There's a fine line between love...and murder.
When lawyer Lily marries Ed, she's determined to make a fresh start. To leave the secrets of the past behind.
But then she meets Joe. A convicted murderer who Lily is strangely drawn to. Who she will soon be willing to risk anything for.
But is he really innocent?
And who is she to judge?

My Husband's Wife was a book I was so excited to read! It sounded amazing and the tag line on the proof copy read "First comes love. Then comes marriage. Them comes murder." I mean COME ON. That is the best hook to get you to read a book, ever. And I was so excited to see what went on! What had caused a marriage to turn to murder - that's quite an escalation, don'tcha think? I absolutely devoured the book, reading all 500+ pages in one sitting, and in under 6 hours. I love losing myself in a book the way I did with My Husband's Wife and it's the first book in a while to get me really excited.

My Husband's Wife tells two stories - the story of Lily, who has just gotten married to her husband, Ed, and she's a lawyer just starting to take on her own cases, and then we have the story of the young Carla, who lives with her Italian mother, in an apartment, with a fella named Larry who comes around occasionally to dance. They live in the same apartment building, and Lily and Ed end up taking care of Carla on occasion when her mother has to work. I wondered for ages what the purpose of Carla was. I understood Lily's story - it was the story of the book, and I was achingly curious as to why we were learning about Carla, what she had to do with everything, since she was a kid. The first part of the novel focuses on the early days of Ed and Lily's marriage, and Carla as a kid, until it jumps to 12 years later.

It's a very intricate story, with so many nuances and characters who become important. Joe, in particular, was intriguing. A lot of this book has to do with him, he's an ever-present character, brought into proceedings after Lily represents his appeal after his girlfriend died. He was one of those characters you felt you never knew. You were never sure of the truth, either. His relationship with Lily was so intriguing, the way it was done, and I actually kind of liked it, because Lily never seemed enthusiastic about Ed, but with Joe there was just this spark and it was so confusing, and even after finishing the novel I am still not sure I knew anything true about Joe. I could honestly discuss the plot all day, because there was so much to the novel. There was Joe, there was Carla, there was Ed and Lily, there was everything that happens 12 years later that was just insane, to really understand this story you need to read the book. 

I really, really enjoyed My Husband's Wife. It has so many different storylines, different threads, different bits and pieces, the characters were baffling at times, but always intriguing. There was honestly so much going on that it felt like my head would explode at times, but it was so good to try and keep up, to try and realise where the book was headed and I'm not ashamed to admit, I had no idea who was guilty, who would end up dead, who would survive, what the truth was about Joe, Lily, Carla, all of them. Jane Corry has written a stonkingly good debut thriller, and this better not be her last because it was insanely good. Just read it. 

The young girl who causes the fatal car crash disappears from the scene.
A runaway who doesn't want to be found, she only wants to go home.
To the one man who understands her.
Gives her shelter.
Just as he gives shelter to the other lost girls who live in his house.
He's the head of her new family.
He's Harm.
D.I. Marnie Rome has faced many dangerous criminals but she has never come up against a man like Harm. She thinks that she knows families, their secrets and their fault lines. But as she begins investigating the girl's disappearance nothing can prepare her for what she's about to face.
Because when Harm's family is threatened, everything tastes like fear...

Sarah Hilary has quickly become one of my most favourite crime authors. I loved her first two Marnie Rome novels, Someone Else's Skin & No Other Darkness, and Tastes Like Fear is just as fantastic - and just as creepy, and heart-pounding. The D.I. Marnie Rome series has quickly become one of my favourites, and I hope Sarah Hilary plans to keep her around for so many more books, because I will never tire of a book featuring Marnie or Noah (it might be "The D.I. Marnie Rome series" but Noah is just as important, although all this Sol-related stuff kind of had me worried there for a second. 

Tastes Like Fear sees girls going missing, and winding up dead, which is only discovered after a car accident, and once again it's up to Marnie and her team to find the killer before it's too late, and they get the chance to strike again. For the second Marnie Rome book in a row, I did not guess the killer before I had finished the book, and it left me absolutely stunned. Which I LOVE. I love being surprised, I love not knowing who the evil person is, especially since there's the juxtaposition of how well the unsub takes care of his victims, prior to their deaths, obviously. 

I feel like I could read about Marnie Rome forever. She's such a tough cop, willing to go to the end of the Earth to solve these crimes, and it's intriguing to see her personal life move along, too. Her relationship with Ed is amazing, in that it's so quiet, they're just there for each other, all the time, and I'm sure the whole Stephen thing is going to run a while, because I feel like there's so much more to his story. And Noah! I love Noah Jakes. He's a great cop, he's lovely, he's just the best man, ever and his partnership with Marnie is so amazing. There's no hassle or arguments, they just instinctively know each other, inside out.

I actually finished Tastes Like Fear in a day. I didn't mean to, the same way I didn't mean to devour No Other Darkness, it just happened. Once you start one of Sarah Hilary's books you HAVE to finish it, and I should have known that before I started. But I happily settled myself in for the ride and boy, was it another good one. I now have to sit and wait patiently for D.I. Marnie Rome book four. Now THAT makes me sad, because I want to read it RIGHT THIS MINUTE. To see what Marnie gets up to next, with Noah by her side, and where the Stephen thing is going to go, because IT'S GOING SOMEWHERE (and I'm not sure that "somewhere" is going to be a good thing). 

wo young boys.
Trapped underground in a bunker.
Unable to understand why they are there.
Desperate for someone to find them.
Slowly realising that no-one will...
Five years later, the boys' bodies are found and the most difficult case of DI Marnie Rome's career begins.
Her only focus is the boys. She has to find out who they are and what happened to them.
For Marnie, there is no other darkness than this...

Oh my word, Sarah Hilary is a genius! No Other Darkness is a book I absolutely flew through. I did not intend to read it in a couple of sittings, in the same day, but I just couldn't put it down, and isn't that just the best kind of book? Makes me feel like an idiot for waiting so long to read it, mind, because it was just THAT GOOD. Sarah Hilary is without a doubt one of the finest crime writers you will ever come across, and I am saying that after just two books, but I am hoping for so many more featuring DI's Rome & Jakes because their partnership is awesome. 

No Other Darkness does not have the best plot in the world, in fact you need quite the strong stomach for this plot, because it involves dead kids. Which is just a no-no for crime shows or books, because you immediately get that pit in your stomach, like who could do that to their kid?!?! But it was actually do very sensitively, and there's nothing like dead kids to motivate a team of coppers into finding out what the hell happened, especially since the kids in question had been trapped in that bunker, dead, for four to five years. But as you come to expect with Sarah's books, it isn't all as it seems and the twist is out of this world, jaw-droppingly good. You'll literally sit looking at the book in shock, or maybe that's just me?

I just loved everything about this book. The pace of the book was phenomenal, letting us into the story bit by bit, dangling juicy tidbits, without fully explaining everything and it certainly left me wanting more, because I finished the damn thing within the day, didn't I? I just had to know what had happened, what kind of person leaves their kids in a bunker to die, and, hand oh heart, I never saw any of it coming. And it was so good to be back with Marnie Rome and Noah Jake. I love them both and they make such a good team, with Noah knowing when to keep his mouth shut, and vice versa. 

*Sigh* This book was perfection. So well written, the plot was fantastic (and sad), the ending left me frantic, my heart beating out of my chest, hardly believing my eyes, it was just twist after twist after twist and I could barely take it all in. I do not know how I will recover, although Tastes Like Fear is winking at me from my TBR pile. Maybe I recover by just having more Marnie & Noah?!?!? SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN TO ME.

Two girls go missing. Only one will return.
The couple that offers the highest amount will see their daughter again. The losing couple will not. Make no mistake. One child will die. 

When nine-year-old best friends Charlie and Amy disappear, two families are plunged into a living nightmare. A text message confirms the unthinkable; that the girls are the victims of a terrifying kidnapping. 

And when a second text message pits the two families against each other for the life of their children, the clock starts ticking for D.I. Kim Stone and the squad. 

Seemingly outwitted at every turn, as they uncover a trail of bodies, Stone realises that these ruthless killers might be the most deadly she has ever faced. And that their chances of bringing the girls home alive, are getting smaller by the hour… 

Untangling a dark web of secrets from the families’ past might hold the key to solving this case. But can Kim stay alive long enough to do so? Or will someone’s child pay the ultimate price? ​

If you have yet to read any of Angela Marsons's D.I. Kim Stone books, you need to stop reading this review right now, and go and buy Silent Scream. Heck, go and buy all four (well buy three and pre-order one) because you will DEVOUR them if you like well-written crime with a kick-ass lead heroine. Seriously. It's been ages since I've been this excited over a crime book, a good old fashioned, find-the-killer crime book because these days it's all about the psychological thriller, with the usually dull and annoying endings. But these books are proper crime books, with proper endings and Lost Girls is the best yet (although I have a feeling I'll be saying that about Play Dead pretty damn quickly).

There are going to be 8 Kim Stone books in total (or hopefully FOR STARTERS?!?! And we can have 8 more?!?!?!) and so far, I am in no way bored of Kim in any way, shape or form. I could genuinely read 16 more Kim Stone books. Lost Girls sees our intrepid detective and her team searching for two missing girls, akin to a case over a year back, where two girls went missing and only one girl returned, and the other presumed dead. The killers/kidnappers try to pit the families against each other and it's up to Kim and co to find the girls before all hell breaks loose, or more children end up dead. And if that's not enough poor Kim is trying to find out who got a kid murdered who was trying to leave a gang. It's fair to say that Kim Stone's life is HECTIC. I'm exhausted for her and I just get to read about her exploits.

What I liked about Lost Girls - and all the other Kim Stone books - is the pacing and the writing, not to mention the characters. Kim Stone needs her own TV show STAT. It would be AMAZING. I can literally picture it, although I have no idea who would play Kim and it would need to be someone who can carry off Kim the way book Kim is, because she's not exactly warm and welcoming. I actually love that about her, she just wants to get the job done, and there's nowt wrong with that at all. The pacing of the book is fantastic. It goes at just the right amount of pace to keep you hooked, unable to put it down, which is a good thing because YAY READING but bad because it can interrupt your sleep. But it's so worth it, and it's like Kim and her team have become family.

It's so good to see the team strengthen - we've had three books now, they're all settling into their roles nicely. Bryant's the cool, calm, collected one, the only one allowed to call Kim on her crap; Stacey's the quiet tech-y one; and Dawson is still an enigma to me. I want to know more about him, but it was nice to see Kim trust him with his own little investigation in Lost Girls. I won't lie, he's damn intriguing. I absolutely loved Lost Girls, the plot was amazing, I always love when families are pitted against each other, even though it's cruel. And I honestly can't big up Angela Marsons enough. She's a rare talent, and deserves every single bit of praise she receives because she's an OUTSTANDING writer. 

When a rapist is found mutilated in a brutal attack, Detective Kim Stone and her team are called in to bring a swift resolution. But, as more vengeful killings come to light, it soon becomes clear that there is someone far more sinister at work. 

With the investigation quickly gathering momentum, Kim finds herself exposed to great danger and in the sights of a lethal individual undertaking their own twisted experiment. 

Up against a sociopath who seems to know her every weakness, for Detective Stone, each move she makes could be deadly. As the body count starts to mount, Kim will have to dig deeper than ever before to stop the killing. And this time - it’s personal. 
​

Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man. This is why I've put off reading Evil Games for so long - because Angela Marsons makes you read her books in one sitting, with some kind of wizardry I've rarely encountered. I genuinely started this book at 6pm (after watching Pointless - they won the jackpot!) and finished it at 9.30pm. THE SAME NIGHT. I barely put the book down, except to go to the bathroom. Honestly, I just got so sucked in to the story, and being back in Kim Stone's life that I had to finish it. And do you know the worst part? Lost Girls is now staring at me demanding I get started on it IMMEDIATELY. I may not sleep tonight, or forever. 

Evil Games is book two of the D.I. Kim Stone series and is just as good as book one. If not better, because we learn more about Kim Stone, our enigmatic leader. I love her, actually. Sure, she's a bit unemotional, and socially inept but so am I, so who am I to judge or complain? And she takes in a rescue dog so in my opinion she's literally the best, and dogs are much better companions than humans. This time around, Kim is tackling more murders, random murders, that all seem to lead back to the same psychiatrist, Alex Thorne and Kim being Kim, she has her suspicions and I tell you what, she has the best instincts of any fictional copper I've ever met. Not content with murders, she's also tackling a child paedophile ring, and you will never in a million years see that conclusion coming, I'm telling ya.

What I love most about these books, is the sense of family within Kim's department. I said in my review of Silent Scream that Kim is well-respected, and that's true once again - as the coppers stay late, come in early, do whatever Kim asks of them, all in the name of catching the bad guys. And the group they've got is amazing. Bryant is still top dog, like, second only to Kim naturally. But I'm looking forward to learning more about Dawson, Stacey, etc. It felt like Dawson's story was leading somewhere, this time around, but there was no resolution or answer, so we'll see where that one goes. For what it's worth, I don't think it's all as it seems. 

Angela Marsons is such a fine writer. I am kicking myself for not reading this sooner because it was amazing. The push and pull between Kim and Alex Thorne is so worth reading about, because you're just never sure who'll have the upper hand, but you always want Kim to come out on top, naturally. Kim Stone is such a feisty character, and I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of her so far, and that there's SO MUCH MORE to come. I honestly cannot praise these books enough, they're so reminiscent of the Rizzoli/Isles books, which makes my heart happy because I adore the Rizzoli/Isles books, and Marsons is similar to Gerritsen in which they both write with scalpel-like precision. The kind of writing that keeps you reading for three and a half hours in a row! If that's not high praise, I don't know what is!