The Lace Reader
By Brunonia Barry

Look into the lace... When the eyes begin to fill with tears and the patience is long exhausted, there will appear a glimpse of something not quite seen... In this moment, an image will begin to form... in the space between what is real and what is only imagined. Can you read your future in a piece of lace? All of the Whitney women can.

The Lace Reader retains the strange magic of a vivid dream, though Barry's portrayal of modern-day Salem, Massachusetts - with its fascinating cast of eccentrics - is reportedly spot-on. Some of its stranger residents include generations of Whitney women, with a gift for seeing the future in the lace they make. Towner Whitney, back to Salem from self-imposed exile on the West Coast, has plans for recuperation that evaporate with her great-aunt Eva's mysterious disappearance and drowning. Fighting fear from a traumatic adolescence she can barely remember, Towner digs in for answers. But questions compound with the disappearance of a young woman under the thrall of a local fire-and-brimstone preacher, whose history of violence against Whitney women makes the situation personal for Towner. Her role in cop John Rafferty's investigation sparks a tentative romance. And as they scramble to avert disaster, the past that had slipped through the gaps in Towner's memory explodes into the present with a violence that capsizes her concept of truth.

Told from opposing and often unreliable perspectives, the story engages the reader s own beliefs. Should we listen to Towner, who may be losing her mind for the second time? Or should we believe John Rafferty, a no nonsense New York detective, who ran away from the city to a simpler place only to find himself inextricably involved in a psychic tug of war with all three generations of Whitney women? Does either have the whole story? Or does the truth lie somewhere in the swirling pattern of the lace?

A really good read. When you get to the ending, you will re-evaluate everything that you read previously in the novel. I really enjoyed this book.

The House of Lost Souls
By F.G. Cottam

The Fischer House was the scene of a vicious crime in the 1920s - a crime which still resonates as the century turns. At its heart was a beautiful, enigmatic woman called Pandora Gibson-Hoare, a photographer of genius whose only legacy is a handful of photographs and the clues to a mystery. Paul Seaton was lured to the house ten years ago and escaped, a damaged man. Now three students will die unless he dares to go back. Something at the house wants Paul back but this time he has Nick Mason at his side, and maybe Mason's military skills and courage will be enough for good and hope to prevail.

A good enough mystery novel, with enough in it to keep you guessing until the very end. A good holiday read and an author that I will keep an eye on.

The Death Chamber
By Sarah Rayne

A great read for the car or a holiday. Lots of twists and turns, with several time periods, telling the story of Calvary Gaol, standing bleak and forbidding on the Cumbrian hillside.

This evil place exerts a curious influence over Georgina Grey; her family's history closely bound up in the penitentiary's dark and terrible past. It was predominantly used as a gaol to house and hang those criminals who were given death sentences, including women. Television presenter Chad Ingram is fascinated by Calvary as well. He plans to conduct a new experiment in the long-vacant structure within the brooding desolation of the old execution chamber. Someone with a horrid past is set on suppressing the truth of Calvary, and is willing to go to any lengths to ensure that its shocking past remains buried.

A great read - one to pass on to friends to enjoy too.

All Together Dead: A Sookie Stackhouse Vampire Mystery
By Charlaine Harris

Charliane Harris mixes humorous Southern-fried fantasy with biting satirical commentary in her seventh novel to feature Sookie Stackhouse, the bubbly telepathic barmaid from Bon Temps, La. Sookie attends an all-important central U.S. vamp summit on the shores of Lake Michigan as a "human geiger counter" for Sophie-Anne Leclerq, vampire queen of a Louisiana weakened by Hurricane Katrina and who will be tried during the event for murdering her husband, and king. Sookie knows the queen is innocent, but she's hardly prepared for other shocking murders, not to mention protests by the Fellowship of the Sun, a right-wing anti-vampire movement. Her sleuthing skills, along with those of her new telepath friend, Barry the Bellboy, are put to the extreme test.

Harris juggles a large cast, including several romantic contenders for Sookie's heart, with effortless exuberance. I marvel at the imagination of Harris as she plucks new beings and social systems from out of seeming thin air and breathes life into them with absolute believability and skill. A great read that continues to keep me enthralled by Sookie's world. I will definitely keep with this series.

The Hunt for Atlantis
By Andy McDermott

Andy McDermott takes us a roller-coaster ride in search of the legendary Atlantis. Archaeologist Nina Wilde believes she has found the location of the lost city of Atlantis and now she wants the opportunity to prove her theory. Someone else though wants her dead! With the help of ex-SAS bodyguard Eddie Chase and beautiful heiress Kari Frost, Nina faces a breakneck race against time around the world, pursued at every step by agents of the mysterious - and murderous - Brotherhood of Selasphoros. From the jungles of Brazil to the mountains of Tibet, from the streets of Manhattan to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, the hunt for Atlantis leads to a secret hidden for 11,000 years - which in the wrong hands could destroy civilization as we know it....

You would think that a storyline which involved searching for the lost city of Atlantis would have been done to death by now, but this is a very good first novel for the author. The author is very adept at generating excitement and the book is fast paced. The book was enjoyable. It seems that Nina and Eddie will be back in another book - well worth a read. Good travel fodder.

Spider Light
By Sarah Rayne

Antonia Weston's life was shattered years ago by a personal tragedy made all-too-public. She moves to the sleepy town of Amberwood, hoping to start afresh. But someone knows exactly who she is and they are determined not to let Antonia forget the past. A trained psychiatrist, Antonia becomes intrigued by Latchkill, a former asylum and Twygrist, an abandoned mill. Both buildings have macabre histories, and as a series of disturbing incidents occur, it would seem the past is very much alive. . .

Rayne does an excellent job of evoking an atmosphere of edgy suspense. She handles multiple narratives with ease and manages to leave no loose ends. I don't usually read crime novels but the gothic atmosphere of this novel, along with the mystery of Amberwood, made it really appealing. Well worth a read.

An Ice Cold Grave
Harper Connelly Mysteries Book 3
By Charlaine Harris

After being struck by lightning as a teenager, Harper Connelly has developed the unique ability to find the dead and see how they died. She and her stepbrother, Tolliver Lang, run a business in which they travel the country assisting law-enforcement personnel and family members of the dead. In her third case, Harper is hired by a woman to find her missing grandson. In fact, numerous teenage boys have disappeared from Doraville, North Carolina. Harper finds the bodies, but still reeling from coming into contact with her first serial killer, she is attacked and injured. She stays in Doraville to recover and assist in the investigation. Harris' series makes the most of its unusual premise, using the paranormal elements to good effect. She has also created a winning heroine; Harper is a caring person who gives closure to victims' families often at great cost to herself as she deals with the skepticism of the law-enforcement community. Her developing relationship with Tolliver grows and changes in this installment.

The plot kept me reading page after page until the book was done. "An Ice Cold Grave" is a satisfying read that I'd recommend to fans of mysteries, thrillers and paranormal fiction. While you don't have to read "Grave Secret" and "Grave Surprise" to understand this book, it's definitely not a waste of your time to do so.

Grave Surprise
Harper Connelly Mysteries Book 2
By Charlaine Harris

At the start of Harris's winning second supernatural caper to feature Harper Connelly, a skeptical anthropology professor, Clyde Nunley, tests Harper's gift of clairvoyance in a historic Memphis cemetery, where Harper correctly senses a fresh corpse in the wrong grave. Strangely, the body turns out to be a missing 12-year-old girl, Tabitha Morgenstern, whom Harper failed to locate in Nashville on a case two years earlier. The hotel suite of Harper and her manager and stepbrother, Tolliver Lang, both of whom fall under suspicion, becomes a magnet for a medley of amusing characters, including Memphis cops, Tabitha's assorted relatives and a drunken Clyde Nunley, who, shortly after accusing Harper of fraud, is found dead in the same grave as Tabitha.

Peppered with the author's trademark deadpan wit, this book should help make Harper and Tolliver as popular as Sookie Stackhouse, the heroine of Harris's vampire mystery series.

Grave Sight
Harper Connelly Mysteries Book 1
By Charlaine Harris

Ever since Harper Connelly survived a zap from a lightning bolt, she's been able to find dead people, a skill that makes the protagonist in the first installment of Harris's new series a tad more bizarre than the mind-reading heroine of the author's Sookie Stackhouse books (Dead as a Doornail, etc.). Harper travels to the Ozark town of Sarne, Ark., to find a missing teenage girl's body, accompanied by her stepbrother, Tolliver, who acts as her manager and bodyguard and with whom she shares a thinly disguised physical attraction that they manage to keep at bay by engaging in casual sex with various partners. Finding the body takes no time at all, but leaving town afterward isn't so easy. When Harper's life is threatened and Tolliver ends up in jail on trumped-up charges, it quickly becomes apparent that something sinister is going on in Sarne. Harris delivers a knuckle-gnawing tale populated with well-developed, albeit edgy characters. A nifty puzzle toward the end will challenge the most jaded mystery buffs.

This is the first book in a new series and it promises great things. Harper is a darker protagonist than Sookie, and the tone of the book is more serious; there is humor, but it's painted with a much lighter brush. Also, while Harper's "power" is certainly fantastic, the novel otherwise is entirely grounded in reality. The characters seem so real, it's hard to believe they were just invented for this book. This new series is a winner.