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.

In the wake of a woman’s savage murder, the suspects and motives are only mounting for Sheriff Bree Taggert in a twisting novel of suspense by #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author Melinda Leigh.

In a quiet suburban neighborhood in upstate New York, single mom Kelly Gibson is slain in her home—the victim of a rage killing. Right away, Sheriff Bree Taggert has three persons of an angry soon-to-be ex-husband, a furtive rebound boyfriend, and an obsessive neighbor.

But as Bree and investigator Matt Flynn work together to narrow the field, there’s a shocking twist in the a second woman is murdered in the same brutal fashion.

While investigating, Bree is attacked and left for dead. When another woman is kidnapped, Bree and Matt must act quickly to unravel the deceptions in Kelly’s life and death and find a killer before someone else dies.

I absolutely love this series and this is the 10th, scheduled for release in September. It’s an audio review hopeful.

Two disparate people—lost in their own way—find an unexpected healing connection in a poignant novel about redemption and chosen family by New York Times bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde.

An army veteran with a career as a beat cop behind her, security guard Addie Finch is tough—on the outside. Internally, she’s in crisis mode. She’s lonely, introverted, struggling through AA, estranged from her son, and, at sixty-two years old, questioning her role as a protector. She also has a soft spot for the underdog that’s about to change her life.

Addie finds Jonathan, a homeless teenager abandoned by his mother, holed up in a warehouse and vulnerable to the elements and to predators. Touched by the boy’s gentle nature and a wisdom beyond his years, Addie offers him temporary shelter in her garden shed in exchange for maintaining the sprawling property. It’s an act of kindness and purpose that means the world to Jonathan. But when Addie faces a situation that sends her internal world tumbling, the emotional connection with Jonathan, once the unlikeliest of strangers, becomes her lifeline as well.

As both process past traumas, Addie and Jonathan forge a surrogate grandmother-grandson bond—a chosen family that could restore trust and heal hearts they thought were broken forever.

Thanks to Sandy @ Sandy’s Book a Day Blog for featuring this in her What’s New on My Bedside Table post. Scheduled for release in November, it’s an audio review hopeful.

To save a client accused of murder, defense attorney Keera Duggan must fight a complex web of corruption in a riveting novel of suspense by New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni.

In a quiet South Seattle neighborhood, a suspected drug smuggler and his girlfriend are murdered in their home. When a young man named Michael Westbrook is accused of the brutal double homicide, his uncle JP Harrison turns to Keera Duggan to defend him. JP is Keera’s trusted investigator, and he desperately needs Keera to save his nephew against escalating odds.

The evidence is circumstantial—Michael worked with one of the victims, drugs were found in his possession, and he bolted from authorities. Ruthless star prosecutor Kim Tran has gotten convictions on much less. With the testimony of two prison informants, the case looks grave. But Keera never concedes defeat. To free her client, she must dig deep before Tran crushes both of them.

As the investigation gets more twisted with each new find, Keera is swept up in a mystery with far-reaching consequences. This case isn’t just murder. It’s looking like a conspiracy. And getting justice for Michael could be the most dangerous promise Keera has ever made.

This third book in the Keera Duggan series is scheduled for release in January. It’s an audio review hopeful.

Remote Series

A serial killer is rampaging across the country, tying families to chairs–arranged in puzzling tableaus–then murdering them, without leaving a trace of evidence.

FBI Special Agent Lukas Stark has been hunting the Tableau Killer for eighteen months but is always two steps behind in a maze of dead ends. He has no understanding of why the killer stages the scenes so meticulously or chooses entire families. Burning out, Stark is forced to take on a new partner, Gilles Garnier.

Garnier, an odd loner with a vague past, claims he’s a remote viewer who “sees” people, places, and events far away–remote–as if they’re right in front of him. Stark knows this sort. Cons. Wannabes desperate to worm their way onto a sensational case. Stark dismisses his new partner as a fraud … until Garnier precisely describes a new Tableau Killer crime scene from hundreds of miles away.

As Stark and Garnier track the Tableau Killer across the country, they start to believe they finally have the advantage. But Garnier’s ability to remote view fails him and leaves him ill and weak. Then Stark realizes how the killer has stayed ahead of them all this time. The reason is more terrifying than either man can fathom.

They face a killer who may be unstoppable, and stand at the abyss of a conspiracy so ominous, it shakes their reality to the core.

The Five—the second book in the groundbreaking Remote series from New York Times and internationally bestselling author Eric Rickstad—is a masterful and ingenious work of suspense that will chill you to the bone.

How do you catch a killer who can see your every move?

The Tableau Killer, known as Q, has escaped custody. Trained since childhood by an enigmatic group called Stargazer, Q is a remote viewer, able to see what is distant, what is hidden, in real time, anywhere in the world. Including the two men who caught him the first time, FBI agent Lukas Stark and fellow remote viewer Gilles Garnier.

Q thirsts for revenge and will stop at nothing to expose the secret organization who made him the monster he is. Luring some of the other “original six” remote viewers to his cause, they kidnap a Stargazer researcher and his family, leaving a trail of grisly murders in their wake.

But how many must Q kill to be satiated?

As Stark, Garnier, and new agent Jayla King hunt Q across the country and try to rescue the hostages, they learn this case is beyond anything they or the FBI have ever seen … and Stargazer itself is far more dangerous than the killer the nefarious organization created.

Thanks to Blackstone Insiders for both books in a series I’ve wanted to start for a while.

For readers of Girl A and Notes on an Execution comes a whip-smart and suspenseful story of a woman on trial for murder, as told through the eyes of the most important men in her own life.

Daughter, client, lover. Monster. Victim.

You were a sweet girl.

You were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.

You were a bomb going off in my life.

You were a challenge.

You were the story of a lifetime.

When four wealthy and influential members are poisoned at London’s most exclusive private club, a young waitress is arrested. As her personal life and upbringing are picked over, her obsession with online conspiracy theories is exposed.

After the murder accusation, five men begin to question how well they really knew her. To each of them—her father, a reporter, her former lover, her friend, and her lawyer—she is someone entirely different. But which is the true face of Katherine Cole? And is she a killer?

The truth about who Katherine is, and what exactly she has done, lies somewhere between these five male perspectives. The searing laser of the male gaze has never been more dangerous, as Katherine’s trial grips the nation and theories and perceptions about her spiral out of control.

What follows is a chilling kaleidoscope of a thriller, both a smart courtroom drama and a frightening examination of how one woman can be so ruthlessly deconstructed by the men who know her best—and just what happens when she decides to speak out at last.

Thanks to the reviews by Nikki @ Nikki Thrill Seeker and Krissy @ Books and Biceps, I decided to add this one. I was able to get the audiobook from the library.

Josie flinches as she takes in the faded blue sports jacket wrapped around the girl they just pulled from the water. Josie knew someone who’d once owned that jacket. He had died in her arms five years ago.

Heavy rain pours on the small town of Denton causing the riverbanks to break and the body of a young girl to float quietly to the surface. With no crime scene to examine, the odds are against Detective Josie Quinn and her team. Mercifully, the victim’s body is perfectly preserved, right down to the baseball patch on the jacket she was wearing. Josie can’t hide her devastation—her dead ex-husband, Ray, owned one just like it.

Following the trail back to her high school, Josie identifies the girl as Beverly Urban, a troubled student rumored to have been dating Ray before she left town for good. It looks like a tragic accident until the autopsy reveals a bullet in her head and the heart-breaking secret she was keeping.

Josie visits the salon where Beverly’s mother used to work, believing she was at the heart of a terrible scandal around the time her daughter’s life was taken. With the Denton wives remaining tight-lipped, Josie’s only hope is a secret meet-up with a terrified woman willing to talk. But she is murdered moments before giving Josie crucial information. It’s clear that someone is prepared to keep on killing to stop the truth from getting out.

Digging deep into memories of her own past with Ray is the only advantage Josie has on this twisted killer… but at what cost?

It’s the 9th book in the Detective Josie Quinn series and I’ll be starting it in a couple of days for a Goodreads group read. I used an Audible credit for the audiobook.

What books did YOU add to your shelves this week?