Genre: Women’s Crime Fiction Release Date: January 6, 2026
REVIEW:
Wow! Don’t you just love it when an author you love writes a book in a new genre for them and knocks it out of the park? Especially when that genre is another of your favorites? Well, let me tell you that Ashley Farley wrote Dark Current Rising, the first book in the Sutherlin Files. It is a Crime Fiction and it was phenomenal! I think she did a fabulous job of creating the story line and the characters. There were a few twists in there that I did not see coming my way. I’m blown away that one of my favorite authors could veer off in another direction and make me love her books all the more.
Lane Sutherlin is a Detective and is headed to her hometown to look for her best friend Addie who has gone missing. Her father is a retired judge in the town and he is not quite himself these days. Lane had avoided telling anyone back home that she was recently divorced. I enjoyed meeting the new characters in this book. Some of them were those you would want as friends and some were part of the dark current that was under the surface of the town.
In case you haven’t noticed by now or I’m new to you, I like a variety of genres and Crime, Mystery, Suspense and Thrillers are just a few. Ashley Farley writes a lot of Family Drama and Romance. I have to tell you that it was refreshing to see her voice in another genre that I love so much.
If you are like me and like a variety of books to read, I think you should give this one a try. She certainly didn’t flop at her first try at Crime Fiction! I definitely will be looking forward to the next two books in this trilogy. So, pick up Dark Current Rising by Ashley Farley for your nightstand before the next book comes out. Until next time…Happy Reading!
Don’t forget to support the authors you read by leaving a review. Even a few words help.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author. The opinions I have expressed are my own and I was not required to write a review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
SYNOPSIS:
A missing woman. A haunted detective. A town built on secrets.
When Detective Lane Sutherlin returns to Tidewell, Virginia, it isn’t by choice. She’s back in the small waterfront town she once called home to search for her childhood best friend, Addie, who’s vanished without a trace.
But coming home means more than chasing leads. Lane finds her father—the town’s respected former judge—slipping further into dementia. Old wounds with her brother flare, resentments deepen, and the house she grew up in feels less like a refuge and more like a reminder of everything she’s lost.
As Lane digs into Addie’s life, she uncovers more than she bargained for: a toxic marriage, whispered betrayals, and powerful men determined to protect their own. Every clue draws Lane closer to Tidewell’s polished elite—and to the rot lurking beneath their perfect façades. Soon she realizes Addie may not have been the only target.
In Tidewell, the past is never really past—and some secrets refuse to stay buried. Lane must untangle lies, face old enemies, and risk everything to bring the truth to light…even if it means becoming a target herself.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Amazon Charts and USA Today bestselling author
Ashley Farley writes Southern women’s fiction about love, loss, and the quiet courage it takes to start over. Her stories follow everyday women—mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends—as they navigate life’s hardest moments and find their way back to hope.
A South Carolina native, Ashley’s heart still belongs to the Lowcountry, where moss-draped oaks meet salty air and Southern charm runs deep. She now writes from her waterfront home on Virginia’s Northern Neck, where she shares her days with family and two strong-willed Labradors, Emmie and Willa.
I’m so excited to help launch Dark Current Rising by Ashley Farley. It’s a gripping new coastal mystery filled with secrets, family ties, and small-town tension. Perfect for readers who love small-town secrets, emotional depth, and a story that pulls you in from page one.
📆 Releasing Tuesday, January 6 📚 Available in Kindle Unlimited
Dark Current Rising Small town. Deep secrets. Dangerous truths. When a woman goes missing in Tidewell, Virginia, Detective Lane Sutherlin is forced to confront a past she thought she’d left behind—and a town that protects its own at all costs.
Genre: Later in Life Romance Release Date: December 26, 2025
REVIEW:
Second Pairing is the second book in the Parent App series by Tess Thompson. I can’t tell you how enjoyable this series is. I really like it and after I read the prequel, I knew I was going to love the series. I wasn’t wrong. If you like good clean romances, you will like these books. I find myself seeking out books that take me away from the everyday stress of life. I want a book that makes me happy I read it and makes me think about it long after I turn the last page.
The premise of these books is that mothers are invited to coffee on the first morning their children start school for the first time. Six of the women there bond from the first meeting and essentially become family over the years. Some of them were single and some were married. They all eventually became single parents. They help each other out and have family dinners each Sunday evening.
The kids are all headed for high school in the fall and knowing they will be leaving their mothers when they go off to college, they cook up a plan to put their profiles on a dating app so they are not left alone. How cool is that? Well, the mom’s don’t think it is a good idea. They really don’t want any part of it. One by one they try the app. In this book it is Lila Morgan who meets Vance Prescott. Things don’t always go smoothly. This is one of those stories. You’ll have to read the book to see what happens.
The characters in these books are mostly the same. Each book has a few new ones for that particular story. The core group remains the same and I like catching up with them and getting to know each one a bit more. They all have a good heart and watch out for each other.
If you need a break from all that is going on in the world. If you love a good love story. If you enjoy clean romance. If you just want to sit down and read a good book that will grab your attention and take you away to another world, then the Second Pairing by Tess Thompson is a good bet. Find a spot on your nightstand for these books. You won’t regret the good dreams they bring your way. Until next time…Happy Reading!
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I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author. The opinions I have expressed are my own and I was not required to write a review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
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SYNOPSIS:
Her daughter set her up on a dating app. Her first match turned into her first TV client. Now the cameras—and her heart—are rolling.
After her husband’s betrayal, single mom Lila Morgan built a safe life in Willet Cove: raising her daughter, running her design studio, and keeping her heart off-limits. Love wasn’t part of the plan. But Mia and her friends have other ideas. With a secret profile on the Second Chance dating app, they match her with Vance Prescott—a worldly sommelier and charming wanderer back in town after years abroad.
Sparks fly on their first date in a way neither expected. But then Lila’s brand-new reality design show launches, and her very first client is Vance. Suddenly, her private world is on display, her heart is at risk, and the press is circling. Vance is used to the spotlight. Lila is not. But between bright lights, nosy kids, and an opposites attract chemistry that won’t be ignored, they might just discover that love can bloom later in life.
Because in Willet Cove, happily-ever-after might just start with a second pairing.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Tess Thompson is the USA Today Bestselling and award-winning author of contemporary and historical Romantic Women’s Fiction with over 50 published titles. Her books are emotional and heartwarming with themes of second chances, redemption and the power love has to change lives and create community.
She lives in the Pacific Northwest in a house on a small lake with her husband and kitties. Her four children are now young adults exploring their own paths and adventures, leaving an empty nest and a lot more time to write. She and her husband enjoy a quiet life, obsessed with birds and the other wildlife on their property, which makes them officially old. On any given day their yard could be visited by deer, bears, coyotes and squirrels.
Most days, she can be found curled up in her favorite chair reading or in her office writing while keeping an eye out for hummingbirds in the feeder outside of her office.
Genre: Private Investigator Mystery Release: January 7, 2026
REVIEW:
Tammy L. Grace never fails to deliver a book that will provide me with reading pleasure. Deadly Secret is book 7 of the Cooper Harrington Detective Novels. I have enjoyed these books since I started reading them. Let me tell you why I enjoy them so much.
The first reason is the characters. I really like Coop Harrington. He is caring and a hard worker. He’s developed a lot of friends in his work that often help him out or at least send him in the correct direction. His assistant is AB. I think these two have a crush on each other but, I don’t think it has been addressed except maybe a little hint. He lives with his widowed Aunt Camille and his Dad has started to visit and stays with them also. His mother is a piece of work who is always getting into trouble and expects Coop to bail her out. She left Coop and his dad and brother years ago. It is entertaining to see what trouble she gets herself into in each book. Oh! I don’t want to forget his faithful dog, a Golden Retriever named Gus.
Coop is a private detective and has his own office in Nashville, Tennessee about 20 minutes from my home. I love that I can enjoy the feel of home while I’m reading. I enjoy seeing his world from his eyes. He is always called upon to help solve a crime or murder of some sort. I like how he and AB work together, but I can never solve the crime before they do. I am hopeless!
This book is about the granddaughter of a friend of Aunt Camille’s who moves to Washington D. C. to be an intern. She understands what her grandmother went through getting an expensive medication that she needed. Brooke Donovan wants to help fix the health care system. She is so excited to move and work on Capitol Hill. She died a short time after she started working. Police consider it a mugging gone wrong. Her parents aren’t buying it and hire Coop to go figure it out.
If you love detective stories that have a lot of heart, a murder you can’t figure out with a lot of twists and turns then Deadly Secret by Tammy L. Grace comes to you highly recommended for your reading pleasure. Until next time…Happy Reading!
Don’t forget to support the authors you read by leaving a review. Even a few words help.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author. The opinions I have expressed are my own and I was not required to write a review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
SYNOPSIS:
A vanished intern. A city of secrets. A truth worth dying for.
In the busy streets near Capitol Hill, Brooke Donovan, a young intern from Nashville, meets a tragic end, her death dismissed as a random mugging. But her family smells a cover-up, and they call on Cooper Harrington, their hometown’s sharpest private eye, to unearth the truth. With his tech-savvy partner Annabelle, trusty dog Gus, and a penchant for snarky t-shirts and strong coffee, Coop dives into the capital’s shadowy elite, where a whispered secret sparks a brutal murder. Each clue drags him deeper into a web of power and lies, where one wrong move could bury the truth, and Coop, for good.
Deadly Secret, the seventh installment in Tammy L. Grace’s acclaimed Cooper Harrington Detective Novels, delivers a taut, twist-filled mystery laced with Southern grit and charm. Perfect for fans of clever sleuths, mysteries that grip until the final page, and cases that unravel with heart-pounding suspense. Dive into the latest in the award-winning Cooper Harrington Detective Novels, featuring Coop, a Nashville lawyer turned private detective known for his love of coffee, snarky t-shirts, and talent for solving cases. He, along with his faithful dog, Gus, and his right-hand assistant, Annabelle, work together to solve murder cases full of twists and turns. You’ll find a bit of humor, a dash of southern charm, a dog who is more like a furry best friend, plenty of comfort food, and murder, of course. If you enjoy complex characters with a few quirks and plots that keep you guessing, you’ll love Tammy L. Grace’s mystery series.
The series may be read as stand-alone novels, but are more enjoyable when read in order.
Read more from USA Today bestselling author, Tammy L. Grace
COOPER HARRINGTON DETECTIVE NOVELS
Killer Music (2016 Gold Medal Mystery Winner in the Global eBook Awards) Deadly Connection (2017 Gold Medal Mystery Winner in the Global eBook Awards) Dead Wrong Cold Killer Deadly Deception Deadly Pursuit Deadly Secret QUINN STONE NOVELS Shadows of the Past HOMETOWN HARBOR SERIES Hometown Harbor: The Beginning (Prequel Novella) Finding Home Home Blooms Promise of Home Pieces of Home Finally Home Forever Home Follow Me Home Long Way Home Come Home for Christmas Feels Like Home SISTERS OF THE HEART SERIES Greetings from Lavender Valley Pathway to Lavender Valley Sanctuary at Lavender Valley Blossoms at Lavender Valley Comfort in Lavender Valley Reunion in Lavender Valley GLASS BEACH COTTAGE SERIES
A Season for Hope (Christmas in Silver Falls) The Magic of the Season (Christmas in Silver Falls) Christmas in Snow Valley (Hometown Christmas Series) One Unforgettable Christmas (Hometown Christmas Series) Under a Christmas Star (Hometown Christmas Series) Christmas Sisters (FREE PREQUEL to Soul Sisters at Cedar Mountain Lodge) Christmas Wishes (Soul Sisters at Cedar Mountain Lodge) Christmas Surprises (Soul Sisters at Cedar Mountain Lodge) Christmas Shelter (Soul Sisters at Cedar Mountain Lodge) Christmas Hearts (Soul Sisters at Cedar Mountain Lodge)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Tammy L. Grace is a USA Today bestselling author of women’s fictions, family sagas, mysteries, and Christmas stories. She’s known for writing perfect escapes, unforgettable characters, and binge-worthy stories. Readers often say her characters feel like old friends and love the dogs she weaves into all her books. She brings readers entertaining stories that take them on an emotional journey, filled with complex relationships of friendship and family in her women’s fiction novels. Mystery readers delight in her fast-paced whodunits and fans of Christmas love her small town holiday stories filled with family, friendship, and furry characters.
Tammy also writes under the pen name Casey Wilson and has released two emotional and heartwarming stories about the bond we have with our beloved canine companions.
When Tammy isn’t working on ideas for a novel, she’s spending time with family and friends or supporting her addiction to books, tea, and chocolate. She and her husband make their home in Nevada and have one grown son and a spoiled golden retriever.
Tammy invites you to subscribe to her newsletter at http://www.tammylgrace.com/newsletter and she’ll send you a free interview with all the dogs in her Hometown Harbor Series as a thank you gift. Find her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/tammylgrace.books and be sure and click the follow button here on Amazon.
In Blood, Tears, and Purple Hearts, author B.J. Ricketts delivers an unforgettable portrait of war and its aftermath through the eyes of two elite female Navy aviators. When their helicopter is shot down during a mission in the Syrian desert, they face a harrowing fight for survival against ISIS insurgents—and then, a far more complex battle once they return home. Physically wounded and psychologically scarred, the women must navigate the invisible injuries of war: trauma, loss, and a military system that isn’t always prepared to support its returning heroes.
Inspired by Ricketts’ own years of military service and time in the Middle East, this gripping novel blends the raw intensity of combat with a deep, compassionate exploration of what happens after the fighting ends. With precision, heart, and unflinching honesty, Ricketts shines a spotlight on the realities of women in combat and the unseen burdens they carry long after the war zone fades.
More than a war story, Blood, Tears, and Purple Hearts is a tribute to resilience, a call for understanding, and a timely reminder that the wounds of war aren’t always visible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
B.J. Ricketts is a U.S. Navy veteran who served for seven years during the Cold War aboard an Amphibious Assault ship, participating in two Western Pacific deployments and the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis response. After 9/11, he joined the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary as a flight crew member conducting air security patrols in Southeast Texas. He later worked as a civilian contractor in the Middle East during the Iraq War, experiences that deeply inform his writing. Ricketts studied Aviation Business Management and creative writing at Southern Illinois University, National University, and UC San Diego. Through fiction, he aims to foster empathy and awareness for veterans living with the long-term effects of combat.
A murder without acknowledgment anchors the storyline in Jack London and Murder on Nob Hill by Ray M. Schultze, where Jack London becomes entangled in questions surrounding a crime that seems to vanish upon reporting.
Set in 1898 San Francisco, the novel follows Jack as he explores districts where tensions and disappearances create an unsettled atmosphere. Chinatown’s interior routes present shifting alliances and patterns that seldom reach the surface. A woman whose history intersects with these dynamics introduces insight and complication, guiding Jack deeper into the city’s opaque workings. As he pieces together connections others overlook, he confronts figures dedicated to preserving their authority through silence. His investigation reveals the complex interplay of influence shaping the city’s concealed networks.
EXCERPT: CHAPTER 1
San Francisco
Fall, 1898
Jack London was drunk.
Ingloriously, outrageously, irredeemably drunk.
It had been a long time since he had been so demolished. This was the day he committed himself to make up for lost time. It was a clear, moonlit evening, the city’s gaslights blazing, but his disorientation was so intense that for all he knew he could have been wrapped mummy-like in the fog.
At the age of twenty-two, he had been drunk innumerable times in innumerable places. One could fairly say he had earned an advanced degree in inebriation at the school of John Barleycorn. Truth be told, he had never cared for the taste of liquor, but that was hardly the point. He cradled the glass to grease the wheels of camaraderie or to establish his manly credentials among hard-drinking men. And if not that, to ameliorate the bouts of depression he was prone to or simply to escape the hardships of growing up poor and being forced to become a work beast from a very early age. This day, he was intent on doing a deep dive, swimming down into the current of forgetfulness, stealing a glimpse of oblivion, even while knowing that it was a transitory experience, that he must at some point rise back up and burst painfully onto the surface. With his head pounding and body wracked, he would once again have to face the reminders of failure: the stream of rejection letters, the dashed-off notes declaring his writing unfit for public consumption.
Had these editors embraced so much hackwork that they could no longer discern honest, robust writing? Did they really favor gross sentimentality over impassioned realism? Yes, he was of a raw age, but he knew he had experienced more of the world—and discovered more of its truth—than many men over a lifetime. He had slaved in the factories, processing jute, canning fish, shoveling coal. He had pirated oysters along the bay before switching sides to enforce the marine law. He had ridden the rails west to east, seen the fat Iowa farm country, marveled at Niagara Falls in the moonlight, endured the living hell of jail as a convicted vagrant and walked the slums of New York City. He had braved the Pacific on a seal hunter, stepping ashore in Japan. And he had met the ultimate physical and mental challenges prospecting for gold in the unforgiving wilderness of the Yukon.
Yet these smug literary gatekeepers kept themselves cloistered in their offices, stooping to consider the supplications of someone they surely regarded as a lesser mortal. Would they care to know how hard Jack had labored since returning from the goldfields in midsummer, how he had disciplined himself to sleep no more than five and a half hours a night and chained himself to the writing desk except for brief meals and the occasional odd job? How he had churned out short stories, essays, poems, even jokes, any kind of writing he could think of, desperate to make the handful of dollars that would allow him a decent living and help support the family? No, of course they wouldn’t care. He would have taken soulful satisfaction in reaching out, grabbing them by the lapels and shaking them until their brains rattled. Since that was not feasible, he had sought solace in the bottle.
Where the hell am I? That’s the existential question, isn’t it? There was nothing more existential than struggling to put one foot in front of the other, to keep from falling down and possibly being trampled by the carefree souls out for an evening of entertainment or being kicked or robbed by those malevolent ones looking for a sadistic thrill or profit. He took a tiny measure of relief in realizing he was staggering along the sidewalk and not in the street where a horse-and-carriage might thunder over him, pounding him into the cobblestones. So, where? Washington Street? Montgomery? Likely one or the other, since he had just tried to gain admission to the Bank Exchange Saloon, with its crystal chandeliers, marble embellishments and elegant oil paintings. It wasn’t really his sort of place—too refined, too welcoming to the lawyers and well-heeled capitalists that he disdained. But he fancied invading it just for amusement’s sake. Not surprisingly, the saloonkeeper ejected him. Just as well, he told himself, since the taste of the bar’s renowned Pisco Punch would have been lost on him.
He had begun his odyssey in late afternoon at his favorite watering-hole, Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon, which teetered on pilings on the Oakland waterfront, not far from his home.
“What’s up with you, Jack?” asked Johnny Heinold, who was used to seeing him huddling with a dictionary at a side table rather than elbow-bent at the bar. “You got writer’s block?”
Writer’s block? Jack had to laugh. The spigot of his creativity was gushing. The problem was, the magazines and newspapers weren’t thirsty for it. “No, just need something to warm the blood in my veins after writing about all those freezing nights in the Klondike.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Ray M. Schultze is the author of six novels, five of them works of suspense—The Last Safe Place, Combustion, The Devil in Dreamland, Decatur’s Dig, and Beranek’s Stand. His most recent novel, Russian River, is historical fiction. His interest in writing began in childhood with a handmade, folded-paper “magazine” that his mother encouraged. After graduating from the University of California at Riverside, he pursued newspaper reporting as a practical way to support himself while writing fiction. Over a twenty-five-year career, he covered politics, the legal system, and education for newspapers in California, Florida, and Arizona. When he turned to fiction full-time, he drew inspiration from authors such as Alan Furst and Ken Follett. Ray now lives in Santa Rosa, California, with his wife, Judi. They enjoy tennis, hiking, exploring the region’s beaches and headlands, and international travel—experiences that often shape his novels’ settings. He is also an award-winning woodworking artist. Visit him at his website.
WHY JACK LONDON? A better question might be, why wouldn’t any author thirst to make Jack London a character in their novel?
At the peak of his short writing career, Jack was a rock star of his time, his fame spreading well beyond America. He was a larger-than-life figure whose personal exploits fascinated the public just as much as his novels and short stories entertained it. By the age of 22, he had tramped from California to New York, prospected for gold in the Yukon, sailed the Pacific to Japan, pirated oysters in San Francisco Bay, slaved in factories canning fish and shoveling coal, and earned some notoriety as “the boy Socialist of Oakland.”
He was brilliant and arrogant, but he brimmed with compassion for his fellow man, and his friends were legion. At 22, he was still unknown except for his political activities, and he struggled mightily to get his writing published.
To me, the thought of capturing him at that moment of despair and confronting him fictionally with a moral dilemma—how would he react if he stumbled upon a murder, a murder that the police swept under the rug?—was irresistible. The frosting on this cake was his time and place: San Francisco in 1898 was far different than we know it as today.
The city practiced a brash capitalism in which laborers toiled long hours in pitiful conditions for meager wages, and the Chinese inhabitants were viciously discriminated against. They were bottled up in the enclave known as Chinatown, where vice thrived as the murderous rival gangs called the tongs sowed fear. What a fertile field for a novelist!
QUESTIONS &ANSWERS
What are the hazards of fictionalizing a real person? The thought that you might be guilty of libel plays on your mind, which is a good reason to choose as a subject someone who’s been dead for at least a century! I fictionalized Bogart in one of my novels, and I sweated that one because he’s so iconic. You really feel the pressure of getting the personality down right. The last thing you want is some expert on the man telling you that you got it all wrong. Arrggg.
How do you come up with your ideas for novels? Because I’m an independent author trying to seduce the major publishing houses, I’m always on the lookout for what the industry calls “high concept” stories—basically ones based on an outrageous or over-the-top premise like the idea of the writer Jack London getting involved in a murder investigation. Seriously?
When do you get your best ideas for writing? Sometimes when I’m half-awake in the middle of the night or just rousing myself in the morning. Sometimes entire lines of dialogue pop into my head and I try to write them down before I drift off again.
You’ve written some international thrillers. Do you try to visit the setting when it’s a far-away place? It’s a must for me. You can research your heart out on, say, Portugal or Austria, and probably uncover every detail your story needs—except for the intangible feel of a place. The only exception I made was my novel Beranek’s Stand, set in Iran. I chickened out on that one.
If you could time-travel, where would you go? The bronze-age city-state of Knossos, on the island of Crete. It was the first sophisticated urban civilization of Europe, and the Minoans produced magnificent art and gloried in nature. By coincidence, Knossos happens to be the setting of my next novel…
Phyllis Jones Pisanelli Reviews 