Saturdays at the Café

Saturdays at the Café is a weekly feature hosted here to talk about and discuss the books I’ve discovered during the past week, added to my shelf and am excited about reading. They may be new/scheduled releases I’ve seen on NetGalley, at the library, or from publishers or they may be older titles my friends have reviewed and shared on Goodreads or blogs.

---

Dean Lincoln Legal Thriller Series

Murder. Arson. Secrets. Justice is about to come home.

Big-city defense lawyer Dean Lincoln left his picturesque hometown of Beaufort years ago. But now, the lure of small-town life and a family matter have drawn him back.

Amidst the sultry heat and the Spanish moss, and beneath the facade of Southern small-town charm, Lincoln begins work again and is immediately thrown into two a rich kid charged with murder and a poor kid accused of arson. Both swear they are innocent. Both feel the system is trying to crush them. And in this corner of the South, guilt is rarely decided in the courtroom…

Lincoln’s return has stirred a long-standing grudge, and it could cost him everything—his career, his clients, even his life. As the clock runs out on the truth, trouble is closing in fast.

Small-town secrets. Dangerous liaisons. Hidden lives. Lawyer Dean Lincoln must risk everything to find the truth.

There’s a hurricane brewing over Beaufort, South Carolina.

And in the calm before the storm, big-city lawyer Dean Lincoln finds himself defending Haley Finch, a beautiful young woman accused of murdering her older boyfriend. Her supposed motive? He’d just won big on the lottery—and then changed his will in her favor. In the South, with Haley’s estranged husband suspiciously missing for the past two years and their marital funds dwindling fast, that’s motive enough.

But Lincoln knows nothing is ever quite as it seems down here, and once again finds himself scratching beneath the cracked veneer of the famous Southern charm. In Beaufort, money and influence all too often outweigh justice, so if Lincoln is going to dig right down to the truth, he’ll have to risk everything he loves…

I love legal thrillers and was excited to get both for audio review.

---

A completely addictive and gripping FBI mystery thriller

The tears fall down the girl’s pale face as she desperately tries to struggle free from the ties around her wrists. The only sound in the room other than her muffled cries is the ticking of a clock. Her mother has less than one hour to find her alive.

It’s been more than thirty years since Special Agent Sandra Vos’s twin brother was shot dead, an innocent victim caught in a kidnap gone wrong. It devastated Sandra’s family, but it made her who she is today, one of the FBI’s most successful negotiators.

After dropping her teenage daughter, Olivia, at school, Sandra is alerted to a potential hostage situation at her local grocery store and races to the scene. A man has pulled out a gun and is refusing to talk or let anyone out of the building until his demands are met. The fate of dozens of lives rests in Sandra’s hands.

But as Sandra starts to make a breakthrough with the hostage taker, she receives a call that makes her blood run cold. Someone has taken Olivia, and their demand will push Sandra to her absolute limit. If it’s not met within twenty-four hours, she will never see her daughter again.

Sandra knows she should step aside, letting her team take over, but she doesn’t trust anyone else to bring Olivia home alive. Breaking every rule in the book, Sandra is ready to go into her most personal negotiation yet. But how much will she have to sacrifice to save her daughter?

A totally gripping new series. Perfect for fans of Kendra Elliot’s Mercy Kilpatrick series, Mary Stone and Elle Gray.

I received a Bookouture email alert and got the eBook for $.99. I have the audiobook on my Audible wishlist.

---

A violent death and a vault of stolen treasures has Eve Dallas struggling to solve crimes old and new in the latest thriller in the #1 New York Times-bestselling series.

A blow to the head with a block of amethyst has left multibillionaire Nathan Barrister dead―while nearby, a vault, its door ajar, sits filled with priceless paintings, jewelry, and other treasures. Lieutenant Eve Dallas’s husband, Roarke―who misspent his youth in Ireland as a scrappy thief―recognizes at least two stolen pieces among the hoard. The crime scene suggests a burglar caught in the act. But only one item seems to be missing.

Then it’s revealed that the vault had actually belonged to the victim’s late father―and no one in the household knew it was there until a recent remodeling project exposed it. To protect the family name and business, they explain to Eve, they’d been looking for a way to return the ill-gotten gains anonymously and avoid the police. But now the police are all over their elegant house, and have a bigger, bloodier mystery to solve.

By all accounts, Nathan Barrister was a good man, a generous employer, a devoted husband and father. As for his father―he clearly had secrets. Now it’s up to Eve and her team to find out if those secrets got Nathan killed―and if it was a crime of passion or revenge.

It’s #62 in the In Death series, scheduled for release in February and I hope to get it for review.

---

Nola Strate, a late night call-in radio host in Portland, Oregon, listens to stories of hauntings and cryptic sightings for a living. But one foggy, wet evening, when a caller describes an eerie scene that triggers memories of Nola’s escape from a serial killer years before, she becomes fearfully aware that he’s back to finish what he started.

Nola Strate is being watched, again.

After an encounter with a notorious serial killer in the Pacific Northwest as a child, Nola has grown up and tried her best to forget her traumatizing night with The Hiding Man. She installed security cameras outside her Oregon home, never spoke of her experience, and now hosts Night Watch, a popular radio call-in show her semi‑famous father used to run. When coincidences lead Nola to believe that she is being stalked, and a caller on Night Watch has a live incident with an intruder in the caller’s home—the description of whom is chillingly familiar—Nola is convinced that The Hiding Man has resurfaced and is coming for her.

With a mysterious next‑door neighbor lurking in the shadows, more people getting hurt, the police not taking her concerns seriously, and evidence pointing towards her own father, Nola decides to become, like her listeners, a Night Watcher herself, and uncover the monster behind The Hiding Man’s mask.

Scheduled for release in July, it’s an audio review hopeful.

---

Phillip Brown’s sister discovers a dead man, shot in the back, behind the dress shop she where she’s employed. Sarah Brown begs her brother to find out who has shot the man as the shop owner is fearful and harassed, caught up in the dead man’s crimes. The investigation leads Brown to danger from a notorious dockside fence. While uncovering the murder, his supervisor demands he investigate thefts at his home, the man convinced his servants are thieves. Brown uncovers the true culprit with the help of the daughter of the owner of the Wiest Cannery.

Virginia Wiest has recovered from a frightening abduction and returned from a long European holiday where she has allowed herself to heal, if she could only dismiss Phillip Brown, her rescuer, from her mind. She is able to help him discover who is selling artifacts from his supervisor’s home through her society contacts. But there is no doubt Phillip Brown will be furious with her when he finds out she has placed herself in danger on the docks in an effort to keep him safe.

This historical mystery includes a Happy for Now (HFN) conclusion.

It’s the second book in the Browns of Butcher’s Hill series, scheduled for release in August. I hope to get it for review.

---

Jake McKallister might have been a rock star, but he was no ordinary one. Surviving an unspeakable crime as a young teen had shaped him into a guarded workaholic, and he now lived his life trying to forget. If it hadn’t been for music and the redemption he found through it, he might not have survived. Career success came easily for him. Personal connections did not.

When outspoken, vivacious college student Casey Caldwell was paired with the famously reserved rockstar for a friend’s wedding, she was prepared for the worst. What could they possibly have in common? She was a bubbly talker; he was a reclusive loner. His life was filled with music; she couldn’t carry a tune. She’d enjoyed a happy childhood; his was a well-publicized nightmare.

Yet despite their obvious differences, Jake and Casey found each other, and her light balanced out his darkness. Would their love be strong enough to survive the weight of his tragic past?

I quickly accepted this for audio review.

---

Sebastian Stone has a wedding to stop. His best friend’s sister is planning to make an epic mistake in six months, but no one else seems to get it.

So when Lainey Morris needs a place to stay in Cleveland for a four-month long research project, Bash offers her his house. As a pro hockey player, he’s on the road a lot, but when he’s home, he makes his case against her marrying Shane—or anyone else.

She’s stubborn and often has her head in a book, but Lainey is also beautiful, funny and sweet. Plenty of men would like to lock her down, but she needs to focus on herself. Take her time. Wait until she’s at least thirty.

Bash plans to use logic and reason to persuade Lainey to stay single, but everything falls apart when he finally figures out the he’s in love with her. But is it too late to hope she might feel the same?

I loved the first book in the Love on the Line series and was thrilled to get a chance to review this next book.

---

Tembi Locke, New York Times bestselling author of From Scratch , returns to Sicily for a breathtaking, emotional summer adventure, as she faces the empty nest and an uncharted new chapter in her own life.

Tembi Locke has always been obsessed with family—making them, keeping them, thriving within them. As a child of divorce, a mother through adoption, a widow by cancer and now remarried to form a blended family, she is deeply familiar with change and upheaval. But in the summer of 2023, she felt overwhelmed and uneasy by another major shift: her only child, Zoela, was about to move across the country for college. Tembi needed to be in a place with the power to connect her to the past and prepare her for the future. So, she rented a house by the sea and booked flights to Sicily.

Someday, Now chronicles a sun-drenched summer adventure, as Tembi searches for meaning in places as vast and awe-inspiring as the Tyrrhenian Sea and the mythological home of Persephone and Demeter to those as quiet and personal as her late mother-in-law’s kitchen table. The island is rife with nostalgia and memories for her and Zoela, who grew up visiting her late father’s family in the Sicilian countryside. And when Tembi’s new husband Robert joins them a few days into their trip, she leans into the complicated feelings brought on by this experiment in blending family and reclaiming possibility in middle age.

Combining her own emotional narration with recordings from her time exploring the beautiful island, Tembi invites the listener to journey alongside her in this one-of-a-kind audio experience. Someday, Now is a perfect next listen for fans of From Scratch (now a Netflix series starring Zoe Saldaña), but stands on its own as a captivating and transformative family story and a celebration of love’s ability to reshape us in every season of life.

I didn’t read the first book, From Scratch, but did watch the Netflix series and cried my eyes out. I quickly accepted a special offer from the publisher for the audio review.

---

It was a mistake to trust him.

Shivering and bruised, a teen wakes up on the side of a dirt road with no memory of how she got there—or who she is. The police don’t know where she came from until a frantic man arrives at the station. He’s been searching for her for hours. He has her school ID, her birth certificate, and even family photos.

He is her father. Her name is Mary. Or so he says. When Lola slammed the car door and stormed off into the night, Drew thought they just needed some time to cool off. Except Lola disappeared. Now his friends, the sheriff, and the whole town are convinced Drew murdered his girlfriend. Forget proving his innocence—he needs to find her. The longer Lola is missing, the fewer leads there are to follow … and the more danger they both are in.

Thanks to Carla @ Carla Loves to Read for her great review. I found the audiobook at my library.

---

What books did YOU add to your shelves this week?