Category: #CrimeFicFridays

A #CrimeFicFridays Book Spotlight | feat. the Historical Suspense novels by Karen Odden with a light of joy on “A Trace of Deceit”

Posted Friday, 2 October, 2020 by jorielov , , , , , , , 1 Comment

#CrimeFicFridays banner created by Jorie in Canva.

Acquired Book By:

I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours whereupon I am thankful to have been able to host such a diverse breadth of stories, authors and wonderful guest features since I became a hostess! HFVBTs is one of the very first touring companies I started working with as a 1st Year Book Blogger – uniting my love and passion with Historical Fiction and the lovely sub-genres inside which I love devouring. Whether I am reading selections from Indie Authors & publishers to Major Trade and either from mainstream or INSPY markets – I am finding myself happily residing in the Historical past each year I am a blogger.

What I have been thankful for all these years since 2013 is the beautiful blessing of discovering new areas of Historical History to explore through realistically compelling Historical narratives which put me on the front-lines of where History and human interest stories interconnect. It has also allowed me to dive deeper into the historic past and root out new decades, centuries and millenniums to explore. For this and the stories themselves which are part of the memories I cherish most as a book blogger I am grateful to be a part of the #HFVBTBlogTours blogger team.

Thankfully as I had to take a hiatus from Scribd, my regional library uses CloudLibrary for part of their audiobooks and I was able to listen to “A Lady in the Smoke” and “A Dangerous Duet” via their audiobook catalogue. I was not obligated to share my opinions and thoughts on behalf of the audiobooks and choose to share them for my own edification as well as continuing to share my readerly life on Jorie Loves A Story.

I received a complimentary copy of “A Trace of Deceit” direct from the publisher William Morrow in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

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Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

I  was expecting to be celebrating the fact I had listened to the first two novels in this series whilst I had read the third! And, yet, that isn’t quite how my hours with this series unfolded – courtesy of a towering stack of my chronic migraines & a slew of medical emergencies affecting my parents throughout the Summer  & most especially during September – hence why I am one of the champions of October and Autumn’s fierce grip which is happily starting us out right into a new Season!

Rather than admitting I lost the hours I needed to proper dive into this series, I took it up as a bit of a challenge the night before this was meant to go ‘live’ as they say! I happily found the audiobooks were available to borrow via CloudLibrary, whilst I had music queued and ready on Spotify for when I settled into the print edition of A Trace of Deceit. I was thankful for the bookmark the author mailed to me – it was one of those lovely chunky ones which has a lot of girth and height? I *love!* being surprised with bookmarks and this one was enscribed which was especially kind and sweet to receive. Therefore, as I started to become acquainted with the Victorian Mysteries I was surprised by what I was finding inside them and how each narrator approached the stories differently.

I felt it best to present my reactions as I was listening and reading the stories themselves (per my usual) and let each of you decide if this is a series you can chase after yourself and/or if something I’ve shared or said might help you decide if another series might be a better fit for you too. This is one reason why I love being a book blogger as we each help the other find the stories we might not otherwise have ‘met’.

This #CrimeFicFridays I am showcasing my introduction into the Victorian Mysteries by Karen Odden. Each forthcoming #CrimeFicFriday might be a similar showcase and spotlight and/or it could feature a full review of a Crime Fiction novel I’ve recently read whilst I might also host an author and showcase their story and/or series, too. It is a feature which constantly is in flux and whenever I feel creatively inspired to share a portion of my pursuit of finding Crime Fiction novelists and narrators I love discovering – you’ll see this feature presenting itself with new posts!

Lest I mention I’ve renamed this feature from [#CrimeFicFriday] to [#CrimeFicFridays] as for whichever reason the latter comes more readily to my mind than the former? Same showcases, same featured selections but with a new twist of a name and a fancy new banner! I felt it only fitting that I debut the banner for this featured showcase alongside the debut of my #2PagePreview banner, as well! Both are full features here on Jorie Loves A Story but they needed their own identity, too.

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A #CrimeFicFridays Book Spotlight | feat. the Historical Suspense novels by Karen Odden with a light of joy on “A Trace of Deceit”A Trace of Deceit
by Karen Odden
Source: Author via Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

From the author of A Dangerous Duet comes the next book in her Victorian mystery series, this time following a daring female painter and the Scotland Yard detective who is investigating her brother’s suspicious death.

A young painter digs beneath the veneer of Victorian London’s art world to learn the truth behind her brother’s murder…

Edwin is dead. That’s what Inspector Matthew Hallam of Scotland Yard tells Annabel Rowe when she discovers him searching her brother’s flat for clues. While the news is shocking, Annabel can’t say it’s wholly unexpected, given Edwin’s past as a dissolute risk-taker and art forger, although he swore he’d reformed. After years spent blaming his reckless behavior for their parents’ deaths, Annabel is now faced with the question of who murdered him—because Edwin’s death was both violent and deliberate. A valuable French painting he’d been restoring for an auction house is missing from his studio: find the painting, find the murderer. But the owner of the artwork claims it was destroyed in a warehouse fire years ago.

As a painter at the prestigious Slade School of Art and as Edwin’s closest relative, Annabel makes the case that she is crucial to Matthew’s investigation. But in their search for the painting, Matthew and Annabel trace a path of deceit and viciousness that reaches far beyond the elegant rooms of the auction house, into an underworld of politics, corruption, and secrets someone will kill to keep.

Genres: Feminist Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller Suspense



Places to find the book:

Borrow from a Public Library

Add to LibraryThing

ISBN: 9780062796622

Published by William Morrow

on 17th December, 2019

Pages: 416

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The Victorian Mysteries by Karen Odden:

A Lady in the Smoke (book one)

A Dangerous Duet (book two)

A Trace of Deceit (book three)

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Published By: William Morrow (@WmMorrowBks),
an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers (@HarperCollins)

Available Formats: P.S. Edition Trade Paperback and Ebook

Converse via: #HistoricalMystery or #HistoricalMysteries
+ #VictorianMysteries and #HFVBTBlogTours

About Karen Odden

Karen Odden

Karen Odden received her Ph.D. in English literature from New York University and taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has contributed essays and chapters to books and journals, including Studies in the Novel, the Journal of Victorian Culture, and Victorian Crime, Madness, and Sensation; she has written introductions for Barnes and Noble editions of books by Dickens and Trollope; and she edited for the academic journal Victorian Literature and Culture.

She freely admits she might be more at home in nineteenth-century London than today, especially when she tries to do anything complicated on her iPhone. Her first novel, A Lady in the Smoke, was a USA Today bestseller and won the New Mexico-Arizona 2016 Book Award for e-Book Fiction. Her second novel, A Dangerous Duet, about a young pianist who stumbles on a notorious crime ring while playing in a Soho music hall in 1870s London, won the New Mexico-Arizona 2019 Book Award for Best Historical Fiction. A Trace of Deceit is her third novel. She resides in Arizona with her family and a ridiculously cute beagle named Rosy.

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Posted Friday, 2 October, 2020 by jorielov in #25PagePreview, #CrimeFicFridays, Blog Tour Host, Book Spotlight, Historical Fiction, Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours

#CrimeFicFridays Audiobook Series Spotlight | “Turn to Dust” (Book Nine: the Kay Hunter Detective series) by Rachel Amphlett, narrated by Alison Campbell

Posted Friday, 24 July, 2020 by jorielov , , , , 0 Comments

Audiobook Spotlight banner created by Jorie in Canva.

Acquired Audiobook By: I started to listen to audiobooks in [2016] as a way to offset my readings of print books whilst noting there was a rumour about how audiobooks could help curb chronic migraines as you are switching up how your reading rather than allowing only one format to be your bookish choice. As I found colouring and knitting agreeable companions to listening to audiobooks, I have embarked on a new chapter of my reading life where I spend time outside of print editions of the stories I love reading and exchange them for audio versions. Through hosting for the Audiobookworm I’ve expanded my knowledge of authors who are producing audio versions of their stories whilst finding podcasters who are sharing their bookish lives through pods (ie. AudioShelf and Talking Audiobooks; see my sidebar). Meanwhile, I am also curating my own wanderings in audio via my local library who uses Overdrive for their digital audiobook catalogue whilst making purchase requests for audio CDs. It is a wonderful new journey and one I enjoy sharing – I am hoping to expand the percentage of how many audios I listen to per year starting in 2018.

Similar to the blog tour for the sixth novel of the #KayHunter series, the blog tour review copies are being provided directly by the author off-site from Audible. The key reason I decided to not accept the review copies from “Gone to Ground”, “Bridge to Burn”, “Cradle to Grave” and “Turn to Dust” is because the new format is mostly directed for mobile listeners and I do not listen to audiobooks in that style of format. Eventually as I want to have a full set of all the Kay Hunter installments – I will be purchasing the ones I am missing from Audible to house them all in one place unless I find them available on mp3 CD – until then, I was able to join this lovely blog tour because the audiobooks are readily available via Scribd! For which, I am especially grateful as I can continue to listen to one of my beloved and favourite Crime Drama series!

Thereby my copy of “Turn to Dust” is self-provided through my subscription to Scribd rather than being provided with a complimentary copy of the story. Thereby, I am choosing to participate on the audiobook tour, sharing my ruminations with my readers for my own edification but also, as a continuation of a reader’s love for a dramatic crime serial. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

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What hooked me into the eighth installment of this series “Cradle to Grave”:

When you first begin Cradle to Grave, the title itself was percolating round my mind a bit – as I being a ready listener to the series now, I knew it was murmuring a glimpse of a hint towards the central plot of the story. I hadn’t caught on to what it implied – as I went a different direction in my mind than what was ultimately revealled but I liked where Amphlett took her motivation to tell the story and how that served a central arc of exploration as it was quite a perceptive point of entry once you realise what it is referencing directly.

You get spoilt by how quickly you are inserted into these detective’s lives – where you forget that they have emotional baggage of their own and that for some of them, certain cases are going to affect their mental health moreso than others. This was the case I felt for Gavin who was taking this case especially hard as each time he attempted to make any kind of lead-way, he was being confounded by more dead ends. For a case which felt time sensitive, it was not the kind of process a detective could resolve in their heart of hearts – not when a missing child needed to be found sooner than later.

Happily as we are quite a far afield into the series now – Kay isn’t the only perspective we are focusing on now. Other characters are stepping forward into the foreground – where they can take the ‘lead’ focus for different sequences whilst Kay is still actively working the case in the background and/or delegating her other duties given the role Sharpe appointed her as she’s not just a lead investigator now. This became my mainstay of joy for Cradle to Grave – getting to hear the other characters have more ‘on-scene’ time in your ears – as they are beautifully developed by Ms Campbell and they are lovingly etched out by Ms Amphlett. Due to this the series feels fuller somehow as the team isn’t just a ragtag family of investigators – but they feel authentically true to themselves and the nature of their jobs.

One note of interest to reveal – as I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about the shift in points-of-view from what was previously established early-on in the Kay Hunter series? Amphlett used to feature the villains in her stories on such a high level of disclosure, it was always a bit hard to progress through those passages because of how dark the story felt whilst you were in those sections of the audiobooks. Campbell did well to pull you through them – but there was a point where I noticed there was a general shift to re-establish the series back into the police perspective and keep this more anchoured in a dramatic crime focused through the police procedural thread of interest moreso than in re-shifting off Kay and the villains themselves.

By this installment, I can tell the switch was well-timed because it establishes what I loved about watching Rizzoli and Isles – you feel more connected to the detectives themselves and as such, the series re-evolves itself to be even more emotionally centred on their lives rather than just focusing in on how their solving the cases which test their strengths and their patience to solve the impossible on a time-clock which is constantly working against them.

-quoted from my review of Cradle to Grave

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#CrimeFicFridays Audiobook Series Spotlight | “Turn to Dust” (Book Nine: the Kay Hunter Detective series) by Rachel Amphlett, narrated by Alison CampbellTurn To Dust
Subtitle: A Detective Kay Hunter Novel
by Rachel Amphlett

When the body of a naked man is found in the middle of a barren field, a rural community is left in shock - and fear.

Discovering that someone is offering money in return for information about the dead man and anyone connected to him, Detective Kay Hunter realises there is a dark side to the victim’s past. When a key witness disappears and a web of deceit and lies threatens to derail the investigation, she fears the worst. Can Kay and her team of detectives find out who is behind the man’s murder before another victim is targeted?


Places to find the book:

Add to LibraryThing

ASIN: B088KV7NJ6

Also by this author: Scared to Death, Will to Live, One to Watch, Hell to Pay, Call to Arms, Author Inteview: Rachel Amphlett (Gone to Ground), Gone to Ground, Bridge to Burn, Cradle to Grave

Also in this series: Scared to Death, Will to Live, One to Watch, Hell to Pay, Call to Arms, Gone to Ground, Bridge to Burn, Cradle to Grave


Published by Saxon Publishing

on 14th May, 2020

Length: 7 hours and 56 minutes (unabridged)

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Published by: Saxon Publishing

Audiobooks by: Audiobook Factory (@audiofactoryuk)

Order of the Kay Hunter Detective series:
Scared to Death | Book One (see also Review)
Will to Live | Book Two (see also Review)
One to Watch | Book Three (see also Review)
Hell to Pay | Book Four (see also Review)
Call to Arms | Book Five (see also Review)
Gone to Ground | Book Six (see also Review)
Bridge to Burn | Book Seven (see also Review)
Cradle to Grave | Book Eight (see also Mini Review)
Turn to Dust | Book Nine

About Rachel Amphlett

Rachel Amphlettt

Before turning to writing, Rachel Amphlett played guitar in bands, worked as a TV and film extra, dabbled in radio as a presenter and freelance producer for the BBC, and worked in publishing as a sub-editor and editorial assistant.

She now wields a pen instead of a plectrum and writes crime fiction and spy novels, including the Dan Taylor espionage novels and the Detective Kay Hunter series.

Originally from the UK and currently based in Brisbane, Australia, Rachel cites her writing influences as Michael Connelly, Lee Child, and Robert Ludlum. She’s also a huge fan of Peter James, Val McDermid, Robert Crais, Stuart MacBride, and many more.

She’s a member of International Thriller Writers and the Crime Writers Association, with the Italian foreign rights for her debut novel, White Gold sold to Fanucci Editore's TIMECrime imprint, and the first four books in the Dan Taylor espionage series contracted to Germany’s Luzifer Verlag.

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Posted Friday, 24 July, 2020 by jorielov in #CrimeFicFridays, Audiobook, Audiobookworm Promotions, Blog Tour Host, Book Spotlight, Indie Author, Jorie Loves A Story Features

Influencer #partner with #CrimeFictionBox | This #CrimeFicFriday is revealling what I received for the April Box!

Posted Friday, 12 June, 2020 by jorielov , , , , , , , , 0 Comments

Stories of Jorie Banner created by Jorie in Canva using Unsplash.com photography. (Creative Commons Zero)

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

In keeping in step with my announcements about being a new influencer for #bookboxes & book subscription services, I wanted to take a moment to highlight the #unboxing photographs I took for my 2nd Crime Fiction Subscription Box as well as talk about my *excitement!* over which books were enclosed and why I think these are going to become wicked good reads for me as a reader who loves her journey into Cosy Crime & Crime Fiction narratives!

[ be sure to read my ANNOUNCEMENT to find out which niches of this genre
I prefer to read & which ones I am hoping to continue discovering! ]

I’ve had to sit on this news and this reveal ever since I first received the lovely #bookbox in the mail! I was able to release a vlog #unboxing video which I happily tweeted closer to the time the box arrived – however, life and tides, health afflictions and an inability to find the words to blog these past few months left this lovely post in my drafts queue to be published. I decided to create a new sub-feature of Jorie Loves A Story – to inspire me into diving back into Crime Fiction whilst at the same time, finding traction with how to blog, read and discuss the lovely #newtomeauthors the #CrimeFictionBox has delivered to my postbox!!

In case you’ve missed my first announcement –
here is what you can expect from receiving your very own #CrimeFictionBox:

Crime Fiction Subscription Box logo badge provided by Crime Fiction Subscription Box and is used with permission.

One small switch from my first announcement: The #CrimeFictionBox NOW ships within a week of being ordered! No time delays for receiving your book box!

Remember: if a customer emails and asks for specific authors and/or types of stories not to be included they will do their best to fulfill those requests. They’re a small outfit so it’s not an issue.

If someone has a bad experience with the books, we just add an additional book the following month. No returns on books received.

→ They offer monthly, yearly and a bookcase option on their Boxes Page! You can choose from receiving 2x books per month (ie. Main Box) OR 3x books per month (ie. Big Box). Those subscriptions are also calculated for yearly subscriptions vs monthly installments. There is also a Large Print #bookbox option for both!

→ One aspect of this subscription service I *loved!* most is that they champion #CanLit Authors! You can request to receive Canadian Authors in your boxes and for me that is the best component of the box itself because I’ve been wanting to source and read more #CanLit Authors for such a long time!

→ In regards to the Crime Fiction novelists being featured in the #CrimeFictionBox: I had a curious itch to know the answer to this question as I read and follow so many who write these kinds of stories – I know some might visit my post out of curiosity… the answer was a sweet one: #CrimeFictionBox is OPEN to featuring world-wide authors of Crime!! Isn’t that beyond fab!?!

Shipping is FREE for North America. Seriously. I think that’s a game changer for most considering how steep shipping and handling fees are these days!

→ Before you ask – there aren’t ‘extras’ or swag or other inclusions right now currently in the boxes. There are plans being developed towards that end – however, wait til you read my REVEAL post and realise how *fab!* these boxes are even without some of the ‘extras’ you might be familiar with in other subscription boxes. REMEMBER these are tailored to your readerly interests and thereby not the traditional subscription box service.

Father’s Day Special: 3x month subscription, 2x books per month!

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(*) Due Note: I am a promotional #partner and/or Influencer with Crime Fiction Subscription Box but similar to how I receive books from publishers, authors & publicists or early review programs – I am not being monetarily compensated for sharing my experiences, impressions, reviews or the links to their website on my blog Jorie Loves A Story nor on my feeds on Twitter (@joriestory). Nor for the coupon code which is a discount for new subscribers to the Crime Fiction Subscription Box service.

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IF you’d like to order your own Crime Fiction Subscription box,

you can use my coupon code → 25%JORIE

→ *This applies to your first order only.
And, reflects ONLY on the Main Box & Big Box Monthly subscriptions.*

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Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

  • #CrimeFicFridays
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Posted Friday, 12 June, 2020 by jorielov in #25PagePreview, #CrimeFicFridays, #CrimeFictionBox, #Unboxing BookMail, Book Subscription Boxes, Jorie Loves A Story Features