Still juggling, still not getting enough books read. What a "dreadful" problem to have.
#JustFinished
The Bookshop Detectives: Tea & Cake & Death by Gareth Ward and Louise Ward (2026 Ngaio's)
Three Dogs, Two Murders and A Cat by Rodney Strong (2026 Ngaio's)
Hooked Up by Fiona Sussman (2026 Ngaio's)
#CurrentlyReading
A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan (2026 Ngaio's)
What Rhymes with Murder by Penny Tangey
#NextUp
The Ledge by Christian White (because I can see it from where I'm sitting most days).
Parrot Heaven by Jessica Howland Kany (because I loved the first one - A Runner's Guide to Rakiura)
Empathy by Brian Walpert (2026 Ngaio's)
Red River Road by Anna Downes (after a massive nudge from somebody whose opinions I value)
The Writers Retreat by Victoria Brownlee
Later, Only Love Remains by Leah Swann
Against Their Will by Karina Kilmore
The Ledge
When human remains are discovered in a forest, police are baffled, the locals are shocked and one group of old friends starts to panic. Their long-held secret is about to be uncovered.
It all began in 1999 when sixteen-year-old Aaron ran away from home, drawing his friends into an unforeseeable chain of events that no one escaped from unscathed.
In The Ledge, past and present run breathlessly parallel, leading to a cliff-hanger nobody will see coming. This is a mind-bending new novel from the master of the unexpected.
Parrot Heaven
BDTH! The Foveaux Fisherman Facebook page posts this acronym to advise Rakiura Stewart Islanders to ‘batten down the hatches’ before severe weather events.
New Zealand’s southernmost librarian Maudie Sanderson reckons this warning could be applied to her life in general these days.
Haunted by a parrot and falsely accused of soliciting d**k pics, Maudie navigates a minefield of rabbit holes and mental health crises as she struggles to be a fit and proper person in a pandemic-hungover world. Sidelined by buggered knees, the avid runner needs projects to maintain sanity.
Island life keeps her busy. Maudie is drawn into an axe cult, scraps with the preschool teacher, discusses The Epic of Gilgamesh in a jailhouse book club, and mis-manages a community astronomy course. When a shocking crime wreaks havoc on her family, she dons her deerstalker cap and dives into the investigation.
All the while, Maudie feels a growing kinship with the ancient desert king Gilgamesh, as the words from 5,000-year-old clay tablets guide her through life’s myriad of mysteries.
What Rhymes With Murder?
When exhausted new mother Frida attends Baby Rhyme Time at the local library, she feels a sense of purpose that has been lacking in her anxious, apartment-bound, sleep-deprived life. But at the end of the session a piercing scream is heard, followed by the thump of a body, and the library becomes a crime scene.
Before long, Frida finds herself part of an unlikely group of sleuths investigating the murder. Between gossip and cups of magic at their local cafe, they are too busy having fun to realise how close they are to danger . . .
Red River Road
On the Coral Coast of Western Australia, solo traveller Katy is on a mission to find her free-spirited sister, Phoebe, who disappeared along the same route a year ago. But as she drives her campervan further into the wild north, Katy realises she's not as alone as she'd first believed. Soon she is pulled into a complicated web of secrets, lies, myths and stories that force her to question everything she thought she knew about her sister.
In this nerve-shredding outback thriller, our obsessions with freedom and beauty collide with our fear of what lies in the wilderness, and the truth behind Phoebe's disappearance proves stranger and darker than Katy could ever have guessed...
A Beautiful Family
Over the course of one sunbaked summer vacation, a family is pulled into a web of mysteries that the younger daughter sets out to solve. A tense, page-turning debut of childhood, innocence, and evil.
At ten years old, she catches more than her parents and older sister suspect. Over their summer break, her mother plans to finish her novel, her father wants to grill and watch cricket, and her fifteen-year-old sister hopes to catch the eye of a local lifeguard. With everyone around her distracted, she teams up with a new friend to solve a mystery that haunts this vacation they'll close the case of what happened to Charlotte, a child who was presumed drowned two years earlier.
But things aren't quite as they seem, and as the children look for clues, they inadvertently dislodge information they wish they'd never uncovered. Are her parents happy together? Is her sister putting her trust in the wrong people? Is their vacation rental as safe as it seems? And when someone else goes missing, the family find themselves at the center of an urgent police investigation.
Debut novelist Jennifer Trevelyan viscerally captures the confusion and frustration of childhood, the fraught but unshakeable bond between sisters, and the dangers that lurk in the white lies we tell--especially about the people we love most.
The Writers Retreat
A wickedly twisty and atmospheric thriller set at a writers' retreat in the South of France, The Writers Retreat is Knives Out meets Anna Downes’ The Safe Place from an exciting new voice in the thriller/mystery space.
Welcome to The Writers Retreat – a creative haven for writers to hone their plotlines and sharpen their characters while soaking up the Provençal atmosphere. But this year’s retreat offers something different, as real-life blurs with fiction, and suspense isn't contained to the page.
Kat Hale is a bestselling Australian author crumbling under the pressure of writing her second novel. On a whim, she has fled to a writers retreat in the South of France run by internationally acclaimed author Helen Thorne. What Kat hopes will be two blissfully uninterrupted weeks to focus on her writing in anonymity quickly turns into something more sinister, when Kat begins to suspect that Helen isn't quite as perfect as everyone seems to believe.
Will Kat’s drive to uncover the truth about Helen be any match for Helen’s desire to hold onto her career, her reputation and her writing retreat, or is Kat at risk of falling victim to a more dangerous climax?
Honey
The first time, Yrsa doesn’t intend to kill.
But the Cambridge professor sitting opposite has manipulated her friend, stolen her research. When she flicks the bee into his Sanpellegrino, she thinks he’ll get a nasty sting.
Then he’s dead. And Yrsa, who – let’s face it – has been bored for a while, is alive.
It’s a sweet feeling, finally having some control.
Comic, sexy, addictive, unpredictable, Honey is about the not-always-righteous path of taking justice into your own hands.
Honey, Imani Thompson
The blurb for HONEY starts out with a no punches pulled approach.
The first time, Yrsa doesn't intend to kill.
Which is going to mean that the style of this novel might come as a bit of a surprise to some readers. If you're one of those, like me, that was more than mildly put off by the chick lit tone of the opening sections, and felt just a little bit like something needs to happen soon... then hang in there. This goes from feeling all a bit silly to deadly (and I mean deadly) serious in the blink of an eye. A blink that might make you think you've missed something.
Having said that, the tone never does vary which makes for an astounding combination of disconnect and deep involvement in every single word, thought and action of the central character Yrsa.
A young university student and lecturer, Yrsa is bored with life, bored with her friends, bored with her active, and mostly self-initiated sex life, basically she's majoring in bored. Which you'd think would make her, as the narrator of her own story, also a bit boring, bordering on whingy. But she's engaging, probably because she's also profoundly confusing. A young woman who seems to have it all, a loving family, although she thinks her mother is overly pushy and her father too passive. She's also very good at poor decisions, impulsive actions, and what an outsider would be excused for assuming is complete and absolute self-involvement. With fleeting moments of compassion and concern for others, when she's not allowing her worst instincts to take over, and well, there's no other way to say this, and indulging in a bit of vigilante behaviour.
All of which sounds confusing I know and in this particular instance it's hard to write a review of this book without slipping into some major spoilers. Instead let's cut to the chase. The blurb also says:
Comic, sexy, addictive, unpredictable, Honey is about the not-always-righteous path of taking justice into your own hands.
Yes to all of that, and as to the question of whether or not I'd wholeheartedly recommend this - it's complicated. If you'd asked me that at the outset I'd have told you there's probably nothing to see here, quarter of the way in I'd still have been suggesting that moving along might be the best choice, halfway through I'd have asked you to go away because I was reading, and by the time the unresolved / will she / won't she / did she / what the hell just happened ending came around, I'd have said most definitely yes.
Hero
DS Lucas Walker is back home in Queensland, following the dramatic fallout from his last case. He is just getting to grips with his new role in the small outback town of Katima, when the body of an unknown young man is found hanging from a tree in the park.
What at first looks like a tragic suicide soon has Walker's detective instincts on alert, and he and his young partner throw themselves into the case - discovering a connection with an unsolved death.
And then a brutal murder changes everything. The victim is Caden Conroy, national cricketing hero, and the dark nature of his death leads to an unparallelled media frenzy.
When Walker is sidelined by Brisbane Homicide after being first on the scene, he must go his own way to unpick the deceit and corruption at the heart of these cases. Only then will he know if they are connected, and how - but at what cost?
Hero, Patricia Wolf
HERO is the 5th book in the DS Lucas Walker series that has taken him from outback Queensland to Germany and back, and from the Australian Federal Police to the Queensland Police Force. One thing that stays the same though is the outreach of organised crime, which is surprisingly prevalent in these small Queensland towns.
Walker is stationed in the small outback town of Katima, driving distance from his home in Caloodie, working as a DS with a local cop who rapidly proves himself to be an able partner. For readers new to this series, there's been quite a bit happen in Walker's backstory, starting out when AFP DS Walker was at home in Caloodie on leave, only to find himself the only cop around to look into the disappearance of young German backpackers in OUTBACK. Which lead to a relationship with a German police officer - Barbara, and a run-in with organised crime and a major criminal bikie group, this time in Surfers Paradise, in the novel titled PARADISE. Back in the outback, and family involvement in OPAL, which then leads to Germany, and another close run in with the leader of that criminal bikie group in NEMESIS. All of which leads to the obvious question - is this a series that needs to be read in order, and pretty much that's a yes.
These novels centre heavily on DS Lucas Walker, his stuttering love life and his extended family. Why he still calls Caloodie home, living in his grandmother's house there, where Ginger the dog came from, how he ended up working as a Queensland Police Officer after years in the AFP is all background that is really going to help you understand how everything fits together. Especially as the action in HERO is mostly about corruption, and criminal activities again, only this time in the world of high-profile sport. Although there's a twist at the end.
The title of this novel refers to Caden Conroy, a famous fast bowler, a cricketer that everyone admires. Good at the game, a supporter of up and coming talent, he's made a lot of money in his life, and his brother Cameron and his wife and daughter, as well as his girlfriend Bronte and business Manager Ollie all work hard at ensuring that what Conroy wants and needs, he gets. Until he's found bashed to death in his palatial country estate just outside Katima.
Whilst Walker and his colleague are first on scene, it doesn't take long for the higher ups to fly in the elite murder investigation squad, and Walker finds himself back in Katima trying to work out the story behind the unknown man found hanging from a tree in the local park, and whether or not that death is connected to the unsolved death of another young unidentified man in the area a few years before.
In many aspects, HERO is a hark back to the first novel in the series, in that it's good old fashioned, boots on the ground, investigation and chasing down leads that ultimately means that they are able to solve those two local cases, and the death of a national hero along the way. There's a hefty dose of romantic personal angst in there as well as some career jeopardy, and some complications with his immediate family back in Caloodie that has a bit of a hattip to a common theme these days - sovcit's and their ridiculous carry on.
Whether or not that aspect is actually going to head somewhere in future novels it's hard to tell, and to be honest, one would hope so because it went nowhere pretty rapidly in this one, but that was a minor distraction from the whole question of sport, corruption, money and power. Walker's past in the AFP gave him plenty of ways to find out the things that a standard outback cop might not have access to, and there's plenty of meat to the main plotline, including a lot of things to think about when it comes to sporting heroes.
Later, Only Love Remains
From award-winning, bestselling writer Leah Swann comes a lyrical, powerful, dark and devastating novel. once you start reading, you will not be able to put this novel down.
Jack Wolfe, a difficult, complicated old man, retreats to a remote family shack in the Otway Forest near the Great Ocean Road to grieve his wife's death in a car crash where he was the driver. It's cold, with endless wind and rain, and the bush shack is basic. But he's half mad with remorse and old memories of wrongs he has done to others, so what Jack craves more than anything is forgiveness - and solitude.
Instead, he meets Lotus, an exuberant yet lonely young woman who insists on trying to help him, although he's determined to keep her at bay. He doesn't want or need anyone. But late one night, when his dog starts howling, Jack discovers a shivering and wet stranger on his property. Is this man a dangerous threat, or someone who simply needs his help? His late wife would want him to show kindness, but he can't help suspecting the man's motives. And what should he do about the unwanted friendship from Lotus, with whom he has a surprise connection?
A tense, powerfully compelling story with a spiralling, slow-burn intensity which escalates into a gut-wrenching, dark and achingly beautiful read, Later, Only Love Remains is a propulsive and unputdownable novel about the violence of men, birth and death, the yearning for redemption, and the endless wellspring that is love.
Later, Only Love Remains, Leah Swann
A follow-on from SHEERWATER, LATER, ONLY LOVE REMAINS is a tense, spiralling, dark story built around three main characters, and the life changing events that are happening to them, some a result of their own actions. The story starts out introducing the reader to the main three characters as much as is possible, although reading the earlier novel would definitely help in creating an instant connection, particularly as there are some elements to the men in this story that are very confronting.
Jack Wolfe, survived childhood polio, going on to marry the love of his life. Driving the car that crashed killing is wife, he's retreated to a remote family shack in the Otways, a cold, wet, endlessly windy place, the shack is basic, his life full of remorse and plagued by memory, all he wants is solitude.
Into this life, come two people, firstly Lotus, a young, vibrant woman who insists on connection with Jack, her life has been upturned by her pregnancy, which makes for a family connection with Jack neither of them knows how to manage. In a more sinister way, late one wet and horrible night, after Jack's dog started howling, he discovers a desperate man hiding in his shed, a man who it subsequently turns out has committed an unthinkable act. Which leaves Jack with two choices. Keep Lotus at bay, maintain the solitude he desires, and then whether or not to help another stranger based on what he believes his late wife would have done.
Part of the fascination of this novel is the way that Jack has accidentally done the worst possible thing, Lawrence has deliberately done a dreadful thing, and Lotus seems, perhaps, to have the potential to be the least problematic, most normal of the three of them. All of which is delivered in a lyrical, gentle, rolling sort of a style, although with no punches pulled on the characters worst, and eventually, better traits.
There's no shying away from the reveal of Lawrence's actions early on in the story though - and this review has to warn readers - it involves filicide which will be confronting for some. Having said that, there is consideration and care in the handling of all these stories, nothing sensational, nothing overt.
All of the plotlines in LATER, ONLY LOVE REMAINS contribute to a novel that's ultimately about life, death, male violence, and a yearning for redemption. Balanced as always against love. It's exploring if it is true that at the end of the day, only love remains.
Against Their Will
After walking away from traditional journalism, Danny Boyd is recruited to The Open—a covert investigative unit hunting the world’s darkest criminal networks. She proves herself quickly, until a mission against Kronos, a brutal trafficking syndicate, blows her cover. Ordered to stand down, Danny refuses. Children are still vanishing. Kronos is still out there.
Forced to moonlight as a PI, Danny takes a case a bit closer to home: a wealthy Ohio family unraveling after their patriarch, real estate developer Bob Wilson, is killed in a botched robbery. His will exposes shocking betrayals and a secret heir, so the Wilsons hire Danny to dig deeper. What begins as a privileged family succession dispute soon unearths deadly secrets, financial schemes, and a legacy of bitter revenge.
But someone is watching her. Is it Kronos? Or the Wilson family’s enemies? With two ruthless forces closing in, Danny must expose the truth—this time with no backup and nowhere to hide—before she’s silenced for good.
The Bookshop Detectives: Tea and Cake and Death
When we opened Sherlock Tomes people warned us that we’d made a terrible mistake. The one thing they didn’t warn us about was the murders . . .
The Bookshop Detectives are on the case!
In this rollicking new adventure, Garth and Eloise (and Stevie) must sniff out a prolific poisoner ahead of a vital fundraising event, the Battle of the Book Clubs. As time runs out and the body count rises, it seems the bad actors are circling closer to the people and places they care about.
Could Pinter, the infamous serial killer from Eloise’s past, somehow be involved? And when anyone could be a suspect, how can Garth and Eloise keep their customers, their small town and their beloved bookshop safe?
Three Dogs, Two Murders and A Cat
Nicolette Briggs doesn’t do humans.
As Wellington’s premier, and possibly only, animal detective, Nicolette mostly investigates missing pets and cases of animal cruelty. So when her latest client asks her to investigate a case of a poisoned cat, it seems right up her alley. Until a body shows up, then another, and suddenly despite her resolve to not get involved, Nicolette is right in the middle two murder investigations. Or is it just one killer?
When someone breaks into her house and one of her dogs is injured, Nicolette’s reluctance turns to determination to not only solve this thing before the police, but show up her stubborn police detective brother in the process.
Along the way she has to navigate a daughter about to turn 15, a dwindling bank account, and a dysfunctional family that seems determined to fix her. Not to mention a killer who’s turned their sights her way.
No wonder she doesn’t do humans.
Three Dogs, Two Murders, and a Cat is the first book in the clean, cozy mystery series. Gilmore Girls meets Nancy Drew, with a touch of dysfunctional families, a touch of humour, and a touch of caring.
Out on the Ice
One brief but tragic moment out on a frozen Reykjavík lake changes Sóley’s life forever. Now, looking back on the last twenty-three years of her life, she attempts to make sense of it all. The tears, the pain and the lives lost along the way.
No one ever told her bringing up a son all on her own would be easy but not in her wildest dreams did she imagine it might be so hard.
Together Jakob and her have walked alone through the worst that Iceland could throw at them and now she’s here to tell you her tale.
Empathy
Marketing executive Alison Morris bets her reputation on a project to sell empathy in a perfume bottle. Her husband, Jim, is inspired to try a similar thing in a game he's developing - sinking all their money into EmPath, where people progress by learning to understand one another without direct communication. All at once Alison's fragrance develops dangerous effects and Jim's game falters in the market, then the chemist working on the perfume project vanishes. His son, David, seems to be the only one looking for him. A widower with two children, David is a man of routine who just wants to get on with his life, but his love for his father takes him into a murky world where empathy can be bought and sold and can lead to murder.
Happy Woman
Gwynne Hogg is an enviable woman – until she discovers her beloved dad is a serial killer.
As her dad’s decades-old secrets finally catch up with him, Gwynne struggles to reconcile the man she trusted most with the crimes he’s accused of. She tries to process it all while keeping the wheels of her ‘normal’ life turning. That means caring for her depressed mum, enduring the stares of other parents on the nursery run, and showing up for clients at her PR firm, all under the relentless gaze of the media.
But as the court case unfolds, Gwynne can’t shake the fear that a murderous gene might live inside her too.
Her thoughts grow darker, her once-happy life unravels, and she begins to wonder what she herself might be capable of …
Add comment