This month I have five novels that I’m very excited to share about. What the Wife Knew is a psychological thriller by author Darby Kane. Up next is a book that has been out for a few years that I just had an opportunity to read for the first time. Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano has everything you’d want from a crime novel while keeping the tone relatively light-hearted thanks to the main character Finlay Donovan. The fourth novel in the series is coming out this March!
The Unexpected Diva by author and screenwriter Tiffany Warren is the story of the first black concert artist, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield nicknamed, ‘The Black Swan’. If you love stories of strong women who defy the odds, then you’ll want to check this new release out!
A Curse for the Homesick by Laura Brooke Robson is the perfect blend of magical realism and reality, and you will not want to put it down. Add this title to your Amazon cart and thank me later! Last but not least, step back into the 1930s with some of the greatest female mystery writers of all time as they work together to solve a murder in The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict.
What the Wife Knew | Darby Kane
This book will keep you guessing until the very end. Even with clues (including a red herring or two), this book would challenge even the most dedicated thriller/suspense reader. Written by a former divorce lawyer, What the Wife Knew has all the twists and turns you’d expect from a writer with experience in the field. It tells the story of Addison, the second wife of Dr. Richmond Dougherty. The book starts at Richmond’s funeral and goes between the past and present. Before long, it becomes quite clear that Richmond is not the hero he’s built himself up to be… in fact, he’s as far from a hero as you can get.
Dr. Richmond Dougherty is a renowned pediatric surgeon, an infamous tragedy survivor, and a national hero. He’s also very dead—thanks to a fall down the stairs. His neighbors angrily point a finger at the newest Ms. Dougherty, Addison. The sudden marriage to the mysterious young woman only lasted ninety-seven days, and he’d had two suspicious “accidents” during that time. Now Addison is a very rich widow.
As law enforcement starts to circle in on Addison and people in town become increasingly hostile, sides are chosen with Kathryn, Richmond’s high school sweetheart, wife number one, and the mother of his children, leading the fray. Despite rising tensions, Addison is even more driven to forge ahead on the path she charted years ago…
Determined at all costs to unravel Richmond’s legacy, she soon becomes a target—with a shocking note left on her bedroom wall: You will pay. But it will take a lot more than faceless threats to stop Addison. Her plan to marry Richmond then ruin him may have been derailed by his unexpected death, but she’s not done with him yet.
Finlay Donovan is Killing It | Elle Cosimano
Finlay Donovan is killing it… well actually her life as she knew it is falling apart. Her husband has left her for their realtor, she’s behind on the manuscript she’s supposed to be writing, and her agent is on her case. When Finlay changes the destination for the meeting with her agent at the last moment to a local Panera’s, she doesn’t realize just how much her life is going to change. Mistaken for a contract killer in disguise, a woman with a problem husband puts a note underneath her tray. In exchange for $50,000 dollars Finlay is to get rid of the woman’s creep husband, for good.
This is my first time reading an Elle Cosimano book, and I just zipped right through it. Can’t wait to start reading the rest of the series!
Finlay Donovan is killing it . . . except, she’s really not. She’s a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in chaos: the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors.
When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer, and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet . . . Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.
Fast-paced, deliciously witty, and wholeheartedly authentic in depicting the frustrations and triumphs of motherhood in all its messiness, hilarity, and heartfelt moments, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is the first in a brilliant new series from YA Edgar Award nominee Elle Cosimano.
The Unexpected Diva | Tiffany L Warren
If you are a fan of period fiction (think Bridgerton!) then you’ll want to check out the latest book from author and screenwriter Tiffany L Warren. I’ve always enjoyed reading books about strong women, who rise above their circumstances to go after their dreams. Before reading this book, I’d never heard of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, but I know that you will find her story just as inspiring as I did.
Born into slavery on a Mississippi plantation, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield has been raised in the safety of Philadelphia’s Quaker community by a wealthy adoptive mother. Sheltered and educated, Eliza’s happy childhood always included music lessons to nurture her unique gift: a glorious three octave singing voice that leaves listeners in awe. But on the eve of her twenty-fourth birthday, young Eliza’s world is thrown into a tailspin when her mother dies.
Eliza’s inheritance is contested by her mother’s white cousins, leaving her few options. She can marry her longtime beau, Lucien, though she has no desire to be a wife and mother. Or she can work as a tutor for rich families. Her mother’s dying wish was for Eliza to pursue her talent and become a professional singer, but that grand vision now seems out of reach.
When a chance performance on a steamboat to Buffalo, New York, leads to a surprising opportunity, fearless Eliza seizes her moment. Within a year she is touring America, singing to packed houses, and igniting controversy wherever she goes. In a country captivated by “the Swedish Nightingale” Jenny Lind, Eliza is billed by tour promoters as “the Black Swan.” An unlikely diva, Eliza is tall, dark-skinned, and robust of figure compared to the petite European prima donna, but even the harshest critics can’t deny Eliza’s extraordinary gift. Menaced by racist crowds, threatened by slave-catchers who kidnap free Black people, Eliza lives a public life full of risk, but one which also holds the promise of great riches, and the freedoms those buy.
From the churches of Philadelphia to Queen Victoria’s salon in Buckingham Palace, Eliza Greenfield will blaze her own path—with a voice that no listener will ever forget.
A Curse for the Homesick | Laura Brooke Robson
Pre-order this book and thank me later… those are the first words that came to mind when I sat down to write the review for A Curse for the Homesick. It’s one of those books that you’ll stay up late just to read one more page, one more chapter. It’s filled with will they won’t they, of sorrow and a curse that has always fallen upon the women who call Stenland home. It weaves the tale of Tess and her two best friends who grew up on a small island off the coast of Scotland. While many choose to stay, some dream of the day they can leave Stenland behind forever and avoid what is known as skeld season.
On Stenland, there comes a time known as skeld season: one day, any woman on the island can wake with three black lines on her forehead, the mark of a skeld. Skeld season comes around without warning, and while each window of time lasts only three months, anyone a skeld turns to stone is very much dead.
That’s how Tess’s mother killed Soren’s parents. Maybe for this reason alone, Tess and Soren should not have fallen in love. Since the time her mother was a skeld, Tess has wanted to leave Stenland, to run from the windswept island, from her family and friends. She is unwilling to bear the responsibility of one day killing anyone, let alone someone she loves. Soren has been determined to stay, to live out his life in the place he knows as home, even if that life could be cut short during the latest skeld season. They cannot see eye to eye—and yet they cannot stay apart. She tries to come back for him. He tries to leave for her. But can your love for one person outweigh everything else combined? And how do you decide how much you’re willing to risk, if it might mean destroying someone else in the process?
Laura Robson has crafted a fascinating story about the choices we make, the responsibilities we carry, and the ambiguities of regret.
The Queens of Crime | Marie Benedict
For those who do not frequently read fiction with a historical element (or books that feature real-life characters), this book can take a moment to get into. However, once the Queens of Crime land in France for the first time, to solve a murder that neither the French or English authorities have been able to solve, you will find yourself drawn into the story completely.
When the body of a young nurse is found month’s after her disappearance, both the press and the authorites are only too willing to make it a case of a drug deal gone wrong, it’s only the Queens, all masters in the fields of writing murder mysteries (including none other than Agatha Christie herself) who determine that the syringe found at the scene is nothing more than a red herring.
This is a must read for all those who enjoy reading murder mysteries.
London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.
May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they’re stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.
Inspired by a true story in Sayers’ own life, New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels.

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