#AllisonBrennan – Rosepoint Publishing

Don’t Open the Door: A Novel by Allison Brennan #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday

Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Book Blurb:

A family torn apart. A botched investigation. She’ll stop at nothing to get answers.

US Marshal Regan Merritt never bought the FBI’s theory that her ten-year-old son’s murder was tied to her job. Yet as leads went cold, she’d had to walk away from the marshals, the case and her now ex-husband, Grant, who blamed her for Chase’s death.

After Regan receives a chilling voice mail from her former boss, Tommy, claiming new information about Chase’s murder, she can no longer stay away from her pain-filled past. Especially when Tommy’s murdered before she can return his call.

Now more than ever, Regan’s determined to find the truth, but the more she digs, the more evidence points to Grant as the killer’s true target. But Grant isn’t talking. As she tries to pin down her ex, Regan discovers something much bigger and far more sinister is at play—and she’s running out of people she can trust.

My Review:

I tried another book by this author last year, You’ll Never Find Me, Book 1 of another series. This is Book 2 of the Regan Merritt series. This series features ex-US Marshall Regan Merritt whose own ten-year-old son was murdered, thought by ex-husband related to her job. She never accepted that theory.

Still doesn’t.

So she’s quickly embroiled in the cold case again when her former boss calls with what he feels is new information. I think one of my problems with this writing style is a plot point that is repeating ad nauseum.

The pacing is uneven for me and there are twists that throw the plot off-course, becoming convoluted. Regan decides she must determine what her former boss uncovered with hopes of finally getting to the truth. The path begins to lead to ex-husband Grant, but he’s uncooperative.

As she gradually uncovers more bits and pieces, it’s obvious the plot gets into the higher echelons of wealth and that she’s dealing with some powerful people.

The conclusion gets strung out a bit much for me, not sure I needed all the minutiae. Perhaps you read Book 1 and will be thoroughly happy to learn that the reason for the death of Chase has been resolved. Or, maybe I’m just bored easily.

Rosepoint Publishing: Three Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Domestic Thrillers, Crime Thrillers
Publisher: Harlequin Audio
ASIN: B09V98R2PJ
Listening Length: 11 hrs 11 mins
Narrator: Amy McFadden
Publication Date: January 24, 2023
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Don’t Open the Door – Amazon-US
Amazon-UK

The Author: Allison Brennan is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of more than forty thrillers and numerous short stories. She was nominated for Best Paperback Original Thriller by International Thriller Writers, had multiple nominations and two Daphne du Maurier Awards, and is a five-time RITA finalist for Best Romantic Suspense. Allison believes life is too short to be bored, so she had five kids and writes three books a year. Originally from northern California, in 2019 she and her husband relocated to Arizona where they enjoy baseball Spring Training, hiking, and spending time with their kids, grandson, and assorted pets.

#Audiobooks

You’ll Never Find Me by Allison Brennan #AudiobookReview #WomenSleuthMysteries

Angelhart Investigations Book 1

If you love getting in on a new series with Book 1, you may want to check this one out.

Book Blurb:

Nothing brings family together like crime. In the first book in the thrilling new Angelhart series from New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan, private investigator Margot Angelhart helps clients the law overlooks, but when she takes on a case more dangerous than she imagined, teaming up with her estranged siblings may be her only hope for survival.

Working alone as a private investigator is tough. Estranged from her PI family, Margo Angelhart does what she must to get by—including taking on sordid cases that pay the bills, even if she’d rather be helping those the justice system has failed.

That is, until a cheating husband case she’s working intersects with her siblings’ corporate espionage investigation, forcing Margo to cooperate with the Angelhart firm. Now, as the siblings compare notes, it’s clear they need to work together before a white-collar crime escalates to murder.

With far more questions than answers and a key suspect on the run, they’ll need the whole family to pitch in. But as they investigate the ever-twisting mystery, Margo isn’t sharing everything. Can she learn to trust her family and heal their once-close relationship before her secrets put those she loves most in danger?

My Review:

The author introduces us to the Angelhart family in a new series. Not my first experience with the author but thought I’d try again with the first in a new series as I usually come in well after the characters are established with history.

Margo is a PI, estranged from the family. The dynamic with the family is strained and I had a hard time engaging with Margo’s character, discovering the separation from the family business was possibly explained in a prequel that I didn’t read it.

This narrative splits and creates a sub-plot. As the blurb describes, one of Margo’s cases and her siblings intersect. Margo is also trying to help a woman escape a dangerous situation with her husband. Add the dissension between Margo, her family, and why her dad is in prison and the storyline gets complex. She’s sure he didn’t commit the crime and can’t understand why her family won’t back her in working to clear his name.

There may be too many threads packed into the storyline—it becomes a bit convoluted—and working on separate plot points, found myself disassociating from the audio and not staying tuned.

The chapters bounce between different characters POV. Sometimes that works well for me. While it gives the reader more inside info into the thought processes of the characters, it became just too much in this case. The point seems to be setting them up for further inclusion in additional installments. I did enjoy the descriptions of the Phoenix area since we spent a year in Goodyear and got to understand the real beauty of the area.

Too many holes for me, bouncing POVs, switching plot threads, setting the stage for the next installment, and the conclusion left me with unanswered questions. I had somewhat the same experience with the writing style in The Wrong Victim last year. Again it seems, I want more potency in the main thread, more tension, faster pace, suspense.

I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Rosepoint Publishing: Three point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Women Sleuth Mysteries, Crime Thrillers
Publisher: Harlequin Audio
ASIN: B0CT479PLS
Listening Length: 10 hrs 31 mins
Narrator: Hillary Huber
Publication Date: June 25, 2024
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: You’ll Never Find Me [Amazon-US]
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Allison Brennan is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award winning author of more than forty thrillers and numerous short stories. She was nominated for Best Paperback Original Thriller by International Thriller Writers, had multiple nominations and two Daphne du Maurier Awards, and is a five-time RITA finalist for Best Romantic Suspense. Allison believes life is too short to be bored, so she had five kids and writes three books a year. Originally from northern California, in 2019 she and her husband relocated to Arizona where they enjoy baseball Spring Training, hiking, and spending time with their kids, grandson, and assorted pets.

Happy Thursday!

The Wrong Victim by Allison Brennan – #AudiobookReview – #ThrowbackThursday

A Quinn & Costa Thriller Book 3

Book Blurb:

A lethal attack with no clear motive…and a killer dead-set on keeping the truth buried.

A bomb explodes on a sunset charter cruise out of Friday Harbor at the height of tourist season and kills everyone on board. Now this fishing and boating community is in shock and asking who would commit such a heinous crime—the largest act of mass murder in the history of the San Juan Islands.

Was the explosion an act of domestic terrorism, or was one of the dead the primary target? That is the first question Special Agent Matt Costa, Detective Kara Quinn and the rest of the FBI team need to answer, but they have few clues and no witnesses.

Accused of putting profits before people after leaking fuel endangered an environmentally sensitive preserve, the West End Charter company may itself have been the target. As Matt and his team get closer to answers, they find one of their own caught in the crosshairs of a determined killer.

My Review:

My step into the author that the CE sampled last year, this one in the middle of an established somewhat hard-boiled series. I was attracted to the Pacific Northwest location of the San Juan Islands on the coast of Seattle, a gorgeous historic oceanside area.

In this episode, Special Agent Matt Costa and Detective Kara Quinn join with the rest of the FBI team following the explosion of a sunset charter cruise in Friday Harbor. They begin by looking at those individuals who were killed by the bombing and there is also the question of whether or not the target was directed against the West End Charter Company.

They have been joined this time by Catherine Jones, an FBI forensic psychiatrist, who immediately clashes with Kara. Kara has pulled herself up by her bootstraps, has LA street smarts, and finds Catherine’s grating methods ill-conceived and laced by over-education rather than real-time experience. Catherine is the perfect antagonist, proves to be the irritation focus in the foreground while the team quietly works in the background to pick apart the bits of the what, why, and who.

The bombing is a hook that serves to lay the plot for the complex storyline but I had a problem engaging in Kara who proves rough around the edges bordering on crude, the obvious antithesis of Catherine. I felt the narrative bogged down somewhat by all the in-fighting and found my attention wavering. The novel could have been shorter and carried more punch.

As the plot adds additional persons of interest and the body count rises, it becomes clear there is another layer that feels like it is reaching a bit far. It does find a solid conclusion but at the loss of my interest.

The CE read North of Nowhere last year, our first experience with this author and narrator, and one that left him a bit exasperated. I downloaded a copy of this audiobook from my local well-stocked library. These are my honest thoughts.

Book Details:

Genre: Police Procedural Mysteries, Crime Thrillers, Suspense
Publisher: Harlequin Audio
ASIN: B09GL4CQ82
Listening Length: 13 hrs 13 mins
Narrator: Suzanne T. Fortin
Publication Date: April 26, 2022
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Link: The Wrong Victim [Amazon]

Rosepoint Publishing: Three point Five Stars

The Author: Allison Brennan is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award winning author of three dozen thrillers and numerous short stories. She was nominated for Best Paperback Original Thriller by International Thriller Writers, had multiple nominations and two Daphne du Maurier Awards, and is a five-time RITA finalist for Best Romantic Suspense. Allison believes life is too short to be bored, so she had five kids and spends all her non-writing time as a sports spectator, chauffeur, and short-order cook for her munchkins. She has a dog, two cats, and three chickens. Allison and her family live in northern California.

#ThrowbackThursday

North of Nowhere: A Thriller by Allison Brennan – #BookReview – #crimethrillers

Book Blurb:

New York Times bestseller Allison Brennan’s latest standalone is an unputdownable race to the dramatic finish.

After five years in hiding from their murderous father, the day Kristen and Ryan McIntyre have been dreading has arrived: Boyd McIntyre, head of a Los Angeles crime family, has at last tracked his kids to a small Montana town and is minutes away from kidnapping them. They barely escape in a small plane, but gunfire hits the fuel line. The pilot, a man who has been raising them as his own, manages to crash land in the middle of the Montana wilderness. The siblings hike deep into the woods, searching desperately for safety—unaware of the severity of the approaching storm.

Boyd’s sister Ruby left Los Angeles for the Army years ago, cutting off contact in order to help keep her niece and nephew safe and free from the horrors of the McIntyre clan. So when she gets an emergency call that the plane has gone down with the kids inside, she drops everything to try save them.

As the storm builds, Ruby isn’t the only person looking for them. Boyd has hired an expert tracker to find and bring them home. And rancher Nick Lorenzo, who knows these mountains better than anyone and doesn’t understand why the kids are running, is on their trail too.

But there is a greater threat to Kristen and Ryan out there. More volatile than the incoming blizzard, more dangerous than the family they ran from or the natural predators they could encounter. Who finds them first could determine if they live or die. . .

His Review:

How dare Tony take Kristen and Ryan in his plane and attempt to get to Ennis, Montana! Their father, Boyd Mc Intyre, is not someone to be trifled with. Tony is trying to protect the children from their father and particularly their grandmother, who is a woman with no discernable sympathy or soul.

As Tony is taxiing the plane for takeoff a sharpshooter hits him but he is determined to rescue the two children. Then a second shot goes through the aircraft and lodges in Tony’s chest. Gravely wounded he crash lands the plane in Lost Lake. Wounded and unable to help the sixteen and ten-year-olds, they become his rescuers.

Boyd sets out to recover his two kids. The description of the difficulties and terrain is a breathtaking visual of the lovely Montana mountains. Kristen, the oldest, tries her best to save Tony!

This story explores the corruption and lawlessness of the very wealthy and their families. Boyd has no compunction about removing anyone who gets in his way. There is always a lot going on—numerous characters.

The conclusion to the story illuminates the thinking of absurdly rich people with no morals. I was both exasperated and aghast at the cruelty exhibited by this ludicrously rich family. 4 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Disaster Fiction, Military Thrillers, Crime Thrillers
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ASIN: B0B9KX9185
Publication Date: August 8, 2023
Print Length: 368 pages
Source: Publisher and NetGalley
Title Link(s):

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: Allison Brennan is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award winning author of three dozen thrillers and numerous short stories. She was nominated for Best Paperback Original Thriller by International Thriller Writers, had multiple nominations and two Daphne du Maurier Awards, and is a five-time RITA finalist for Best Romantic Suspense. Allison believes life is too short to be bored, so she had five kids and spends all her non-writing time as a sports spectator, chauffeur, and short-order cook for her munchkins. She has a dog, two cats, and three chickens. Allison and her family live in northern California.