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Merissa (14003 KP) created a post

Jun 5, 2026  
"Thomas Barry is dead, and everyone in Portrush had a reason." 🔍🇮🇪

An excerpt, a guest post, and a giveaway for HI LOVE, YOU JUST DROPPED YOUR GLOVE (A MCCUSKER MYSTERY #3) by PAUL CHARLES are live on the blog today! This gripping Irish crime police procedural opens with a death that shakes a whole community, and a detective who must unpick a town full of secrets and suspects. ⚡✨

Head over to the blog to read the excerpt and guest post, and enter the giveaway!

@paulcharlesbooks @levelbestbooks @partnersincrimevbt #Crime #PoliceProcedural
https://archaeolibrarian.wixsite.com/website/post/hi-love-you-just-dropped-your-glove-a-mccusker-mystery-3-by-paulcharles
     
The Lightning House
The Lightning House
Sickness and Heart | 2021 | Crime
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Gripping read

The lightning house throws you straight into the action from the very first page. Being based on a true story helps to draw you in even further to this gripping story and makes it all the more shocking......it had me breathless a fair few times!
    Full of danger and intrigue, you'll find it hard to put down this well written and thrilling read. You'll find yourself immersed in a whole new world from your daily life and perhaps have you wondering how people get by with so many secrets and lies in their lives.

Definitely an adult read that would go nicely with a cheeky drink and chocolate.
  
The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson | 2009 | Fiction & Poetry, Horror
4
7.5 (29 Ratings)
Book Rating
124 of 230
Book
The Haunting of Hill House
By Shirley Hackson
⭐️⭐️

Hill House stood abandoned six miles off the road. Four people came to learn its secrets. But, Hill House, stood holding darkness within. Whoever walked there, walked alone.

This has been on my tbr forever and yay I finally got round to it. I was expecting more I found one little part a bit eerie but other than that it was spooky or creepy or scary. I like watching the characters change but it just wasn’t enough! A classic it may be but just didn’t do it for me especially when it’s classed as a classic horror!
  
The Things We Wish Were True
The Things We Wish Were True
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Things We Wish Were True takes place in a small town in North Carolina during the summer of 2014. It's a very close knit community and most residents have lived there most of their lives. From Zell, the neighborhood matriarch to Jancey the "prodigal" daughter returning after making a quick escape after high school. Each character has their own story and each story intertwines with each character. It includes twists and turns that will make you need to find out what is going to happen next.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I will admit that at the beginning of the book, there was a little confusion with all the different characters, but after getting into the story, everything soon became clear. Each character carries a secret. Some secrets are small and others could be catastrophic.

Zell - has been limping around all summer and has stopped running, why/
Cailey - is growing up faster than she wants to or should, but with a single working mother is there anything that can stop that.
Bryte - doesn't want to have a second child, the first time was so difficult, she doesn't want to go through that again.
Jencey - Returns home after being away for so long. Will she stay for good this time, or will she run again like she did in the past.
Lance - has recently become a single father, but how long will that be the case?
Everett - Married to Bryte and ex of Jencey has a few of his own secrets that could tarnish his relationships.

There is one story about a summer in North Carolina, told from each persons point of view. Each character has their own side to the story centered around the neighborhood pool. It dives into the past which helps to progress the present. At the end of this summer the whole neighborhood will be changed from the secrets that are revealed.

This is the first book I have read by this author and I look forward to reading more of her books.
  
Only Daughter
Only Daughter
10
8.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Kat experiences every mother’s worst nightmare when her little girl is found dead. And then the police add the word ‘suicide’. But Kat refuses to believe them.
Even when they show her the familiar looping handwriting and smudged ink on the note Grace left behind. She knows her bubbly, bright daughter would never take her own life.
But as she searches Grace’s perfume-scented room, filled with smiling photos, she uncovers secrets her daughter had been hiding. Secrets that make her wonder how well she really knew the woman her only child was becoming.
Kat’s determined to find out what really happened to Grace on the night she died, even if it means confronting her own troubled past. But as she gets closer to the terrible truth, Kat is faced with an unthinkable question: there was no way she could have protected Grace – or was there?

This book was filled with so many twists, turns, and shocks that had me hanging off of every page.
This is the story of Kat, wife, mother, sociopath. Her teenage daughter has just been found dead at the bottom of a quarry, and the police are calling it a suicide.
The writing is superb in this compelling story and the characters are totally believable and seem so believable as they have their faults and secrets also.
There were jaw dropping twists and I truly felt like I was on this emotional roller coaster with Kat.
The opening of this book is just heartbreaking and I cannot imagine anything worse than the loss of my child and some of the story description of events was just so emotional.
This story is an emotional look at the relationships between mother and child, wife and husband; very heart wrenching at times but what a ride it was!
Only Daughter is a riveting read filled with twists and turns at every corner that I couldn't put down. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and Bookouture for an ARC. This did not influence my review. All opinions are my own.