess I cried buckets at the end. I’ll be looking out for more works by this author in the future.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of the #RandomThingsTours #blogtour
About the Author
Donal Ryan is an award-winning author from Nenagh, County Tipperary, whose work has been published in over twenty languages to major critical acclaim. The Spinning Heart won the Guardian First Book Award, the EU Prize for Literature (Ireland), and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards; it was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was voted ‘Irish Book of the Decade’. His fourth novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018, and won the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His novel, Strange Flowers, was voted Novel of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was a number one bestseller, as was his most recent novel The Queen of Dirt Island, which was also shortlisted for Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. Donal lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. He lives with his wife Anne Marie and their two children just outside Limerick City.
The first standalone thriller from the Sunday Times No.1 bestselling author of the Robert Hunter series. Chris Carter as you’ve never read him no murder, no gore – just pure, relentless suspense.
Sam Stewart has escaped her abusive husband. She has taken him to court. She has watched him sent to prison. But Nelson Stewart leaves her with one chilling message. He will come for her. No matter how long it takes.
Given a new name and a new identity, Sam becomes Mary Smith and starts again. But Mary knows Nelson. She knows what he is capable of. And she knows that prison might not be enough to keep him away.
Now she is trapped in a deadly game of hide and seek – one where nothing is what it seems, and revenge is the prize.
A propulsive, twist-filled standalone thriller from one of the world’s most compulsive storytellers.
My Review
The first standalone from Chris Carter and how different this was from the Robert Hunter serial killer thriller series. It has more twists and turns than the Monaco Grand Prix, and more surprises than a child’s birthday party. Only this is no teddy bear’s picnic.
I’ve never been so conflicted about a main character as I was about Sam/Mary. I have to admit there were times when I really liked her, but at others I found her hard and manipulative. But which is the real Mary?. You’ll never guess (unless you have an inroad into Chris Carter’s brain and that would be seriously scary). Just when you think you know what’s going on, the plot changes track and you no longer know where you are.
I can’t pretend I liked it quite as much as the Robert Hunter books, but that’s probably because I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to crime fiction – a murder takes place , the police look for the killer, then the bodies pile up etc. But when a book comes from the pen of one of our most talented and prolific crime writers, you know it’s going to be great.
Incidentally I listened on Audible and that was also very different. The dog was happy because she got longer walks so I could keep listening. And I walked alone so I didn’t have to chat to anyone!!
About the Author
Born in Brazil of Italian origin, Chris Carter studied psychology and criminal behaviour at the University of Michigan. As a member of the Michigan State District Attorney’s Criminal Psychology team, he interviewed and studied many criminals, including serial and multiple homicide offenders with life imprisonment convictions. He now lives in London. Visit his website www.chriscarterbooks.com
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In 50,000 acres of remote Scottish mountains and moor sits Dorcha Hall: a former hunting lodge nestling amongst ancient forests, on the shores of the enigmatic ‘Black Loch’.
At night, lights glow from within, smoke curls from its chimneys, and in the forgiving murk of the gloaming, it looks magical. In daylight, its mouldering plasterwork and failing plumbing present a less romantic reality.
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Dr Ava Dickens has come to Dorcha to visit her godson, Alastair – a young man whose parents’ sudden death has taken him from a quiet life in academia to owning Loch Dorcha. He and his very new wife are convinced the only way to make the estate work is to run the Hall as a hotel. But Ava is a rigorous scientist, her specialty animal behaviour, and she is by no means certain that the evidence is indicative of a successful outcome.
When one of the hotel guests is found dead in his bed, having gulped down poisonous insect repellent rather than the whisky sitting next to it, Ava’s knowledge of the female Culicoides impunctatus – aka the Highland midge – leads her to doubt that it was an accident. And worse is to come…
My Review
All the references to insect species and their various attributes could have been really boring, but they weren’t. They made the book for me. It was often hilarious.
‘Do you know how many sensory receptors a female midge has on her antennae?’ Dr Ava Wickens asks Professor Wick. ‘Go on guess.’
‘Surprisingly, no, doctor.’
‘Have a guess.’
‘Ten.’
‘More.’
‘A million.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! The answer is approximately two hundred and forty-one.’
However, I did guess the murderer quite early on even if, like Wick I didn’t know anything about the female Culicoides impunctatus – aka the Highland midge – and I was glad that I was right. Ghastly person!
Ava is like a younger version of Miss Marple, unmarried, no children, and the tenacious grip of a Jack Russell with a frisbee. She’s not going let it go. She bounces her ideas off Wick.
Ava’s godson Alistair has been married to Fiona for barely a year. His parents both died in a car crash. His father was known to be a drunk and no foul play was ever considered. But then Mr Baumgarten is found poisoned in his bed, and the police say he mistook the insect repellent for his whisky, but Ava is not so sure they are right.
My only criticism of the book is that it is rather long, but so many novels are these days. Once I started reading for its own sake rather than getting to the denouement, I really enjoyed it.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #BeastsoftheBlackLoch #blogtour
About the Author
Dr. Gay Marris is a retired research scientist. Her career focused on insect ecology, parasites and honey bee health. Her first novel, The Curtain Twitcher’s Book of Murder, set in the suburbs of the deceptively dangerous suburbs of 1960s London, where she grew up and was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey First Novel Prize.
Her second novel, The Beasts of the Black Loch, is the first in the Natural History of Murder series. Gay now lives in York with her husband, a cat and a tortoise.
Saira, Areen, Ashar and Usman dreamed of leaving Pakistan and building new lives far from the shadows of their past.
For years, the group has harboured a terrible secret, one that poisons Areen from within and pulls the others apart.
Tour Dates : Monday 10th August- Sunday 16th August
Publisher: The Dreamwork Collective
Genre: Contemporary Literary Fiction
Pages: 298
Instagram Handle: @safinah.danishelahi
They have tried to outrun that night, to forget what was lost and what they did – but the past has a will of its own. Now scattered across continents, the friends find that some histories cannot be left behind.
When Areen’s life is – once again, it seems – in jeopardy, the other three are pulled back into her orbit. Old wounds resurface and each of them must face the truth about their friendship, who they were, what they became, and the things they can never undo.
My Review
Chasing Shadows in Borrowed Light is all about relationships, guilt and secrets. The four main characters have been friends from their youth and can never really break the bond that ties them. All because of one night and what they did.
Saira and Areen are still freinds, though they live across continents. Areen is an artist in America, while Saira still lives and works in Pakistan in the film industry. Areen is vulnerable and needy, but eventually we understand why. It does not make for easy reading.
Usman is still in love with Saira even though he fled Pakistan straight after that night to go to university in America. His family didn’t want him involved in something that could damage his future career. He married someone else and he truly loves her. So did Saira, but after having two children together, they split up.
Asher is my favourite character in the book. He was also friends with Areen, but he moved to Australia.
We follow all four as their lives intertwine again after more than a decade apart. As I said before, it is not easy reading. And while I enjoyed the book and it is beautifully written, with exquisite characterisation, it is hardly a laugh a minute, and I did feel sad at the end.
Many thanks to PalamedesPR for inviting me to be part of this #blogtour
About the Author
Safinah Danish Elahi is a lawyer, novelist and a poet. She has earned her MFA in publishing and contemporary fiction from Emerson College, Boston. She has authored three books, a collection of poetry by the name, The Unbridled Romance of Love and Pain and the novel, Eye on the Prize which has been converted into a TV series named Dauur. Her third book, The Idle Stance of the Tippler Pigeon has been launched in the UK by Neem Tree Press and shortlisted for the Asian Fiction Prize 2023. She is also the founder of an award-winning independent publishing house, Reverie Publishers. She was the official nominee from Pakistan for the prestigious International Writers’ Fall.
A budding crime writer, a death at a literary festival and a satirical peek into the world of publishing
Handsome, debonair Nigel Inchcock is a talented crime writer working on the next global bestselling thriller. Or so he believes. In his early thirties and still living with his ageing mother, his writing career is taking time to kick-start, hampered by his warped sense of self-belief. From attempting to woo literary agents and library assistants, to becoming a victim of his own research, we follow Nigel on his turbulent journey through the bewildering world of publication.
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While attending a series crime writing festivals, Nigel befriends octogenarian author Edith Sparrow, after which his writing career takes an unusual turn. An accidental murder, the unintentional theft of a manuscript and the devious misuse of intellectual property leads to some unexpected publishing scandals that will change Nigel’s world.
My Review
I once told someone I’d only just met that I was writing a book about a female serial killer and it was ‘dark humour’. He looked at me a bit weird. How can a book where someone gets murdered be funny? Think Killing Eve I suggested. OK, that’s a bit extreme, but crime fiction can be funny so long as you don’t go in for really gruesome details. And Confessions of a Crime Writer IS hilarious.
Budding crime writer Nigel Inchcock may believe he is talented, debonair and handsome, but in reality he is awful, be it in an almost lovable way. Well his mum loves him. Jennifer Primrose at the Library thinks he’s stalking her. When he gets a job there, she leaves, saying she is being stalked. Nigel questions who it could possibly be. Yes, he’s that dense.
Then there’s Marion Winterbottom, who Nigel is convinced is a literary agent. He asks her on a date, which she accepts, but it goes disastrously wrong. It’s her dog you see. It doesn’t like him. But octogenarian author Edith Sparrow’s dog Riddles – or Widdles as she pronounces it with her lisp – adores him.
When Nigel attends a famous crime festival, there’s a murder, and Nigel becomes the prime suspect. But there’s doggy DNA on the victim, as well as human. And poor Riddles is implicated.
‘Her dog,’ said Best. ‘Jesus, the old biddy had a dog! The DNA! We need to question Mrs Sparrow’s dog.’
This is so my type of book. I love a bit of crime humour, and occasionally as in the ‘we need to question the dog,’ it slips into the absurd. All the better as far as I’m concerned.
As an aside, I love this self-insertion by the author.
Sally scrolled a little further through the thread … she looked down at the list of names:
Hugh Smith – Evening’s Standards
Louise Mangos – The Beaten Track
Nigel Inchcock – untitled spy thriller
… Flannery hadn’t been quick enough to send her an offer before she was snapped up by another agent right after the festival …”
But seriously this book is so entertaining I read it in two and a half days. I adored Edith Sparrow and I’d love to see a picture of Widdles, sorry Riddles, please.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours #blogtour
About the Author
Louise Mangos grew up in the UK but has spent more than half her life in Switzerland. Her debut psychological thriller Strangers on a Bridge was a finalist in the Exeter Novel Prize and long listed for the Bath Novel Award. The psychological thriller The Beaten Track and her historical mystery The Secrets of Morgarten were both finalists in the Page Turner Awards, while the psychological whodunnit Five Fatal Flaws reached the shortlist. She also writes short stories and flash fiction which have won prizes and been published in various anthologies. She holds an MA in crime writing at UEA.
Louise lives on an Alp with her Kiwi husband and two sons, and when she’s not writing you can find her on the cross-country ski trails or wild swimming in the lake, depending on the season.
Inspired by an infamous real-life case, The Mourning Necklace is an unforgettable historical novel from the Women’s Prize-longlisted author of The Maiden, Kate Foster.
They said I would swing for the crime and I did. I wear the rope-bruise like a necklace.
1724. In a tavern just outside Edinburgh, Maggie Dickson’s family drown their sorrows, mourning her death yet relieved she is gone. Shame haunts them. Hanged for the murder of her newborn child, passers-by avert their eyes from her cheap coffin on its rickety cart.
But as her family pray her soul rests in peace, a figure appears at the door.
It is Maggie. She is alive.
Bruised and dazed, Maggie has little time for her family’s questions. All that matters to her is answering this will they hang her twice?
My Review
I’m a huge fan of Victorian Gothic mysteries so my first Kate Foster read The Repentants was a little early for me, set in Scotland in 1790. The Mourning Necklace, also set in Scotland, begins in 1724, so even earlier. But no matter as I loved this as well.
The books opens with Maggie Dickson surviving her own hanging. How is that even possible? She wakes up in a coffin and makes her way home to her family. The revelation is far more complicated than a simple survival. But we have to read on to find out.
The book then goes back in time to tell us how Maggie ended up being hanged and what for. Nowadays it beggars belief, but that’s how things were for women in the 18th century.
Maggie is a brilliant character and there were others I really loved too. Particularly Mrs Rose, aka Dorothy, who starts off as a thief and a whore, but ends up as Maggie’s best friend. Maggie’s sister Joan not so much, to be honest she’s an idiot, but she is no doubt a reflection of the times. Maggie’s husband Patrick Spencer, who claims to have been press ganged into the navy after they’ve only been married a few months, is also an unlikable character.
I listened to The Mourning Necklace with Borrowbox and thoroughly enjoyed the Scottish narration.
About the Author
Kate Foster worked as a national newspaper journalist for more than twenty years before becoming an author. Growing up in Edinburgh, she became fascinated by its history and often uses it as inspiration for her stories. Her debut novel, The Maiden, won the Bloody Scotland Crime Debut of the Year in 2023 and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2024. She lives in Edinburgh with her two children.
Bromgrove folk are dying to join Fitness for All. A friendly little gym where everyone’s welcome. And everyone’s a suspect.
Paralympian Jack Donahue has always been the gym’s devastatingly handsome poster boy. Until now. Jack is found dead in the weights room. Bludgeoned with the same dumbbell that helped sculpt his world-class biceps!
Detective Gil Markham is called to investigate, with his loyal — and gloriously tactless — sidekick George Noakes never far behind. But the deeper they dig into Jack’s secrets, the more suspects they find.
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Behind his spotless public image, Jack wasn’t short of enemies. A spurned student with a grudge. A bitter ex-trainer. A girlfriend hiding secrets of her own.
Markham fears it all links back to a spate of attacks on the ladies of the Silver Swans barre group.
Before long, a second body falls. Then a third . . . both paid-up members of the gym.
Whoever’s behind these killings, they’re only just getting warmed up. Can Markham solve the case before they return to make it a personal best?
My Review
Crime in the Gym is Book 24 in the Detective Gil Markham series. While I know it is written as a standalone, it did take me quite a while to get to know the established characters like Markham himself, his ex-girlfriend Olivia, his possible love interest Detective Kate Burton, and of course his very un-PC partner George Noakes, to name just a few.
This time the victim is paralympian Jack Donahue. Jack is found murdered in the weights room, where he was training, bludgeoned to death with his own dumbbell.
Jack was a controversial figure, who had lots of fans, but also a few enemies. He could be arrogant and rude, but most people admired his determination and resilience after an accident left him in a wheelchair. And he happened to be drop dead gorgeous to boot.
In the meantime, three members of the mature ladies Silver Swans barre group have been sexually assaulted near the Fitness for All gym. But is there a connection? The MO is totally different and the victims have nothing in common with Jack. Except they all trained at the same gym. Then more bodies turn up.
It’s a complicated case for Markham and the team. And are they looking for more than one perpetrator? It’s a great holiday read, with plenty of humour and brutal characterisation at times. Just don’t be in a hurry to get to the end and enjoy for its own sake.
Many thanks to @ZooloosBT for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the Author
Catherine Moloney is a Liverpool writer of Irish-American heritage. After graduating in Jurisprudence from Jesus College (University of Oxford), she was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn. Despite qualifying as a barrister, her first love was English; this led to a PhD in English Literature at Birkbeck College (University of London).
In her academic career, she lectured and published widely on the subject of tuberculosis and nineteenth-century literature, but somehow managed to avoid contracting galloping hypochondria and turned her attention to crime fiction.
Connect with Catherine
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063675798722
Twitter/X: https://x.com/OnlyMoloney1
Website: https://www.catherinemoloney.com/
Goodreads:
www.goodreads.com
Purchase Links:
www.amazon.co.uk
+ female friendship, fiction, friendship, grief, loss, love, review
The Cartography of What Remains by Eva Schep (The Going Back Series Book #1)
She can go back. Not in memory. In fact.
Since Tomas died, Lena has made her life small enough to survive. The chipped cup on the left side of the sink. The bread folded twice. The keys in the bowl by the door.
And one impossible thing her grief allows.
She can step into the kitchen they shared and stand in the fixed afternoon light — close enough to count the threads at his cuff — watching her younger self refuse the coffee, the bread, the man across the table.
She goes back to gather evidence. Of his care. Of her failures. Of the small, ordinary cruelties that filled the last rooms of a love before a phone call ended it.
But the past keeps itself intact by making her harmless. Nothing she does there can be undone, or repaired, or forgiven.
And while she returns again and again to a room she cannot change, the present goes on without her — a stubborn downstairs neighbour, a colleague’s dry kindness, a woman who mends broken frames. Quiet edges, accumulating. Waiting to be lost by neglect as easily as the dead are lost by too much remembering.
My Review
I usually read crime, serial killer thrillers, and modern contemporary Gothic. I write crime, dark humour and magical realism. The Cartography of What Remains is not my usual genre, but I know I need to broaden my horizons (so long as it’s not sci-fi, high fantasy or horror).
Lena is widowed (though they weren’t actually married). She’s still young. Tomas died young. Every day she goes back and relives that last day, the chipped cup. the coffee, the bread, the forms that needed signing. Did she do something wrong? I can feel the guilt washing off her like the rain outside on her coat. It’s impossible for her to move forward until she can let go of the past.
In the meantime, Mrs Smit downstairs brings her home made soup. Pieter at the archive where they both work is rather annoying, but he’s trying to help in his own way. And then there is Noor who mends things. She offers to mend the broken frame of the office chair. Her workshop with the blue door is close by. Lena walks by but can’t allow herself to be friends.
It’s an emotional read which will stay with me for a long time. I am looking forward to book two in the series.
Many thanks to the author for an advance copy of the book.
About the Author
Eva Schep writes about the spaces between people — and the ones left behind when someone is gone.
The fiction lives where the literary and the quietly impossible meet, circling a single stubborn question: what do we owe the version of ourselves that remembers? These stories trade in the unreliable comfort of memory, the weight of ordinary objects — a chipped cup, a borrowed screwdriver, bread on a plate — and the small Amsterdam rooms where lives quietly come apart and, sometimes, begin again.
The Cartography of What Remains is the first short novel in The Going Back Series, coming August 2026.
Connect with Eva
Twitter/X: @Eva_Love_Story
Instagram: @author_eva_schep
If these walls could talk, they’d scream…
When Ellie moves into 1 Delaney Row, all she has to her name is the house, a small suitcase and the terrible secrets she’s desperate to keep. But what she doesn’t know is that her new home is already hiding someone else’s secrets – and the people determined to keep them are watching her.
#BuyerBeware X/Twitter @cathryanhoward #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours Instagram @cathryanhoward @randomthingstours @bantambooksuk #bookstagram #blogtour
When a grim discovery prompts Ellie to find out more about the house’s past, she unwittingly puts herself on a deadly collision course not just with her new home’s history, but with her own as well…
Inspired by so-called ‘stigmatised properties’ – houses with dark and violent pasts – Buyer Beware is an intricate puzzle-box of a thriller with a pulsing emotional heart, from an author at the very top of her game.
My Review
When my kids were at school, they weren’t very good at team sports (like me). Other mums would boast about how wonderful their kids were, so much better than mine. Then along came the grandson of a famous cricket commentator and everyone else paled in comparison.
And so it is with this book. There are average writers, there are good writers, and then along comes Catherine Ryan Howard, and the rest pale in comparison. OK, I exaggerate. There are lots of great writers, but you get my drift.
Buyer Beware could have been longer, but it wasn’t. That’s part of what I loved. The suspense, the action and the tension never let up. No waffling. No unnecessary musings on life.
Ellie owns a run down house she never knew she owned. And the neighbours can be a bit odd, particularly Annaliese. Hannah shocks her friends and her deeply religious mother by saying she doesn’t want to get married or have children. And Erin gives everything up to be with her useless partner Jason.
But how are they linked? And why is Ellie so hostile? And who are The Murder Club who meet in the pub once a month? They claim to know stuff and one of them believes he’s a bit psychic. Houses hold memories of evil Ellie is told. Or is it more than just memories?
Such a great read! Not my first by this author and certainly won’t be the last.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of the #BuyerBeware blog tour
About the Author
Catherine Ryan Howard is the author of nine novels including the no. 1 bestsellers The Nothing Man, 56 Days, The Trap and Burn After Reading. Her work has been shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best Novel, the Crime Writers Association New Blood and Steel Daggers, and Irish Crime Fiction Book of the Year multiple times. The screen adaptation of her lockdown thriller, 56 Days, is streaming now on Prime Video. She lives in Dublin.
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