Catch Up Reads: The Perfect Lie by Jo Spain

 He jumped to his death in front of witnesses. Now his wife is charged with murder.

Five years ago, Erin Kennedy moved to New York following a family tragedy. She now lives happily with her detective husband in the scenic seaside town of Newport, Long Island. When Erin answers the door to Danny's police colleagues one morning, it's the start of an ordinary day. But behind her, Danny walks to the window of their fourth-floor apartment and jumps to his death.

Eighteen months later, Erin is in court, charged with her husband's murder. Over that year and a half, Erin has learned things about Danny she could never have imagined. She thought he was perfect. She thought their life was perfect.

But it was all built on the perfect lie.

Book Links: Kindle or Paperback

Catch Up Reads: Dirty Little Secrets by Jo Spain

In the exclusive gated community of Withered Vale, people's lives appear as perfect as their beautifully manicured lawns. Money, success, privilege - the residents have it all. Life is good.

There's just one problem.

Olive Collins' dead body has been rotting inside number four for the last three months. Her neighbours say they're shocked at the discovery but nobody thought to check on her when she vanished from sight.

The police start to ask questions and the seemingly flawless façade begins to crack. Because, when it comes to Olive's neighbours, it seems each of them has something to hide, something to lose and everything to gain from her death.

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Books Read: The Last to Disappear by Jo Spain

A luxury resort. Three missing women. One body.

When young London professional Alex Evans is informed that his sister's body has been pulled from an icy lake in Northern Lapland, he assumes his irresponsible sister accidentally drowned. He travels to the wealthy winter resort where Vicky worked as a tour-guide and meets Agatha Koskinen, the detective in charge. Agatha is a no-nonsense single mother of three who already thinks there's more to Vicky's case than meets the eye.

As the two form an unlikely alliance, Alex also begins to suspect the small town where his sister lived and died is harbouring secrets. It's not long before he learns that three other women have gone missing from the area in the past and that his sister may have left him a message.

On the surface, Koppe, Lapland is a winter wonderland. But in this remote, frozen place, death seems only ever a heartbeat away.

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Books Read: Six Wicked Reasons by Jo Spain

It's June 2008 and twenty-one-year-old Adam Lattimer vanishes, presumed dead. The strain of his disappearance breaks his already fragile family.

Ten years later, with his mother deceased and siblings scattered across the globe, Adam turns up unannounced at the family home. His siblings return reluctantly to Spanish Cove, but Adam's reappearance poses more questions than answers. The past is a tangled web of deceit.

And, as tension builds, it's apparent somebody has planned murderous revenge for the events of ten years ago.

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Interview with Jo Spain & Giveaway for signed copy of With Our Blessing

One of the great things I have loved since I set up the blog is discovering new authors to read and that is definitely true for today's guest author Jo Spain.  Over the last year or so I have re-found my love for reading crime fiction novels and Jo's debut novel With Our Blessing was one of the novels that I recently treated myself to.  When Jo saw that I was planning on doing some giveaways to celebrate 5 years of blogging she kindly offered me a signed copy of With Our Blessing to give away so I thought it was also the perfect opportunity for us to get to know her better by doing a Q&A.    

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your writing journey? 
I’m Irish and live in Dublin (that’s the best Irish county, don’t mind what anybody else tells you). I’ve four children, two girls and two boys, 11, 7, 5 and 2. I grew up in a very working class estate (think The Commitments, Roddy Doyle) but was lucky to go to a school where the teachers really encouraged my writing ability. In fact, I tracked down my teacher from when I was 11 and brought him as a VIP to my first launch to thank him for launching me on my writing career. He published a poem I’d written on the front page of a school journal and it was the start of me thinking . . . this is my dream job. 

I was utterly addicted to reading, too, from a young age and spent my life in the library, my favourite place. That contributed so much to me wanting to be a writer. 

When I left school I went to Trinity College Dublin to study politics. After graduation, I was a freelance journalist for a while, then became a political advisor in Leinster House (the Irish parliament). My whole life I’ve wanted to write fiction and in 2013 I decided to write my first novel, With Our Blessing. I don’t know what clicked that year in my head to make me do it – it meant a lot of late nights and weekends working on top of my full time job, but it did make a very pleasant change from writing speeches!

If you had to give an elevator pitch for Beneath the Surface, what would it be? 
Think, House of Cards meets The Killing. Politics, corruption, seedy goings-on and murder. And there’s a broken lift in my first chapter . . . dum, dum, dum. 

Describe Tom Reynolds in three words.
Clever. Compassionate. Witty.

Beneath the Surface is your second novel, how different did you find the writing/process to when you were writing your debut novel With Our Blessing? 
Very. For With Our Blessing I had the bones of a plot and thought out the story as I wrote. It took a year and ran to a word count just short of War and Peace. With Beneath the Surface, I sketched an outline in advance and it took me a month to write the first draft. 

How did it feel to have With Our Blessing as a finalist in the 2015 Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition? 
Unreal. I hadn’t submitted the book to a single publisher, just the R&J competition, then got the email telling me I was shortlisted. I knew it was life changing. I didn’t win but Quercus, the competition publishers, contacted me very quickly to tell me they were offering me a two-book deal. My youngest baby was ten days old at the time and I just cried and cried – hormones, happiness, and sheer exhaustion. I’ll never forget how it felt.