Published By: The Book Folks
Pages: 198
Released On: 13/11/2023
When human remains are discovered in the garden of a house in the seaside town of Hastings, Dr Callie Hughes can’t resist trying to dig up the truth.
However, her amateur sleuthing is put on the backburner when her car is vandalised. She seems to have a stalker, and they are becoming increasingly intent on terrorising her.
DI Steve Miller suspects it is a released criminal whom Callie helped put behind bars. But even with the detective sleeping outside her home and her friend Kate Ward protecting her, the situation escalates.
Perhaps it is time to up sticks, leave the south coast for good, and head to Belfast where her boyfriend is waiting.
Or perhaps someone with a bone to pick will stop Callie in her tracks.
*****
Thanks to The Book Folks for the copy of this title in return for an honest review and spot on the book tour.
I interviewed Candy on my blog a few months back and she seemed like a lovely and very interesting author, and yet I realised I had never read one of her books, even though they sounded really good. So when the opportunity to read this book came up, I jumped at it.
This is book seven in the Dr Callie Hughes series:
1: Dead Pretty (2017)
2: Body Heat (2018)
3: Guilty Party (2020)
4: Vital Signs (2020)
5: Deadly Remedies (2021)
6: Murder Lust (2022)
Whilst I’m sure you can pick up on a lot of things if you’ve read the previous books, this is perfectly readable and enjoyable as a standalone.
You can tell that Candy has a background in medicine. It comes across so well in this book. Whilst I don’t believe she was a police doctor at any point, there’s a naturalness that comes from living in an industry instead of relying solely on research, and having that strong foundation means you can get lost in the story more.
Considering I didn’t know anything about the series and the characters, it really grabbed me from the start. The characters feel familiar, even if you’re new to them. It’s got the right pacing. It’s not too slow but nor is it too rushed. There’s enough detail for new readers to understand, but it doesn’t repeat too much (that I can tell) to bore the readers who have already read the previous six. You don’t feel like you’re playing catch-up which is good, and it’s definitely peeked my interest for her other books.
I found the dual plots interesting. You have the plot of the human remains being found in a garden, and you have the plot of Callie’s stalker. They’re balanced well and don’t overwhelm each other. It can be hard to have multiple plots, but each has its own time dedicated to it and you can see how on affects the other. And normally I would say I prefer one over the other, but I think I liked both equally. I wanted to follow each and find out the ending of each. There are other things going on in the background: work, friends, relationships etc. but they all work perfectly to help balance the two central plots.
There are plenty of characters to get your teeth into. I don’t know how many are recurring and how many are new to this one, but you’ve got Dr Callie Hughes who is a fabulous main character; loveable and just someone I supported straight away, and her friend Kate who seems like the friend everyone wants. Then you’ve got police officers Miller, Jeffries, Jayne, and Nigel, who all work wonderfully together and offer something different. And then you have others including Gerry, Zac, Billy, Linda, and Mr Stenning. I’m not going to go into each of them as we’ll be here forever and I don’t want to spoil anything, but they’re all interesting and they’ve all been given adequate time, and they all have some effect on Callie.
I read it in a matter of hours. Yes it is a relatively short book, but it is so gripping that I couldn’t put it down.
I may not have read the previous books, but I’ll definitely be on the lookout now for the next one – if there is going to be a next one.
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