Month: September 2025

‘A Dark and Deadly Journey’ by Julia Kelly is the third in the espionage-filled Evelyne Redfern series

/ Pamela Kramer

“A Dark and Deadly Journey,” may be the third installment of Julia Kelly’s Evelyne Redfern Mysteries, but it’s the first time Evelyne travels internationally in her job with British Intelligence. She must investigate the disappearance of a trusted informant from Portugal. Because the novel is set in the middle of WWII, and Evelyne and her partner David are sent to Lisbon to find this important informant, Evelyne’s first person narration gives us an on-the-ground look at what life was like in Portugal because of its neutral status during the war.

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‘I Would Die for You’ by Sandie Jones is a twisty mystery with 80s vibes

/ Pamela Kramer

Inspired in part by author Sandie Jones’ teenage devotion to the 80s band Duran Duran, her new novel “I Would Die for You” features a different boy band, but a groupie who was even more devoted and crazy about following the band than she was. While Nicole Forbes is the main character and it’s her first person narration that tells the story of the “present” in Coronado, California in 2011, the other thread is the narration about her family in London, 1986, and revolves around her sick mother and her band-crazy sister Cassie.

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‘Beyond Her Reach’ by Melinda Leigh is the 10th book in the gripping Bree Taggert Series

/ Pamela Kramer

A really good series, like Melinda Leigh’s Bree Taggert series, has novels that stand alone but also has characters who grow and change from the first novel through the procession and the progression of stories. This series story arc, combined with the individual gripping novels, is what keeps readers coming back to read book after book. With this series, author Melinda Leigh manages to accomplish all that and more. In addition to a really likable, vulnerable but strong main character, sheriff Bree Taggert, there is a romantic partner, and a family. And one of the things I love about this series is the dogs, lots of dogs. Rescue dogs. Rescue dogs who save lives.

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“Apostle’s Cove” by William Kent Krueger Is by No Means a Religious Tract

/ Pamela Kramer

Author William Kent Krueger’s latest novel, the twenty-first entry in his Cork O’Connor series about that small-town sheriff and detective, is filled with fascinating, superbly drawn characters, but it’s certainly more than just a character study. It’s a complex and puzzling murder mystery featuring so many likely suspects that we readers are as stumped as O’Connor himself in trying to figure out not only who committed the murder, but where to even begin the investigation. The most confusing situation is that the murder he must solve happened twenty-five years before the present day.

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Family ‘Culpability’ by Bruce Holsinger, an Oprah pick

/ Pamela Kramer

Author Bruce Holsinger’s novel, “Culpability,” boasts several unique features, all of which are very effectively conceived and even more effectively executed. Reviewers are often asked to place a given book in a particular genre. But “Culpability” fits securely and comfortably in three different genres.

One is “family drama.” The entire novel offers information about the adventures, tribulations, sadness, and love that characterize the Cassidy-Shaw family. The second, every bit as significant as the family theme, is the character study. And in this novel, unlike others, we are offered deep and detailed character studies, not about one main member of the cast, as is usually the case, but about all five family members. The studies are, in each case, complete and detailed. We learn all about the strengths, flaws, concerns, wishes, and hopes of each one as pile upon pile of unfortunate events overwhelm them — some of those events resulting from outside problems over which they seem to have little or no control, and some of them due to the various character flaws from which each family member suffers.

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‘One of Them’ by Kitty Zeldis is a touching story of friendship and antisemitism that spans continents post-WWII

/ Pamela Kramer

In today’s polarized world, people are often talked about as “them” or “those people,” pejorative terms to say the least. In “One of Them,” author Kitty Zeldis takes that phrase, those words, and exposes the microaggressions, the ignorance, the prejudice behind them. There are two main characters whom we meet as they both attend Vassar College. While both are Jewish and from wealthy families, their approach to life is very different.

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A Most Pleasurable “Bonus Time: Still Got It” by Claire Cook is filled with humor, friends, and good fun

/ Pamela Kramer

In this treasure trove of humor, information, wisdom, and fascinating, poignant memories, author Claire Cook once again presents us with convincing evidence of the reasons she remains a delight for her vast audience of female readers. “Bonus Time: Still Got It,” this second entry in her “Bonus Time” series, once again describes in vivid detail the lives, adventures, and even thought processes of the series’ three protagonists: Glenda, who doubles as the first person narrator, Jan, and Harmony, the three forever friends who have moved to beautiful St. Simons Island, Georgia, both to escape from the many issues that have characterized and sometimes plagued their lives in Massachusetts and to reinvent themselves in a brand new setting.

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