Excellent.

At random I downloaded Nora Roberts’ 2020 novel Hideaway.

Wow.

A sprawling multi-generational family drama. Fast paced from the very start

It really reminded me of the entertaining story telling of Jeffrey Archer.

Good vs evil. Compelling and interesting characters.

If this is a romance novel, I’m good with them. The romance makes up perhaps 5%.

In this book, 9-year-old Caitlyn Sullivan is kidnapped from the family home in Big Sur, California. Coming from a long line of Hollywood royalty, they want MONEY.

Some may have considered her a pampered princess, but Cate was in fact a smart, scrappy fighter, and she managed to escape her abductors. Dillon Cooper was shocked to find the bloodied, exhausted girl huddled in his house―

Amazon

And so it begins.

Poetry has never been one of my things.

But the one poem that stuck for all these decades is “If—“ by English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936), written circa 1895 …

… written in the form of paternal advice to the poet’s son, John.

If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    ⁠And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    ⁠Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    ⁠And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Yet another great novel in the series featuring Bruno, the beloved chief of police of the idyllic town of St. Denis in the Dordogne, France.

When a woman’s body is found at the foot of a cliff near St. Denis, Bruno suspects a connection to the great ruined Château de Commarque, a long-ago Knights Templar stronghold that stands on the cliff above …

With the help of Amélie, a young Haitian newcomer to the Dordogne, Bruno learns that the dead woman was an archaeologist searching for a religious artifact of incredible importance, the discovery of which could have dramatic repercussions throughout the Middle East–not to mention in St. Denis.

And the woman’s ties to Islamic terrorists can only heighten the pressure on Bruno to unravel the centuries-old mystery. …

Goodreads

In this one, small town police chief Bruno Courrèges investigates how a visiting American student could have ended up dead in a well.

Another great murder mystery set in France.

Plenty of gourmet food and wine, as well.

Bruno Courrèges initially assumes that she died of an overdose.

But Claudia’s doctor soon persuades him that things may not be so simple, setting Bruno on an investigation that will lead him from the Renaissance to the French Resistance and beyond.

Claudia had been studying with Monsieur de Bourdeille, a renowned art historian who became extraordinarily wealthy through the sale of paintings that may have been falsely attributed—or so Claudia suggested shortly before her death.

Book 1 in the series, The Drifter, was good.

This is the second featuring featuring war veteran Peter Ash — Burning Bright — and it’s even more entertaining. I’m hooked.

If you like the Jack Reacher books, you’ll like these.

… Peter Ash sought peace and quiet among the towering redwoods of northern California, but the trip isn’t quite the balm he’d hoped for. The dense forest and close fog cause his claustrophobia to buzz and spark, and then he stumbles upon a grizzly, long thought to have vanished from this part of the country. In a fight of man against bear, Peter doesn’t favor his odds, so he makes a strategic retreat up a nearby sapling.

There, he finds something strange: a climbing rope, affixed to a distant branch above. It leads to another, and another, up through the giant tree canopy, and ending at a hanging platform. On the platform is a woman on the run. From below them come the sounds of men and gunshots. …

interview – 15 Minutes With: Nick Petrie, Author

I hate to admit it, but Romance writer Nora Roberts is a storyteller of the quality of Stephen King or Jeffrey Archer.

And she’s so prolific! Sometimes writing 3 books simultaneously.

Under Currents (2019) is very good. A family story looking at domestic abuse from many different angles.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Another of the super popular recent psychological thrillers, I wasn’t 100% sold on this one.

Loved the first part of the book where three interconnected, interesting stories roll out.

It’s extremely well written.

Some fascinating characters.

A murder mystery.

Adults scarred by childhood trauma. Themes of closure, marital disillusionment, familial solidarity, extortion, and historical crimes.

But by the end of the book I grew bored of waiting around for the resolution.

Meh.

BRILLIANT ending, however. That almost redeems the storytelling for me.

A memorable book.

The Stranger Diaries is a 2018 murder mystery thriller by British crime novelist Domenica de Rosa, writing under the penname of Elly Griffiths.  …

The novel is primarily told through the viewpoints of English teacher Clare Cassidy, Detective Sergeant Harbinder Kaur, and Clare’s daughter Georgia “Georgie“.

Interspersed throughout the novel are portions of the short story “The Stranger”, written by fictional author R. M. Holland, a long deceased author that Clare is researching.

The Stranger Diaries won the 2020 Edgar Award for Best Novel and is the first in a series centered upon DS Harbinder Kaur. …

The short story is set around Halloween.

And before Halloween in the present things start mirroring the tale.

Murders.

In Liverpool, while listening to the audio book. I came across this scene …

This was supposed to be the final book in the series featuring Enzo Macleod, a half-Scottish, half-Italian Enzo MacLeod who in lives in Toulouse, working as a university professor. In French.

Series: Enzo Macleod / the Enzo Files

Book Number: 6

Read this book for: French setting – rural and urban, good pacing, cold cases, personal/relationship drama, tense thriller, highly readable page-turner

Quick Review: The final instalment (published 2017) of this engaging series, satisfyingly weaving many of the ongoing threads together to create a page-turning last novel.

I was sorry to see Enzo solve the last of his cold cases.

And reviews are good for Cast Iron. It ties the whole series together.

All the books are excellent. The story would make a good TV series.

Happily, Enzo is back in a 2021 book called The Night Gate. BUT it’s not yet available in audio as I hit PUBLISH.

Book #1 is Dry Bones. (Also published as Extraordinary People.)

I recommend it.