Healing through story

Tag: Allison Brennan

Mannequin Monday – The Knot in His Heart

“…the smell of seaweed pressed against his face like a hand.” John Sandford, describing the beach at dawn, in Ocean Prey.

Notable quotes from recent thrillers.

My latest story bite: “The Knot in His Heart.”

What I’m Reading

I am enjoying a few more mystery/thrillers this week. One worth mentioning: John Sandford’s Ocean Prey, an engaging story of boats, diving, drugs off Florida’s ocean coast. Familiar characters – I’ve read a handful of Sandford’s books – and a fresh setting. Can’t ask for more. Sandford describes one character who is a large man, sturdily built: “He could have sold billboard space on his back.”

And, describing the beach at dawn: “…the smell of seaweed pressed against his face like a hand.” Maybe, too, an apt description of what we have all lived through for the last 14 months: COVID, masks, fear, lockdown, life changes. All pressed against our collective face.

Another quote I liked, this from Allison Brennan’s detective thriller The Third to Die: “Every time one of them walked into her life, shit happened. She had enough shit in her job, which she actually liked, that she had no desire to deal with anyone else’s shit.”

All right, then. Enough quotes. Enjoy whatever you’re reading this week.

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Mannequin Monday – Feu! Feu!

My COVID-caused reading slump is over! Our mannequin is dressed with authors’ written words. Words I’ve read!

My own story bite this week is titled “Feu! Feu!

What I’m Reading

I emerged from a long COVID-shutdown reading slump this week. A book from the romance genre sparked the comeback: Widow of Rose House, by Diana Biller. A romance ghost story, set in New York in 1875. By no means my go-to genre for reading, but it came recommended. A welcome change of pace for me.

From romance I moved back to my favored mystery and thriller genres. I discovered two authors who each have a number of novels published…and one author available on Libby!

I read Loreth Anne White’s Beneath Devil’s Bridge, a story that reminds me of HBO Max’s Mare of Easttown. Both are stories of murdered teens in a small town environment. I’m only one episode into Mare, but it has promise. The novel is suspenseful, well written. A podcaster unearths a long-buried memory of a local teen’s brutal death. “If it takes a village to raise a child, does it also take a village to kill one?”

I also discovered Allison Brennan’s The Third to Die, a genuine page-turner. Drama with FBI and local police fighting each other as they search for a serial killer. And Brennan has lots of other novels I can now enjoy.

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