The Amish Christmas Kitchen by Kelly Long

There is nothing like a little Christmas reading to get you in the festive mood. Now is the perfect time of year to start building up to that most special time of year. The evenings are getting dark, the fires are being lit in the hearth, and the nip of cold air is beginning to pinch at our nose.

The Amish Christmas Kitchen contains three romantic Christmas stories by authors Kelly Long, Jennifer Beckstrand, and Lisa Jones Baker. All with an Amish theme, and each story contains a recipe from the author. The stories are quaint, charming and very very innocent. Guaranteed to get you in the Christmas spirit, and for anyone interested in the Amish way of life, these stories will give you added incite. Each story was romantic, amusing and totally delightful. I really enjoyed them.

I received this galley via NetGalley.

Beat the Rain by Nigel Jay Cooper

Louise and Tom fall madly in love. After what feels like a very short time together, Tom becomes ill, but doesn't tell Louise, and he also doesn't tell his twin brother Adam, in fact he tells no-one. But while Tom is busy dying, Louise and Adam are busy falling in love, they just haven't realized it yet, but Tom has. Adam has always taken second place to Tom. Adam is handsome, but not quite as handsome as Tom. Adam is clever, but not quite as clever as Tom - you get the picture? Will Adam and Louise have a future together, or will the ghost of Tom forever get in their way?

This is a psychological thriller, but for a long time it reads like a romance, and I did despair that we would ever get down to the nitty gritty of why this book is in the thriller genre and not romance genre. This was a good read, don't get me wrong, a very good read, and a very strong debut from author Nigel Jay Cooper, but it takes a long time to get to the point, and when we do get there the story of Adam and Louise is a strong one, a shocking one, and while I did see a couple of twists coming, the book did not end as I had expected it to.

Nigel Jay Cooper is definitely an author to watch out for. In Beat the Rain he came up with a pretty unique plot. His characters are nasty, unpleasant people who at the end of the day, really did deserve each other, or at least that is my opinion anyway.

I will make a point of keeping an eye out for Nigel's next book, because I know it's going to be another cracker.

I received this galley via NetGalley.

Maniac by Angus MacVicar

Alec returns to his home village of Kilcolum, in Scotland, to recover from a mental breakdown. However, almost immediately Alec comes under suspicion for the evil murder of a little girl in the village. Everything seems to point to Alec being the murderer, and even Alec is uncertain as to his guilt or innocence. Turning to his old girlfriend Jenny for comfort, he soon finds things are not the same in Kilcolum as the day he left, for one thing Jenny is now wearing a diamond ring on her engagement finger.
This was an interesting murder mystery. I really enjoyed it, even though I had guessed who the murderer was early on, there was plenty of suspense and interesting characters to keep me reading. I would like to read more by this author who wrote suspense well, and who died in 2001.

I received this galley via NetGalley.

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The American Girl by Kate Horsley

Quinn is a seventeen year old exchange student who is spending the summer in France with her host family the Blavette's. Everything seems fine at first, but then as Quinn starts to realize all is not as it seems with the Blavette family and longs to be back home in America, events take a sinister twist.

Quinn is discovered in a confused and bloodied state after being knocked down one night, fleeing the woods. Taken to hospital Quinn doesn't know who she is or what happened that night to cause her to run blindly into the road. Most disturbing of all, the Blavette's have disappeared without trace and no-one in the small French town appears to know what has happened to them.

In steps Molly Swift, an undercover journalist who soon forms a bond with Quinn, as they both try to find out the truth of what happened that fateful night. While the police believe Quinn is not what she seems and appear to suspect her of murder, Molly fully believes Quinn is telling the truth, and is prepared to sacrifice her fledgling romance with the handsome French police detective, in order to prove Quinn's innocence.

This was a great read. I really enjoyed it. A real psychological thriller, that had me gripped from the start. Full of twists and turns, it was hard to know who to believe as everyone seemed to have secrets they wanted to hide.

I especially enjoyed the character of Molly Swift and would love to see this book as the first in a series with Molly as the protagonist, investigating crime in her unconventional way.

Kate Horsley is definitely an author I will be watching out for. I can't wait to read her next novel.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher HarperCollins UK for my free e-ARC in return for an honest review.

Nothing Short of Dying by Erik Storey

Clyde Barr is a drifter, a mercenary with a heart, a mountain man and a hunter. After sixteen years lending his muscle and expertise in conflicts across Africa and beyond, taking care of the little guy, fighting for the downtrodden and choosing sides in various third world conflicts, Clyde is tired and feeling his age. Having recently been released from a spell in a Mexican prison where he barely made it out alive, he is back in his native Colorado, in the mountains he loves, looking forward to retirement from conflict, and a quieter way of life, when he receives a panic-stricken phone call from his beloved sister Jen, pleading with him to "come and get her". He has no idea where Jen is or who has abducted her, but since their shared and troubled childhood, Clyde and his older sister Jen have had a particular bond. Nothing will prevent him from rescuing her.

And so it begins. Clyde's hunt for his sister is a roller-coaster of a ride through the wilderness, and small towns of America. A violent, bloody, modern day western of drug barons, hard men and hired guns. Throughout it all Clyde is driven by one thing - the need to save his sister. By day he mows down anyone who gets in his way, and at night he battles his demons, haunted by the memories of past conflicts, the women and children he failed to save, and the bloody bodies he left in his wake. Yet amid all this chaos, and the smell of gun smoke, Clyde shows us his softer side by finding the time to fall in love and rescue a damsel in distress, along the way.

This is Erik Storey's debut novel. With this book he shows us what master story teller he is, and the quality of his writing sweeps the reader along and kept me up into the early hours. I really enjoyed this book.

Thrillers are my usual genre of choice, although I don't usually go for action packed thrillers like this one. However, I really fell for Clyde Barr. He is Jack Reacher with a heart. He makes silly mistakes, really daft ones where you find yourself shaking your head in disbelief. He tries to do the right thing, he really wants to heal the world, but somehow he has to kill a load of bad men to make good things happen. This book is not for the faint hearted, but if you like thrillers, especially action thrillers, and if you long for the wild west where the lines between good and bad get a little blurry at times, and if you like your heroes, scarred, tough, and at times ruthless, and with a moral code all of their own, you will enjoy Nothing Short of Dying, like I did.

The really great news is that Nothing Short of Dying is the first book in the Clyde Barr series. The bad news is we are going to have to wait for book two! If the second Clyde Barr novel is anything like the first, it will be worth the wait, and I plan to be first in the queue!

Thank you to newbooks/nudge, the publisher Simon & Schuster UK, and the author Erik Storey for my free copy of Nothing Short of Dying, in return for an honest review.

The Eskimo Solution by Pascal Garnier

For a long time this book had me thoroughly confused, there were even times when I found excuses not to pick it up. But eventually after about 25% into the book I found I did not want to put it down!
A strange book about a man called Louis who writes a book about a man called Louis - confused? Well you should be! The first man called Louis even had a next door neighbor called Louis! Louis the author writes a book about Louis the serial killer, so really The Eskimo Effect is a book within a book.

It is dark, very very dark, and it is bleak. But it is also amusing, in a way that almost leaves you feeling guilty for being amused, I mean the man is a serial killer - what can possibly be amusing about that? And yet there are moments where you may not be laughing out loud, but moments where you find yourself smiling out loud.

Perhaps the saddest thing for me after reading this book was to realize that Pascal Garnier is no longer with us. This talented authors premature death in 2010 at the age of 60 years is a real loss, to his family, to France and to all of us who like a good story told well. The most fitting tribute I can pay Pascal Garnier is to read his back list of titles, and that is exactly what I intend to do.

Thank you to Netgalley, and Gallic Books for my free e-ARC of this book in return for an honest review. The Eskimo Solution by Pascal Garnier is published today 12th September 2016.