Category: Paranormal Suspense

Bitmo Sunday book review

Sunday Book Review – The Destination: Harbor Pointe – Book 3 by D. L. Finn #Paranormal #Mystery

Published on by dgkaye76 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Book Review. It seems I still haven’t got to all the Harbor Pointe series books by various authors, but I did manage to read D.L. Finn’s book this past weekend – The Destination: Harbor Pointe, and a good mystery it was.

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Blurb:

The Harbor Pointe Inn has loomed on California’s cliffs for generations of Hawthornes. For some, it’s been a blessing. For others, a curse. Travel through two centuries of stories to discover the old inn’s secrets.

It’s 1967, and best friends Lacey and Sandy are enjoying a beach vacation, completely unaware of the danger that is lying in wait outside their door. Their room is quaint, with an amazing view of the Pacific Ocean and an old lighthouse, but a killer is stalking their next victim. Powerless, Annie the ghost watches, knowing there’s nothing she can do to help—not even her parents, the innkeepers. Who will survive their stay at the Harbor Pointe Inn, where the edge of evil lurks within the shadows?

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My 5 Star Review:

Another exciting story at The Destination in Harbor Pointe. In this story, DL Finn takes us into a bit of a mystery with a hint of paranormal. Two best friends, Lacey and Sandy, are taking a road trip and end up spending time at the Harbor Pointe Inn.

The room is lovely and so are the people, and before long, Lacey and Ben meet with some instant chemistry. There’s a friendly ghost named Annie, daughter of the Innkeepers, and she knows well that someone won’t be waking up tomorrow morning. But nobody can see Annie except Sandy.

Sandy and Lacey are two enjoyable characters to get to know. Sandy hasn’t learned to stand up for herself yet and Lacey is a great life coach to her friend, asking her to reconsider staying with a boyfriend she has no spark for, and continuing her dream of finishing university and becoming a marine biologist, always cheering her on. Lacey has plans to travel abroad for a few years, so this trip could be the last for the girls together.

As Lacey and Ben get to know each other, they decide to take an evening stroll together while Sandy prefers to read and relax. The evening turns into night and Sandy falls asleep, only to awaken the next morning to find Lacey not there and her bed untouched. This sets off a search to check Lacey and Ben’s whereabouts and anyone else who appears missing – no spoilers.

This is a short story that packs a punch with good characters and wonderfully descript setting. Throw in a ghost and a mystery and it makes a perfect paranormal whodunit.

©DGKaye2026

Bitmo Sunday book review

Sunday Book Review – And the Grave Awaits by Roberta Eaton Cheadle #shortstories #paranormal

Published on by dgkaye120 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday book review. Today I’m happy to be sharing my review for Robbie Cheadle’s gripping tales from her book – And the Grave Awaits. In this engrossing read of short stories we will learn of myths and tales as told by Robbie. Written in various genres with one common thread linking them all – death.

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Blurb:

A collection of short paranormal and dark stories.
Includes the award-winning short story, The Bite.

A group of boys participate in a reality television challenge; to the death.

What does it mean to be a Canary Girl? One young woman is about to find out.

Where is the bride? A beautiful young woman goes missing during a game of hide and seek on her wedding day.

Some stories will make you cry, some will make you gasp, and some will leave you believing in vigilante justice. All will end with a grave.

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My 5 Star Review:

Cheadle’s stories will take you right into the experiences – not always a good thing with some of these stories. The stories are mostly dark and grim but nonetheless addicting, perhaps not all for bedtime reading. The stories are somewhat horror filled but not in the sense of graphic horror, but what we imagine of the characters enduring. I enjoyed that the author recaps each story with many based on true historical events, fictionalizing and elaborating on each situation. In these dark toned stories, there is a good mix of paranormal, horror and historical fiction. All stories thread death through their themes. The author does an amazing job drawing us into story then further explaining at end of each chapter, the true event that inspired each gripping story.

My Favs:

The Bite – Never under-estimate the power of a woman. And I loved the explanation about where this story was born from – The Tarantella myth.

Death is About Choices – Based on 13th century practice of child sacrifice during the Inca Empire. Juanita is chosen for sacrifice. Will the spirits of her dead brothers save her from slaughter?

The Path to Antonement – A great fictional telling about a real suicide that occurred at the author’s workplace.

Glass Mountain – A team of boys are to climb a death-defying mountain. Many aren’t known to survive, but the TV cameras are filming the Annual Youth Challenge TV show , and the prize for any survivors is – anything they want. Great building of anticipation.

Christmas Pie – Based on the events occuring in England with the last Abbot of Glastonbury, trying to save the destruction of the abbey by King Henry VIII, with good intentions foiled.

Justice is Never Served – Fictionalized accounting based on the true story of baby murderer, Amelia Dyer from Victorian era England.

An Eye for an Eye – A sad fictional story based on the true events back in Victorian England where orphans known as ‘the climbing boys’ were used to clean ash and soot from chimney sweeps where many died stuck in flues, suffered burns or contracted carcinomas. A sad tale about two brothers.

All that Glitters is not Gold – A powerful historic and fictionalized telling of the true story about The Radium Girls who worked in factories during WWI painting watch dials containing Radium. These women were fooled by their government about the dangers of such work, and suffered the consequences.

I realize some of my favs here are half the book, but good writing is good reading.

.I realize some of my favs here are half the book, but good writing is good reading.

©DGKaye2024

Bitmo Sunday book review

Sunday Book Review – The Seas of Time, Book 4 in the Harbor Pointe Series by D. Wallace Peach

Published on by dgkaye134 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Book Review. Today I’m reviewing Diana Peach’s engrossing story – The Seas of Time. This is Book 4 in the Harbor Pointe series, a collaboration of 8 books written by different authors, all taking place at Harbor Pointe. As always, Diana never disappoints as she takes us on a two time-line journey through the decades from a stow away slave on a ship to California.

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Blurb:

The Harbor Pointe Inn has loomed on California’s cliffs for generations of Hawthornes. For some, it’s been a blessing. For others, a curse. Travel through two centuries of stories to discover the old inn’s secrets.

In 1858, a ship carrying ice from Alaska wrecked off the coast of California, and little does Taliah Keldan realize how that tragedy will impact her life in 1972.

When Tali decides to quit college and become a civil rights activist, her disappointed parents encourage her to think it over. What better spot for contemplation than at her aunt and uncle’s Harbor Pointe Inn, a charming seaside getaway with its own lighthouse? The place is under renovation and empty of guests. All she’ll have to deal with is the construction crew.

But the inn is far from peaceful.

Tali discovers an old Bible hidden in the lighthouse keeper’s cottage. Strange prayers angle down the margins, all but one ruined by the sea. When she deciphers the crude writing, a dark portal gapes open to a pre-civil war night when an escaped slave in a foundering ship prayed to his voodoo God. A winged creature emerges from the watery void, and her stay transforms into a nightmare.

With the aid of the construction foreman, Tali is determined to send the beast back through time, a choice that will risk their lives, test her convictions, and change her future.

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My 5 Star Review:

A two-timeline story that begins in 1858 with Samuel, an escaped black slave stowed away on a foundering ship and his voodoo prayer to Damballah, the ancient sea god, recited from his bible in his cries for freedom. That same bible is found in 1972 by Tali, a college student fighting for civil rights, while visiting her aunt’s Inn in Harbor Pointe for a college timeout. After Tali finds the bible in the lighthouse and recites the barely almost legible only prayer that hasn’t been washed away by sea water, all hell breaks loose.

Peach is known for her wonderfully woven fantasy stories, and this story is an exciting twist of both, the real world, racism, mixed with paranormal fantasy as Talia makes a dangerous mistake by reading out the prayer passage from that bible, and unlocks a portal, unleashing a gargoyle. While the Inn is under construction, the only others around are the work crew and Greg the foreman who becomes ensnared in this fantastical story as he enters the cottage where Talia is struggling to deal with the almost compassionate beast that is now taking over the cottage. The struggle is to try and send gargoyle, Zam, back to whence he came. And eventually, as Tali and Greg struggle to tame the beast, on a wild journey they find themselves back in 1858 where they piece together the origins of what transpired back then.

Peach is a masterful writer of fantasy whose stories never fail to draw us in with her page-turning evocative stories and prose. I am looking forward to reading all the books in this stand alone series.

©DGKaye2024

Bitmo Sunday book review

Sunday Book Review – I Remember Everything: A tale of death and life by Richard Dee #Crime/Thriller, #Paranormal

Published on by dgkaye40 Comments

Welcome to my Sunday Book Review. Today I’m sharing my review for Richard Dee’s clever mix of a crime solving with a mix of paranormal book – I Remember Everything.

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Blurb:

It’s the big question. Where do we go, when it’s all over? What happens to our unfinished business?
Detective Ian Gisbon was murdered at 20:08. On the other side of the country, at the same instant as Ian takes his last breath, Suzan Halford takes her first.
But her soul isn’t the only one in that newborn body. Although she doesn’t know it yet, Ian is with her.
Which means that they are going to have to share.

With his memories and life experiences intact, Ian is unable to communicate with those around him, and Suzan isn’t old enough to help him, yet.
Because Ian has a plan, he wants to see that justice is carried out. For that, he will need her cooperation.
But first, he has to be patient, while she grows. She can be told the truth when she’s old enough to handle it.
Then, out of the blue, a chance discovery sets an unstoppable chain of events in motion. Suzan’s life spirals out of control, destroying her family and driving her towards the edge of sanity.
When she finally accepts the truth and is ready to act, she needs help. And that means Peta, the only person she can trust. They used to be close, it’s time to reconnect.

And hope that, between the three of them, they can give Ian justice and peace.

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My 5 Star Review:

This is a very different story. It begins with the fatal stabbing of Detective Ian Gibson while he was on a stakeout, and a simultaneous birth of Suzan. It seems the good detective’s soul was instantly reincarnated into Suzan’s body – and mind. A very clever plot whereby the dead detective’s soul is living alongside Suzan’s, within her, making this exciting read both a crime mystery with a twist of paranormal.

As Suzan grows, we get narration from Ian who, despite his soul getting stuck in Suzan, seems to have his own thoughts and agenda while ‘trapped’ in Suzan’s life. Ian is still determined to close the crime he was working on when he was murdered by same murderer he was seeking.

As the story develops, and as Suzan grows into a young girl, she begins having weird dreams that are actually Ian’s memories of the crime scene. Her parents begin to worry about her with all this new ‘research’ she’s been doing on Ian Gibson as she is driven to find out what happened to the detective whom she is sure of his ghost living inside her. Enough to drive anyone mad!

Suzan sees a newspaper article of Ian’s killing and begins having strange dreams about the night Ian was killed and who killed him. She doesn’t want to share her unease with anyone for fear they’ll think she’s crazy. As a young teen a chain of unfortunate events begins to unfold, an accident kills her father, and her and her mother have no choice but to leave the cozy farm and good neighbors behind as they move to a new town.

Suzan finds herself lonely and confused in her new home, and with having to leave her best friend Peta behind and then being taken for psychological exam, she manages to get mixed up with the wrong crowd. She was then put on heavy medication to quash her inner madness while still unaware of why this person who lives in her head persists to talk to her and asks for her help finding his killer.

Ian asks Suzan to go visit his widowed and newly remarried wife Beth, and retrieve a box with evidence he hid there. Of course, Suzan had her work cut out for her at first convincing Beth she isn’t a psychopath knocking on her door. Suzan then tells her mom she wants to go visit Peta and spend a few days with her. Once there, Suzan spills the beans to Peta about all that has been going on in her head, Ian, and her mission to go to retrieve evidence. Good friend Peta happily agrees to help her. And not long after they retrieve the box, the evil heats up and Suzan and Peta ultimately come face to face with Ian’s henchmen who work for Harold Malvis, the killer.

There’s some good suspense to keep us turning the pages in anticipation to discover how the girls will escape their fatal destiny, and then again when they are caught and brought directly to the killer. No spoilers!! A great read that kept me turning the pages.

©DGKaye2023

Bitmo Sunday book review

Sunday Book Review – Partners in Time #Paranormal Romance – Stevie Turner

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Welcome to my Sunday book review. Today I’m reviewing Stevie Turner’s – Partners in Time. I think I have all of her books and have read several as I try to work my way around my regular favorite reads. I’ve enjoyed every book I’ve read by Stevie and albeit, this one was a little out of my reading genre – paranormal romance, but it was a Stevie book, and I’ve never been disappointed yet. Also, despite the paranormal aspect of the story, it still had a good storyline and twists that I didn’t see coming.

 

 

Blurb:

John Finbow, a successful writer, and his wife Kay move into Southcombe Rectory, a large Victorian house that has been empty since the 1960s. It had previously been owned by the Cuthbertson family who had lived there for generations. Their marriage is under strain, as John, 39 would like children before he gets too old, but Kay, 34, does not.

When John is working in his study soon after moving in, he is disturbed by the sight of a young woman who appears out of the blue on his sofa. Emily Cuthbertson, whose old bedroom is now John’s study, was 25 at the time of her death and the youngest of 8 offspring of the late Reverend Arthur Cuthbertson and his wife Delia. Emily had died in 1868 but is now unwilling to leave behind her old life on earth, due to having missed out on a family of her own whilst being a companion to her widowed mother. Emily is still desperate for a husband and children, and John is the answer to her dreams.

 

My 5 Star Review:

Emily lived and died in the mid 1800s, except she never left her home. Meanwhile back in 1996 John got a nice advance for his screenplay and bought a big old house – an old rectory, for him and his wife Kay to live in – only, they weren’t alone. John meets Emily when she appears on his sofa in his office, and the two connect. John is wanting to have a child and Kay isn’t interested, while Emily who has missed out on marriage and having children is only too happy to give John a child.

Here’s where things go eerie. Emily’s ghost remained in the rectory and John’s office was once Emily’s bedroom. They fall madly in love, and the fun begins when John’s wife Kay discovers the relationship her husband has with the ghostly Emily and discovers John impregnated Emily.

It’s a paranormal story, so yes, the ghost gets pregant, and from there on become the shenanigans of a mischievous and possessive ghost where Emily’s place in John and Kay’s life becomes whacky and controled by Emily’s decisions and wraths.

Sure, we can ask why on earth Kay didn’t take off immediately after her husband confides in her what the heck is going on, but again, it’s a paranormal story. And despite the strangeness of the whole situation, I remained flipping the pages as I had to find out how this ghost could be stopped from controling and ruining lives.

There is plenty of suspense in this tale about a family  haunted by a domineering ghost as Turner cleverly blends this story of family, and paranormal, into a thriller-like tale of love, possessiveness and intrigue that will keep us guessing at every plot twist. Can Emily be tamed? Will Kay hang around? Will Emily ever leave?

If you’re looking for a quick read that will keep you turning the pages and have you enjoying all the elements involved in this story, you will no doubt enjoy this book.

 

©DGKaye2020

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Book reviews by D.G. Kaye

Sunday Book Review – Finding David by Stevie Turner – #Paranormal Suspense

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My Sunday Book Review this week is for one of my favorite authors to read, Stevie Turner’s newest novelette – Finding David. I thoroughly enjoyed this book as I do all Stevie’s books, and even though I don’t read much paranormal, I was hooked right into the story and didn’t want to put the book down, so it took me a second day to finish.

 

 

 

Blurb:

 

When Karen and Mick Curtis attend a demonstration of clairvoyance for the first time, Karen is singled out by the medium, Rae Cordelle. Rae has a message from Karen’s son David, who passed over to the spirit world many years before. The message shocks Karen and sends her on a journey of discovery, rocking her previously happy relationship with second husband Mick, David’s stepfather.

 

My 5 Star Review:

 

Stevie Turner’s latest was a great escape read, and by the second page I had to find out  what this psychic was going to tell Karen, and then I became absorbed and wanted to just keep reading.

Karen and Mick’s happy life was shaken and stirred after a chance outing to a clairvoyant’s public show where Medium Rae focused her attention on Karen, offering her a message from beyond from Karen’s deceased son – gone missing years before. Rae offers Karen her card, inviting her to contact Rae to learn more if she chose. What mother of a missing child wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to connect with their missing/dead child?

What Rae reveals to Karen sets the tone for the journey to seek out what happened all those years ago when David just a boy then, completely vanished – never to return. The search to find David’s never been found body ensues, and as clues develop and possible suspects for David’s death appear, a great strain weighs between Karen and Mick’s marriage.

Turner always has rich characters who draw us into her stories. I also enjoyed how the story carried through with a tiny crumb given in each chapter, leaving me anxious to turn to the next chapter while still kept wondering – Who the heck killed David – until near the very end. I also enjoyed reading in this genre, which is not a usual one for me. If you enjoy a shorter book with all the meat of a story wrapped up nicely, you will no doubt, enjoy this book!

 

©DGKaye