​Imogen had barely pulled the handbrake on before Miles jumped out of the car and rushed to the house opposite his. The door was open and he rushed inside. Imogen jumped out and followed after him. There was blood in the corridor and leading into the flat. She could hear Lucy crying in the lounge, but it was muffled, she walked into the room to see her with her face buried in Miles’ chest. Miles shrugged at Imogen.
“Where’s the body? What happened?” Imogen said.
Lucy turned quickly, tears stopping almost immediately. She was angry. She looked back at Miles.
“What’s she doing here?”
“She’s my partner, I told you. Now what happened? Where is he?”
She put her bloody hand on Miles and pulled him towards the kitchen. He shot Imogen a look of helplessness.
“I just got home from work and he was like this! I tried to save him!” She started to cry again and threw herself at Miles. Imogen sighed and looked down to see the cat in the middle of the rug. It had obviously crawled there after whatever had happened to it, happened. Its once shaggy white fur was pink and red with varying degrees of intensity. Judging by the look of the blood around the flat this had happened fairly recently, the blood was still wet. She looked around the floor for a weapon but she couldn’t see one. Lucy was covered in blood.
Imogen looked at Miles hoping that he would be able to tell what she was thinking. This woman, this Lucy, had killed her own damn cat to get Miles to come over.  She was escalating. God only knows what she would do next.
“Will you do something now?” Lucy cried. “I’m not safe here! I need protection.”
“We’re going to call the forensic team and they are going to come and check for fingerprints. They will need your phone, to check for any spyware, your laptop, too. They can tell a lot these days just by the wounds on the cat, like the height and weight of the person who committed the crime.”
Lucy’s sniffling slowed down.
“They can do all that?”
“Oh yeah, they will check your phone records too. We’ll have to take your phone now.” She picked the phone up from the table and put it in her pocket. Lucy didn’t try to stop her.  “A team will be put on your house to watch who goes in and out. One of the uniformed officers will probably have to come with you to work.”
“Not you?” she turned to Miles. “You won’t be assigned to look after me?”
“No, that’s not my job I’m afraid.”
Imogen pulled out her phone and took a picture of Lucy in her scrubs.
“What was that for?” She had calmed right down now. Imogen could see the cogs in her mind turning, this wasn’t working out the way she wanted it to.
“Just for our records. We’ll start an investigation into Mr Kwan’s death when we get to the station.” Miles said to Lucy reassuringly. “Don’t touch anything, someone will be along soon.”
Imogen mouthed the words Mr Kwan to Miles quizzically, suppressing a smirk. He rolled his eyes. 

Prophecy Girl is the book you get if you mix The Vampire Diaries, a teensy bit of Pretty Little Liars, Harry Potter, and a whole lot of the Blue Bloods series, with Supernatural thrown in for good measure. And it's AWESOME. I like books I can just lose myself in, that are just so thoroughly enjoyable you can't stop reading. I also love books that take you to an entirely different world, and that's the case here because we have no demons, and Prophecy Girl has a ton of demons. And some pretty wicked prophecies, and a heck of an ending that has me desperate to start reading Conspiracy Boy. 

I loved Amelie. I absolutely adore snarky heroines, with quick, witty one-liners, and a nose for trouble, even if she doesn't always mean it and Amelie very much knows how to get into trouble. Chuck in a hot, hot, hot supply teacher (which sounds so wrong, but let me be clear here there are only three years between Amelie and Jack and he's HOT), the loooovely Jack, and you have a heck of a sparring match between two people who you're never quite sure are about to kiss, or kill each other. Or team up and defeat this Greymason, because Amelie is NOT a Greymason. And so starts a very entertaining novel, that I pretty much devoured. I wasn't sure at first if it was my kinda thing, but it really pulls you in until you literally can't stop reading. 

I really, really enjoyed Prophecy Girl, I liked the new take on vamps and werewolves, how they weren't enemies, or particularly vicious and there was this peace treaty in force, to protect everyone involved. I loved the idea of being a Guardian, and having to be bonded with a Watcher, it was quite a nice mythology. I am stoked to get straight into Conspiracy Boy, and see how everything that occurred in the finale of this book pans out in the second one, and to have more of the fabulous Amelie in my life. She truly was amazing. This was such a good book, if paranormal is your thing, this is the read for you. 

​Do you really ever know those you are close to? Do you truly know your neighbors, your best friend, your parents, your siblings? How about your husband? Of course you do, right? But what if you don’t? This is the question I explore in my newest novel, MISSING PIECES.
 
I’ve long been intrigued by news accounts documenting the shock and surprise loved ones experience when they learn that a loved one wasn’t quite the person they thought they were. I trusted him implicitly, says the woman whose husband has a secret family. She was always a reliable, hardworking employee, says the boss of the woman who embezzled thousands.  While I was writing my novel, even in my hometown, there was the case of a purportedly normal family man who was accused of shooting a family member over fifteen times.  Police arrived to find him sitting in a chair in his living room, with a bag of ammunition and gun cleaning supplies sitting next to him. “You think you know your neighbors, but you don't. You just never know," commented a woman who lived next-door to him. How could you be so wrong about the person sleeping next to you, sitting next to you or living next door to you?
 
In MISSING PIECES, years after her husband left his hometown and tragic childhood behind, a middle of the night phone call propels Sarah and Jack back to the past that he has long avoided.  Sarah is determined to be there for her husband of two decades and the father of her twin daughters and to be a supportive loving wife. But when the stark reality of Jack’s childhood begins to come to light Sarah has to make a decision. She has to decide whether to ignore the nagging doubts about her husband or to dig for the truth knowing that whatever she uncovers could mean the end of her marriage and possibly cost Sarah her life. 

These Days of Ours is one of those slow-burning emotional books you absolutely devour. It might not be fast-paced, but the emotion is raw and real, and I quite enjoyed how gentle of a book it was and it doesn't half pack a punch. Everyone wonders if they had moments they let go, or people they let go, because of misunderstandings or miscommunication, and this whole novel is about the great love of Kate's life. It was very How I Met Your Mother, in the way that Ted and Robin were clearly meant for each other, even through ten years and Barney, etc, in the same way Kate and Charlie were clearly meant for each other, but life isn't like that. Things get in the way, times change, new relationships occur.

I loved how These Days of Our focused on specific moments in Kate's life. We didn't see the minutiae of her life, just the most important bits, and it was always interesting how life had moved on between each little chapter. Time had always moved on a little bit, there were new tragedies, new hopes, new fears, but the one constant thing in Kate's life was her cousin Becca, and her friend Charlie. I had mixed feelings about Becca. I'm sure she had the best of intentions, but she came across like a puppet master with her puppets, never really thinking through the consequences (because as far as Becca was concerned there's no such thing as a consequence). But I could see why Kate never gave up on her, because they were just too close to ever really be apart for any length of time. 

I really liked Kate. And you would need to like Kate to really feel the emotions of this book, because this is Kate's life and we see her go through so much, for so many years, it's like an epic look into someone's life, something you would only normally be privy to if you were a friend. It felt like everything that happened to Kate was really, truly happening, it was that real, and intense. You just wanted Kate to have the best life possible, and aside from the whole Charlie thing, she did. She was awesome! And I kind of feel like if she hadn't gone through everything she had gone through, her relationship with Charlie might not have lasted, if they had gotten together decades ago. 

These Days of Ours was such a good read. It was filled to the brim with so much emotion, so much heart, it's like Juliet poured her entire soul into this book, and we get to reap the reward as readers. It was such a satisfying book, too. There's nothing like finishing a story and just being so HAPPY. Like the story has done the full circle. 

The problem with first love is that it never truly dies . . .
Libby London fell in love with the eighties, came of age in the nineties, and now the twenty-first century is baffling her. Her New-York-City style is more, erm, vintage tragedy than retro babe and her penchant for All Things Eighties might just be what's holding her back in matters of life and love . . .
At least that's what her well-meaning friends think. They've staged a #80sIntervention in an effort to bring Libby bang up to date. What with her dreaded birthday party, friends' madcap ambush, and being forced to relocate her vintage shop, Libby's nearing breaking point!
Will she ever be able to move on when the one she loves keeps her in the past?

Holding Out For A Hero has one of the best covers I've ever seen (it's so simplistic, but so gorgeous) and also one of the most misleading book covers I've ever seen. I genuinely thought this would be a fun, light read. Nuh-uh. This is a hard read, because it is genuinely hard to read about the struggles Libby is going through, to read about her nights and what happens, and she's so anxious, and worries so much, you can't help but worry with her and be anxious with her and it turns you into a bit of a mess, so imagine how bad it is for Libby! But it's actually a really good read, and it's an important read.

Holding Out For A Hero is chock-full of eighties references. From the song-title-chapters, to every other sentence Libby utters being full of the eighties, it's like an eighties extravaganza and it's amazing. I was actually born in 1990, so I missed the 80s (and the vast majority of the 90s, considering I was a baby/toddler) but the way Libby brings it to life is something special. I now want to go and binge all the awesome 80s movies there are, starting with The Breakfast Club and Pretty In Pink, and any other 80s movie referenced in this book. In fact, I would love Victoria immensely if she provided me with a) a soundtrack for this novel, filled with all the songs referenced and b) a movie list of this novel, ditto. I want to immerse myself in the awesome 80s for a bit, and see why Libby loved it so much.

But on the flip-side to that, there's an important message to Holding Out For A Hero. I'm loathe to give too much away, but it was the kind of novel that left me worried - I wrote on my GoodReads update that I was really enjoying the book, but I wasn't quite sure where Ollie actually went, and he's a really important part of Libby's life and Libby's story. Did I guess? Yes. Was I right? Yes. Was I still surprised? Oh boy yes. There was another bright spot to the novel though, in the form of Jasper. He was pretty freaking awesome, and it's fair to say I developed a bit of a crush on him. 

Whatever you do, don't judge this book by its cover. There's a lot more going on inside the pages than the cover gives away, so if you're not prepared for a heavier read, don't read it, because you'll only get annoyed. I liked it, I found it refreshing, and I loved Libby and wanted to hug her and try and make it all better. I loved her love for the 80s, it was infectious, really, really infectious. And I really enjoyed Holding Out For A Hero. No, it wasn't what I was expecting, but it was even better than that, despite some of the difficult scenes. Van Tiem is a very sensitive storyteller, and she's done Libby very, very proud.