There Should Have Been Eight - Nalini Singh

I adore 'locked room' mysteries. I think that author Nalini Singh does as well! Her new novel - There Should Have Been Eight - starts out with a get together of old friends - minus one.

What else does a locked room tale need? A 'been in the family for decades' old pile. Complete with hidden rooms. Oh, and it has a burned out wing. And....it's also way out on it's own, far from the village. Mobile signal? Good luck with that. A perfect setting. Loved it.

Our lead character is Luna. She her own issues, but isn't ready to share with the others just yet. She's also a photographer which works well for this character. I really liked her personally, her way of looking at things, her thoughts, and her decisions. The others are a mixed bag with many of them now coupled up. Lots of personalities. 

Singh tells her book in a now and then timeline fashion. Again, a style I like and appreciate. Readers  glean bits and bobs from the both time frames. Do they match? Do they remember it? Has someone got their own agenda? Who can we trust as readers? For me, they're all suspects. I started to narrow down my choice for 'whodunit' as the end drew near. I was (happily) surprised by a great gotcha. 

Suspense is the name of the game in this book. It kept me interested and and invested from first page to last! I would happily pick up another book from Nalini Singh. See for yourself - read an excerpt of There Should Have Been Eight.

Giveaway - The Woman in the Dark - Vanessa Savage

The Woman in the Dark - Vanessa Savage's debut novel - releases March 12/19. And I have a copy to giveaway to one lucky reader! Vanessa - you had me at Gothic house and murder......

From Grand Central Publishing:

"In the vein of The Couple Next Door, a debut psychological thriller about a woman who moves with her family to the gothic seaside house where her husband grew up — and where 15 years ago another family was brutally slaughtered.

Sarah and Patrick are happy. But after her mother’s death, Sarah spirals into depression and overdoses on sleeping pills. While Sarah claims it was an accident, her teenage children aren’t so sure. Patrick decides they all need a fresh start and he knows just the place, since the idyllic family home where he was raised has recently come up for sale. There’s only one catch: for the past fifteen years, it has become infamous as the “Murder House”, standing empty after a family was stabbed to death within its walls.

Patrick believes they can bring the house back to its former glory, so Sarah, uprooted from everything she knows, pours her energy into painting, gardening, and giving the rotting old structure the warmth of home. But with locals hinting that the house is haunted, the news that the murderer has been paroled, strange writing on the walls, and creepy “gifts” arriving on the doorstep at odd hours, Sarah can’t shake the feeling that something just isn’t right. Not with the house, not with the town, or even with her own, loving husband — whose stories about his perfect childhood suddenly aren’t adding up. Can Sarah uncover the secrets of the Murder House before another family is destroyed?"

"Vanessa Savage is a graphic designer and illustrator. She has twice been awarded a Writers’ Bursary by Literature Wales, most recently for A Woman in the Dark. She won the Myriad Editions First Crimes competition in 2016 and her work has been highly commended in the Yeovil International Fiction Prize, short listed for the Harry Bowling Prize, and the Caledonia Fiction Prize. She is on the current longlist for the Bath Novel Award." You can connect with Vanessa Savage on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.

And if you'd like to read The Woman in the Dark, enter for a chance to win a copy using the Rafflecopter form below. Open to US and Canada. Ends Mar. 23/19.

a Rafflecopter giveaway