Goodreads Blurb

“There’s a thousand scavengers in these woods.”

Before being promoted to detective, Carrie Santero was given a rare glimpse into the mind of a killer. Through her mentor, Jacob Rein–a seasoned manhunter whose gift for plumbing the depths of madness nearly drove him over the brink–she was able to help capture one of the most depraved serial killers in the country. Now, the discovery of a small human foot buried in the Pennsylvania woods will lead her to a decades-old cold case–and the darkest secrets of her mentor’s youth.

“Nobody trusts an animal that tries to eat its own kind.”

Thirty years ago, a young girl went missing. A police officer was murdered. Another committed suicide. The lives of everyone involved would never be the same. For three agonizing decades, Jacob Rein has yearned for the truth. But when Detective Carrie Santero begins digging up new evidence, she discovers some answers come with shattering consequences.

My Review

Wow, I don’t know how I never heard of Bernard Schaffer and his unstoppable books. When I should have been sleeping the story just kept getting better. Bernard’s detective experience definitely can be seen throughout the story. You cannot get a better story then from someone who lives through real life events. Bernard gave us a bad-ass lady detective named Carrie who works very hard to find the culprits and solve the murder mystery. She might be the envy of all the male policemen, but she is the detective you want solving crimes in your town. I was happy that a woman was the leading character in this story. I was utterly impressed with her forensics work when she was trying to get the fingerprints from a knife. She didn’t have the tools needed so she created her homemade fingerprinting chemicals. Please do not try this at home.

I loved that Bernard added a couple of different cases which made you feel like you were in the story trying to fight the bad guys and solve the cases. The story goes back to 1981, when a child goes missing. Ollie was the Chief of Police and he was such a gem. He was the true hero in this story. He was determined to find the missing girl and make sure the culprits pay for what they might have done. Ollie’s brother Ben was hardcore. That war scene will forever be engraved in my head haunting me. 

Some people do not deserve the praise of being a hero. After Chief Auburn died he was praised for standing up to the bad guys and killing each one, but if only the town knew how that story really went. I truly enjoyed this nonstop roller coaster thriller. As I read I tried searching for the culprit who killed the little girl. I wondered who might be the cop rapist impersonator? This was a wonderful detective mystery thriller. I rated 5 out of 5 stars.

Author Biography

Bernard Schaffer is the author of the Santero and Rein Thriller Series from Kensington Publications. 
Prior to that, he published multiple titles in a variety of genres as an independent author. Schaffer is the father of two children and a full-time police detective in Southeastern PA.

Goodreads Blurb

In the wake of a dark and brutal World War, the glitz and glamour of 1925 Manhattan shine like a beacon for the high society set, which is desperate to keep their gaze firmly fixed to the future. But Delphine Duplessi sees more than most. At a time in her career when she could easily be unknown and penniless, like so many of her classmates from L’École de Beaux Arts, in America she has gained notoriety for her stunning “shadow portraits” that frequently expose her subjects’ most scandalous secrets—for better or for worse. Most nights Delphine doesn’t mind that her gift has become mere entertainment—a party trick—for the fashionable crowd. Though her ancestor La Lune, the legendary sixteenth-century courtesan and—like Delphine—a witch, might have thought differently.

Then, on a snowy night in February, in a penthouse high above Fifth Avenue, Delphine’s mystical talent leads to a tragedy between two brothers. Horrified, she renounces her gift.

Devastated and disconsolate, Delphine returns to her old life in the south of France where Picasso, Matisse, and the Fitzgeralds are summering. There, Delphine is thrust into recapturing the past. First by her charismatic twin brother and business manager Sebastian in his attempts to cajole her back to work and into co-dependence, then by the world famous opera singer Emma Calvé, who is obsessed with the centuries-old Book of Abraham, written by the fourteenth-century alchemist Nicolas Flamel. And finally by her ex-lover Mathieu, who is determined to lure her back into his arms, unaware of the danger that had led Delphine to flee Paris for New York five years before.

Trapped in an ancient chateau where hidden knowledge lurks in the shadows, Delphine questions and in many ways rejects what and who she loves the most—her art, her magick, her family, her brother, and Mathieu—as she tries to finally accept them as the gifts they are and to shed her fear of loving and living with her eyes wide open. 

My Review

What a magical story filled with secrets, lies, mystery and ever lasting love. Delphine had suffered so much and with her mother’s magic she was able to get her vision back but at a cost. She was able to draw portraits of people while blindfolded which revealed secrets from the persons past. This gift was a cure and a curse. Most images depicted adultery, murders and dark fantasy. Because of the dark secrets she saw she gave up on her soulmate in order to save him, but she doesn’t realize that these images cannot be altered and they sometimes don’t seem what they are. Shadows seen in darkest can also give light to the secrets. Some secrets must be kept for the good of all. I rated 4 out of 5 stars.

Author Biography

New York Times Bestseller, M.J. Rose grew up in New York City mostly in the labyrinthine galleries of the Metropolitan Museum, the dark tunnels and lush gardens of Central Park and reading her mother’s favorite books before she was allowed. She believes mystery and magic are all around us but we are too often too busy to notice… books that exaggerate mystery and magic draw attention to it and remind us to look for it and revel in it. 

Her most recent novel TIFFANY BLUES (Atria/S&S) was chosen as an Indie Next Pick and takes place during the Jazz age at Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Long Island mansion/ art colony. 

Rose’s work has appeared in many magazines including Oprah Magazine and she has been featured in the New York Times, Newsweek, WSJ, Time, USA Today and on the Today Show, and NPR radio. Rose graduated from Syracuse University, spent the ’80s in advertising, has a commercial in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC and since 2005 has run the first marketing company for authors – Authorbuzz.com

The television series PAST LIFE, was based on Rose’s novels in the Reincarnationist series. She is one of the founding board members of International Thriller Writers and currently serves, with Lee Child, as the organization’s co-president.. 

Goodreads Blurb

The author of The Girl Who Came Home turns the clock back one hundred years to a time when two young girls from Cottingley, Yorkshire, convinced the world that they had done the impossible and photographed fairies in their garden. Now, in her newest novel, international bestseller Hazel Gaynor reimagines their story.

1917… It was inexplicable, impossible, but it had to be true—didn’t it? When two young cousins, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright from Cottingley, England, claim to have photographed fairies at the bottom of the garden, their parents are astonished. But when one of the great novelists of the time, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, becomes convinced of the photographs’ authenticity, the girls become a national sensation, their discovery offering hope to those longing for something to believe in amid a world ravaged by war. Frances and Elsie will hide their secret for many decades. But Frances longs for the truth to be told.

One hundred years later… When Olivia Kavanagh finds an old manuscript in her late grandfather’s bookshop she becomes fascinated by the story it tells of two young girls who mystified the world. But it is the discovery of an old photograph that leads her to realize how the fairy girls’ lives intertwine with hers, connecting past to present, and blurring her understanding of what is real and what is imagined. As she begins to understand why a nation once believed in fairies, can Olivia find a way to believe in herself? 

My Review

A magical story that keeps on being remembered after so many years. A cottage, a secret, a book store filled with wonders and some enchanting fairies. Fairies are they are real or are they not? I was so surprised to have learned that this book was taking us back to 1917, when one young girls said she saw fairies and with help of her cousin they took pictures of fairies that changed the world. Believers saw these images and were hopeful and inspired that yes fairies live among us humans. But the fifth picture they took can keep our hopes up. This book was truly captivating, hopeful and magical. I recommend this read especially, since they were true events from two cousins who shared a secret. Only reading will reveal the truth.  I rated 4 out of 5 stars.

Author Biography

Hazel Gaynor is the acclaimed New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author of A MEMORY OF VIOLETS and THE GIRL WHO CAME HOME, for which she received the 2015 Romantic Novelists’ Association Historical Novel of the Year award. Her third novel, THE GIRL FROM THE SAVOY, was an Irish Times and Globe and Mail bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Popular Fiction Book of the Year. In 2017, she published THE COTTINGLEY SECRET and LAST CHRISTMAS IN PARIS (co-written with Heather Webb). Both novels hit bestseller lists, and LAST CHRISTMAS IN PARIS won the 2018 Women’s Fiction Writers Association Star Award. Hazel’s most recent novel, THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER’S DAUGHTER, was an Irish Times and USA Today bestseller. Her latest novel MEET ME IN MONACO (co-written with Heather Webb) will be published in July 2019. 

Hazel was selected by Library Journal as one of Ten Big Breakout Authors for 2015. Her work has been translated into ten languages and is published in seventeen countries to date. She is co-founder of creative writing events The Inspiration Project, and lives in Ireland with her husband and two children. She is represented by Michelle Brower of Aevitas Creative Management, New York. 

Goodreads Blurb

Eighteen-year-old Stella Sandell stands accused of the brutal murder of a man almost fifteen years her senior. She is an ordinary teenager from an upstanding local family. What reason could she have to know a shady businessman, let alone to kill him?

Stella’s father, a pastor, and mother, a criminal defense attorney, find their moral compasses tested as they defend their daughter, while struggling to understand why she is a suspect. Told in an unusual three-part structure, A Nearly Normal Familyasks the questions: How well do you know your own children? How far would you go to protect them?

My Review

A page turner thriller that will keep you guessing until the very end. How far will you go to save your perfect family? Can the pastor father protect his daughter and find the true killer? Will the lawyer mom do everything in her power to save her daughter no matter what is at stake? 

Stella wasn’t the perfect daughter. She was spontaneous and did the opposite of what she was told to do. Her love for her best friend Amina will push boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. This legal thriller kept my interest and agony until the very end. Will a motive be found for the death of Chris and can you really prove Stella did it? I liked that the story was written in 3 different points of view. You find out her pastor father wasn’t as ethical as one might think. He did his personal investigation to find the true murderer to have his baby girl released. The relation between Stella and her dad was strong. He was always trying to protect her from her own self. Then the story switched to Stella and her bond for Amina is very eminent throughout her story. A bond so strong will keep secrets at bay and have you suffer in order to protect. Stella’s mom wished Amina was her daughter and would stop at nothing to protect Amina with secrets and betrayal to save the future. Will the perfect family leave this nightmare unscathed? You will need to read it to find out! I rated 4 out of 5 stars.

Author Biography

M. T. Edvardsson is an author and teacher from Trelleborg, Sweden. He is the author of three previous novels and two books for young readers in Sweden. He lives with his family in Löddeköpinge, Sweden.

Celadon Interview with Author

https://celadonbooks.com/a-nearly-normal-family-author-m-t-edvardsson/?fbclid=IwAR1dRrHpdyCPfrCaS6X5z7pghY80CnP5wOV0auXUrI1zF9fM0iKU9a9SvQk

Goodreads Blurb

England, 1815: Two travelers—Rachel Katzman and Liam Finucane—arrive in a field, disheveled and weighed down with hidden money. They are not what they seem, but colleagues from a technologically advanced future, posing as a doctor and his spinster sister. While Rachel and Liam aren’t the first team of time travelers, their mission is the most audacious yet: meet, befriend, and steal from Jane Austen.

Carefully selected and rigorously trained by The Royal Institute for Special Topics in Physics, disaster-relief doctor Rachel and actor-turned-scholar Liam have little in common except their extraordinary circumstances. Circumstances that call for Rachel to stifle her independent nature and let Liam take the lead as they infiltrate Austen’s circle via her favorite brother, Henry.

But diagnosing Jane’s fatal illness and obtaining an unpublished novel hinted at in her letters pose enough of a challenge without the convolutions of living a lie. While her friendship with Jane deepens and her relationship with Liam grows complicated, Rachel fights to reconcile her true self with the constrictions of 19th century society. As their portal to the future prepares to close, Rachel and Liam struggle with their directive to leave history as they found it…however heartbreaking that proves.

My Review

Absolutely a brilliant novel. Who wouldn’t like to time travel to save Jane Austen’s life? I loved both Rachel and Liam. They worked well together to get their mission accomplished. But sometimes things don’t go as planned. We as humans always have that need to help others who are in need. If you change something from the past this can cause an effect to events from the past and the present. I loved the interaction between them and Jane. I had my unanswered questions of knowing more about her. I wish we had more wonderful novels from Jane Austen. I was a little sad with the outcome of Rachel and Liam’s return. I was hoping that they were able to proceed with their mission, while not causing an effect to the future. Can we time travel and try to make changes while not changing our current life? One day we might find out. I rated 5 out of 5 stars.

Author Biography

Kathleen A. Flynn grew up in tiny Falls Village, Conn., the daughter of an electrician and a kindergarten teacher. Currently a copy editor at The New York Times and resident of Brooklyn, Flynn has taught English in Hong Kong, washed dishes on Nantucket, and is a life member of the Jane Austen Society of North America.

Goodreads Blurb

hane has been doing college all wrong. Pre-med, stellar grades, and happy parents…sounds ideal—but Shane’s made zero friends, goes home every weekend, and romance…what’s that? 

Her life has been dorm, dining hall, class, repeat. Time’s a ticking, and she needs a change—there’s nothing like moving to a new country to really mix things up. Shane signs up for a semester abroad in London. She’s going to right all her college mistakes: make friends, pursue boys, and find adventure! 

Easier said than done. She is soon faced with the complicated realities of living outside her bubble, and when self-doubt sneaks in, her new life starts to fall apart. 

Shane comes to find that, with the right amount of courage and determination one can conquer anything. Throw in some fate and a touch of magic—the possibilities are endless. 

My Review

A witty, funny, adventurous story with a second chance in finding true love and creating the life you always dreamed of. I really resonated with this story. Shane and I have plenty in common. I felt exactly like her the fear of traveling abroad by yourself and knowing deep in your heart what you want to do in life, but not having the courage to stand up for what you love. I truly enjoyed every minute of this book. I enjoyed the trips to Paris, Italy, Scotland and where the story took place in London. I haven’t traveled to Europe but looking forward to going soon. Paris would be my first stop. It’s great to see a young person enjoy life to its fullest, while finding love. Christine gave us a quirky fun time travel story filled with friendships, love, adventures, downfalls, reality, but most of all the power to change all that went wrong in Shane’s life and made her stand up for what she loved doing and fought and worked hard to get there. I laughed throughout the story with Shane and her mishaps with the chairs. It was fun to have a time travel piece to this story. Shane and Pilot had the opportunity of a lifetime to change their life and they jumped right on it. Time traveling is an awesome idea, but we still haven’t scientifically figured that possibility out. We can still change our lives because opportunities are always there, we just have to be willing to work hard and never give up. I rated 4 out of 5 stars.

Author Biography

Christine Riccio has been on a quest to encourage more humans to read since the third grade. No one really listened until she started making videos about books on Youtube in 2010. Now her channel PolandbananasBOOKS has over 390,000 book-loving subscribers. She makes comedic book reviews, vlogs, sketches, and writing videos chronicling the creation of her own novel. She’s also one of the three YouTubers behind BOOKSPLOSION. Originally from New Jersey, Christine graduated from Boston University in 2012 with a degree in Film and TV and now lives in Los Angeles, CA. Other hobbies include hot yoga and oatmeal. 

Goodreads Blurb

There are many adventures waiting for Landon in the big city he loves so much… but first, he needs lunch. Join Landon and his mom as they explore the yummy foods that are created in some really cool food trucks.

My Review

An adorable book where Landon and his mom go in search for food in NYC. His mother brings him to diverse food trucks for him to decide what he wants to eat. He enjoyed all the unique food trucks and foods, but at the end NYC hot dogs was his choice. I loved the illustrations. Landon’s mom had fun newspaper leggings. The colors were vibrant and the diverse food trucks was a great idea. Kids will enjoy this fun travel to NYC food trucks.

My Review

Super adorable and interactive. Children will enjoy the illustrations and all the fun things the little monster says to do to make his monster friend smile. I loved the vivid colors and the illustrations. I followed all the rules to make sure I make the monster smile 😀. Everyone will enjoy! I rated 4 our of 5 stars.

Author Biography

Tomi is a mover, shaker, and baby maker – which in actuality means she enjoys a good dance party in the kitchen and is a mom to two monsters of her own creation.

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Tomi has spent the better part of a decade zigzagging the country, following a boy in a military uniform she fell head over heels in love with almost 15 years ago. The Army life has been adventurous and challenging, but she has learned to embrace the journey. 

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Things that make Tomi smile: a quiet weekend with her little family, peanut butter, using only GIFs to text, civic engagement, when she and her husband agree on what to watch on Netflix before one of them falls asleep, and all things birthdays!

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Tomi is from Kansas and is currently a Political Science instructor and contributor for Wichita Moms Blog.

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How to Make a Monster Smile was written after a day in the trenches of parenting a toddler. Tomi most likely served snack in the wrong color bowl, the sun was way too bright, and the tag on her daughter’s shirt was exceptionally itchy. The two of them needed to pivot; they needed to dance, laugh, and shake off those Grumpies. They needed to smile. 

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Tomi loves filling her children’s shelves with books they all enjoy reading. If you are going to read the same book over and over again, it might as well be one that you makes you and your little monster smile!

My Review

A fun book to read to your little ones before they go to bed. The little girl in the story didn’t want to go to bed. Her mother created a jungle filled with animals while combining lyrics making it feel like they were in the jungle with the animals. You will encounter owls who “who”, a bear who will be lonely, growls, hisses, trumpets and meows. It’s interactive and fun for children. I rated 4 out of 5 stars.

Author Biography

New York Times bestselling author Nikki Grimes is the recipient of the 2017 Children’s Literature Legacy Award, the 2016 Virginia Hamilton Literary Award, and the 2006 NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. Her distinguished works include the much-honored books Garvey’s Choice, ALA Notable book What is Goodbye?, Coretta Scott King Award winner Bronx Masquerade, and Coretta Scott King Author Honor books Jazmin’s Notebook, Talkin’ About Bessie, Dark Sons, Words with Wings, and The Road to Paris. Creator of the popular Meet Danitra Brown, Ms. Grimes lives in Corona, California.

Goodreads Blurb

Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza—but who knows what they’ll find seven months after the invasion?

Meanwhile, Kady’s cousin, Asha, survived the initial BeiTech assault and has joined Kerenza’s ragtag underground resistance. When Rhys—an old flame from Asha’s past—reappears on Kerenza, the two find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict.

With time running out, a final battle will be waged on land and in space, heroes will fall, and hearts will be broken.

My Review

An adventurous ending to this wonderful series. Amie and Jay truly created a series that no one else has ventured. I loved how the book was told through text, emails, video retelling and images. It provides the reader a sense of what each character looks like and what they are going through. I was very happy with the final outcome. The Illuminae team fought to the very end for freedom, equality and humanity. Cheers to an amazing series that took me through space and saw that good always beats evil. I rated 5 out of 5 Stars.

Author Biography

Amie Kaufman is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of young adult fiction. Her multi-award winning work is slated for publication in over 30 countries, and is in development for film and TV. Raised in Australia and occasionally Ireland, Amie has degrees in history, literature, law and conflict resolution. She lives in Melbourne with her husband, their rescue dog, and an extremely large personal library.

Jay Kristoff is the #1 international, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of THE NEVERNIGHT CHRONICLE, THE ILLUMINAE FILES and THE LOTUS WAR. He is the winner of five Aurealis Awards, an ABIA, has over half a million books in print and is published in over thirty five countries, most of which he has never visited. He is as surprised about all of this as you are. He is 6’7 and has approximately 12,000 days to live. 

He does not believe in happy endings.