Northwoods by Amy Pease

 Northwoods, releasing January 9, is a debut novel by Amy Pease. Northwoods of Wisconsin is a vacation area near the small town of Shaky Lake with its sheriff’s department working within a too small budget. When a teenage boy is found dead in a boat, Eli North begins the investigation as he is a deputy there working under the supervision of his mother the sheriff.

Eli was once a strong, thriving young man with a job he loved and a wife and son. After deployment to Afghanistan, his powers of investigation are still sharp but his emotional wounds run deep and cloud his judgment. He copes by drinking, which is to say he is not coping well.

When it is determined the deceased was injected with opioids and suffered two head injuries, the entire sheriff’s department—all three deputies and the sheriff herself—has its hands full. Worse, during the investigation, they find that a teenage girl is missing.

Before the cases are solved, a pharmaceutical company trying to push its new drug that promises to save opioid addicts becomes entangled in the case. Eli determines that there is more going on than a dead boy and a missing girl. This case is his chance to redeem himself as the man he once was, but if he fails, he could lose everything.

Amy Pease, a nurse practitioner, is a nationally recognized HIV specialist. She lives in Wisconsin with her family. 

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting November 21, 2023.

I would like to thank Atria Books/Emily Bestler Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

 

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins

 The Heiress is none other than Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore, the much married, richest woman in North Carolina in this novel coming out January 9. She was kidnapped as a child but was later found to have been taken by a worker on her family’s estate, Ashby House of Tavistock in the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

None of the marriages last for long—husbands’ death all under suspicious circumstances--but she did adopt an orphan named Camden who is in position to inherit everything after her death, including the estate and a 9-digit fortune with nothing going to Ruby’s younger sister who has always lived on the estate with her family.

Surprise, surprise, Cam does not want the house, the money, or the family. He just wants to teach English in Colorado where he had settled with his wife Jules. After 10 years away, he reluctantly returns to North Carolina to address things that need to be taken care of within the estate.

His calculating aunt and his cousins are as unpleasant as ever as they seek a way out of Cam’s inheritance to their benefit, raising questions about whether or not the Ruby who died was really the Ruby who was kidnapped nearly 7 decades ago. A rousing conclusion will settle the estate in a way that could have never been predicted. 

The Heiress is Rachel Hawkins fourth novel for adults. An Alabama author, she also writes under the pseudonym Erin Sterling. She wrote her first novel while teaching high school English. 

The Coworker by Freida McFadden

 (Did not send this out to the Scout as it came out in August. I am also concerned about some allegations that the author generously takes plot from other writers.)

The Coworker in Freida McFadden’s latest psychological thriller is Dawn Schiff, who appears to be on the autism spectrum, yet her co-workers do not seem to pick up on that, and instead they are not very nice to her. However, is this all an act on her part? 

Her arch nemesis seems to be Natalie, the top salesperson of a nutritional supplement company called Vixed, who works in the cubicle next to Dawn. Both women are driven by secrets in their lives.

Seemingly Dawn, who works at Vixed as an accountant,  lacks empathy, rarely says the right thing because she cannot judge those around her, and ultimately has no friends. Or does she?

Dawn is an early-to-the office type, maintains a strict schedule of bathroom breaks and lunch breaks. People could set a clock by her. She’s never late, and yet one day she does not show up to work at all. Natalie, who has given Dawn a ride home in the past, becomes worried because no one has heard from Dawn, and when Natalie picked up a call in Dawn’s cubicle, she hears who she thinks is Dawn say, “Help me!” 

After work, Natalie goes to Dawn’s place, where she finds a lot of blood on the floor. Natalie calls the police, but in a twist, she becomes the prime suspect. What next happens is well-planned and played out by a Dawn who has been working toward this certain moment for years. 

Freida McFadden, a brain injury trained physician, has stated that one of her favorite books is Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn because of the incredible twist in that story. She writes psychological thrillers and medical humor novels.  She self-published her first book on Amazon in 2013.  McFadden is best known for her book The Housemaid. She lives with her family and black cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking an ocean.

The Locked Door by Freida McFadden

 Did not send this out to the Scout as it came out in October, republished in paperback form. I am also concerned about some allegations that the author generously takes plot from other writers. Google it.

Nora Davis is a surgeon who is keeping a terrible secret about her father in The Locked Door by Freida McFadden. Having changed her name to dodge any link to her father, Nora is on the verge of being outed as a copycat is out there while her father remains in prison for the rest of his life.

Trouble starts when two of her patients become victims of the copycat killer, bringing the police to her office. Nora has always kept a low profile, living a solitary life with little variance. She gets reacquainted with a boyfriend from college and engages in a game of push-me, pull-me with him as she is so damaged from what happened in her childhood.

Nora constantly reassures herself she is not like her father as she works hard in the operating room  to save lives rather than to take lives. When she basically forces a vehicle into a crash, she begins to question herself. Could she be a killer like her father? She’s a surgeon saving lives! Does the apple fall not far from the tree? No, it does not, but there is the expected twist that comes with the psychological thrillers that McFadden writes.

Freida McFadden, a brain injury trained physician, writes psychological thrillers and medical humor novels.  She self-published her first book on Amazon in 2013. A New York native, she has stated in interviews that all the protagonists in her books are based on her. When McFadden was a kid, she read The Baby-Sitters Club by Ann M. Martin and Judy Blume books. She is most known for her book The Housemaid. McFadden lives with her family and black cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking an ocean.