Vortex by Catherine Coulter

Like other recent books in the series, this one has parallel stories running through it. Dillon and Sherlock aren't actually in the same place or even working on the same case and, actually, aren't in the book as much as usual. But it was still a Coulter FBI Thriller. 

Mia Briscoe is a reporter working on a story related to a mayoral candidate for New York City. In no way did she expect it to lead to the story of a lifetime and the solving of her best friend's murder. But the man is seriously connected and all of a sudden, Mia is under attack. 

Meanwhile, Olivia Hildebrandt is under fire. The CIA operative has been attacked in her own home. She knows it has something to do with her boyfriend's disappearance. They had been on a mission to remove an undercover operative in Iran and now her boyfriend is gone. 

There was also sort of a throwaway story with Sherlock investigating a woman whose second husband has died mysteriously. I guess to reiterate what an awesome investigator she is?

Three and a half stars
Follows Deadlock

This book comes out August 10th, 2021
ARC kindly provided by William Morrow and Custom House and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Deadlock Catherine Coulter

An old foe rises from the shadows when Marsia Gay decides that she wants revenge on Savich for putting her in jail. She has an intricate plan that includes sending puzzle pieces to him at the FBI. One of the agents in another unit recognizes the puzzle pieces as a small town she used to live in and is immediately borrowed and sent to the town.
Also happening in this book, Rebekah Manvers, wife of a Congressman, is invited to a seance. There, the mystical Zoltan tries to convince her that her grandfather wants her to remember an old poem and dig up a treasure that Rebekah never believed was real.
The book was incredibly twisty and turny with plot points that are just nuts. However, if you've read other books in the FBI series, you know what to expect. You can possibly even predict a large portion of the ending just based on the way characters are described. But that doesn't mean that the book is any less fun.

Three and a half stars
Follows Labyrinth

Followed by Vortex
This book comes out July 28th
ARC kindly provided by Gallery Books and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Fatal Accusation by Marie Force

Sam and Nick are in the soup again. When the president lands himself in another scandal, this time of an affair he had while the First Lady was undergoing chemo. It just gets worse when the woman in question ends up dead. Once again, Sam and Nick will have to deal with the threat that he may have to step into the role of Commander in Chief if the president resigns  while Sam is having to hunt down a murderer.
I really liked how much Sam grew in this story. Nick is still as perfect as ever but we got to see more about how and why their marriage works.

Four stars

This book came out December 17th

Follows Fatal Reckoning

Followed by State of Affairs
ARC kindly provided by Harlequin and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Labyrinth by Catherine Coulter

This book starts with a literal bang when Sherlock is t-boned at and intersection. As she is spinning out of control, she hits a man who then disappears. But what was he doing in the intersection in the

first place? Adding to the mystery, Sherlock's head injuries are such that she gets amnesia and can't remember anything about what happened. In fact, she can't remember anything at all.
At the same time, Agent Griffin Hammersmith is taking some time off in Virginia when he hears a psychic scream. A woman is being attacked. But when local law enforcement arrives, they're more interested in covering up than in helping.
Carson is in the store when a man just starts <i>thinking</i> at her. He's ruminating on the death of one of three missing girls. She inadvertently draws attention to herself and wakes up in a basement. Rather than interviewing an eminent scientist, she is now trying to escape with her life.
Griffin has the FBI to throw so throw he does. But the secret that they uncover is big enough that they need both Sherlock and Savich. But the Ss still need to find Justice, the man who Sherlock hit. As a CIA agent, he holds the key to uncovering a major conspiracy.
The two stories are not well connected but it was otherwise a good read.

Three and a half stars
This book came out July 30th
Follows Paradox
Followed by Deadlock
ARC kindly provided by Gallery Books and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

The Escape Room by Megan Goldin

You don't earn a lot of money on Wall Street without making some enemies.  Or without keeping a lot of secrets. Sylvie, Vincent, Jules, and Sam know that better than anyone. The four have been working as a team for a lucrative financial firm. Well, formerly lucrative. Layoffs are happening and anyone could be cut. But these four all know each others secrets. All of them. Which is why none of them are any too happy to be instructed that they have to attend a team building exercise using one of the building's elevators as an escape room. But the longer these four are locked in together, the more likely it is that secrets will be spilled. And perhaps some blood as well.
I thought the prologue actually took away from the book a little bit, told a little too much of the end of the book. I also didn't love all of the interspersed chapters, those of Sara Hall. It might have built up more of the story to start those in the latter half of the book. I think most of the same information could have been conveyed. Still, an interesting book from a genre I rarely read.

Four stars
This book comes out July 30th
ARC kindly provided by St. Martin's Press and NetGalley
Opinions are my own

Paradox by Catherine Coulter

The Savich and Sherlock books can be a little uneven for me. But I set my expectations low for the romance on this one (why even include them, they're so glossed over, at this point?) But they're once more drawn into a mystery and that is the more enjoyable part of the story, seeing the two of them work together. This time, it's to thwart someone who seems to be trying to destroy their lives, starting with trying to kidnap their son.
The A story overlaps with a sheriff who happens to witness the murder of the person who sets off the Sherlock/Savich chain of events and the FBI lover of the woman who is murdered. There is also a story about a serial killer that is glossed on.

Four stars
This book comes out July 31st
Followed by Paradox
ARC kindly provided by NetGalley

The Sixth Day by Catherine Coulter; J.T. Ellison

The book opens in the 1400s during a battle with Vlad Dracul. We find out that his twin half-brothers have some book with magic powers and he sends them away during the battle that takes his live in order to save the book.
Now present day, there is another set of twins who are about to sell an army of drones to the highest bidder. Then we jump to Nick and Michaela who are on vacation in London. Nick is supposed to help his grandfather solve a problem with ransomware that has taken over his company but then they get pulled in to this bigger mystery. And it's possible that the book we read about in the beginning is going to play a part.
I think I'm going to have to stop reading this series. It just keeps feeling more and more disjointed. There were so many things going on in this book, Ellison and Coulter had a hard time weaving it all together.

Two and a half stars
This book comes out April 10
ARC kindly provided by NetGalley

Her Darkest Nightmare by Brenda Novak

Oh man. Novak is good at the feels. Very good. And when she turns her mind to a thriller. Oofta.
I read the prequel to this book and it was bad enough. I was going to say "scary" but this is something deeper.
Doctor Evelyn Talbot has opened up a unique facility in the Alaskan wilderness, a house for psychopaths, killers who she and her team study (Hanover House). There are supposedly 250 inmates (which has to be twice the number of a lot of small Alaskan towns). Dr. Talbot is no stranger to killer psychopaths since she was almost killed by one when she was 16. Now she's trying to figure out why they do what they do so that she can prevent more murders in the future.
Sergeant Amarok is seven years Evelyn's junior, but that doesn't mean that he's not wildly attracted to her. And he knows the trauma of her past and is ridiculously romantic in being patient with her. They went their separate ways after the first novella because Evelyn has issues but a massive snow storm in the beginning of the book means that he's given a second chance when Evelyn's car goes out and she's forced to stay at his house for the night. But that same night, there's a murder. Is an escapee from the Hanover House or something more sinister.
The beginning of the book was so great plotting-wise and world building. We get to meet so many of the characters and start the suspense. But the middle started to get a little whirligig-ish and by the end, there was just Too Much going on. This was a solid four star book most of the way through but the last third was definitely a two.

Three and a half stars
This book comes out August 23

Follows Hanover House (novella)
Followed by Hello Again

Devil and the Deep by Julie Ann Walker

Bran Palladino has been exchanging emails and sat phone calls with Maddy Powers since he kissed her on her father's yacht. Where he had just helped free her from kidnappers. Or pirates. Let's just say she was hijacked. Now she's back in the area (well, ish, she's close anyway) with three high school girls that her dad had her choose for a chance to become engineers in his company. The problem being that Bran doesn't seem to have shown up, even though she invited him. Well, that's not actually the biggest problem. Nope. It's the four men who have arrived on the island and are trying to kidnap her and possibly the girls.
From Bran's point of view, it's a cluster. Especially when he gets shot in the thigh. Actually, he takes that pretty well. It's when the high school girls start flirting with him that he starts to wig out a little.
I liked the first book in the series. It was sort of bat-shit crazy but in a "highly enjoyable read" way. This book was maybe a little too frenetic but about the same.

I am very much looking forward to the story of Alex (the very talkative researcher helping the men look for the Santa Cristina) and Mason (who doesn't talk very much at all) but I think we're actually going to see why Wolfe (who I can't remember at all, but must have been in the first book) and Chrissy (who is a leggy blond who runs an adventure travel company (?)) don't like each other first.

Book comes out July 5
Three and a half stars
Follows Hell or High Water

Followed by Ride the Tide

Troublemaker by Linda Howard

I know I have a bit of a pet-peeve with condom use but, c'mon, Ms. Howard is a veteran romance writer. There are more reasons than pregnancy to use a condom. At the very least she could sit down and have the characters talk about being tested. More than just "It's okay, I'm on the pill." Blergh. It always takes me out of the story. 
There is a special brand of Howard WTFery that I look forward to in her books. And in this book, while it was a good book, that craziness was way toned down. I mean, the books I think of when I think Linda Howard have agents whose memories have been imperfectly wiped, bear stalkings (again, black bears don't do that), the only road into a small town being shut down so a team of bad guys can retrieve a microfilm, etc. This, this was strangely devoid of any of that-- but still a good book. And what Howard does nicely is depicts small town life. There's a line in her book that even pokes gentle fun saying that people in big cities always expect small-town folks to all know one another but they don't -- one of my major major pet-peeves (see here Fool's Gold, a town of 125,000 where they somehow not only ALL know each other but everyone's extended history).
Anyway, Morgan Yancy is a super-duper, undercover agent who's had a hit taken out on him that was nearly successful. In order to figure out what's going on, his team leader, Axel, sends him to recuperate in West Virginia. The specific person Morgan is being sent to is Isabeau "Bo" Maran, Axel's ex-step-sister. It seems the two had a contentious relationship when their parents were married for eight months and Axel has never quite gotten over it. 
Bo is the chief of police in a small town but her position is supposed to be more clerical than anything, taking care of the paperwork so that her deputies can do the on-the-streets work that they feel more comfortable with. There were some plot points and character issues I had with Bo and this job (she has, like, three) but, again, used to WAY more craziness from Howard so these were minor.
Then there is the plot moppet, Bo's golden retriever, Tricks. I am a huge Goldie nerd and Tricks sounded about right for that breed of dog but, dang, half the book was an ode to the dog. I would have loved to see a little bit more about what was going on in the discovery of who was trying to kill Morgan (view spoiler) or more about their relationship development. Although, I do have to admire the deft touch of covering major swathes of time with a deft touch. It cured the book of insta-love/lust.
Overall, a nice addition to the Howard canon and I think that regular readers will really enjoy the book. I personally missed the crazy (it's the reason I requested the ARC) but others may not even notice it's gone.

Obsession by Nora Roberts

Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man. This. Is. An AWESOME book. I had a couple of issues (no use of condoms, and other spoiler-ish reasons) but this really is a four-and-a-half-star book for me. Even two days later.
When she was twelve, Naomi Bowers followed her father out to the woods and discovered a horrible secret. Setting the girl free led to her father's imprisonment and her own notoriety, something that affects her again and again in the story. (I also wish we had seen more of Ashley but that may have over-bloated the book).
She ends up becoming a photographer and traveling around the world but, for reasons she doesn't entirely understand, she's just bought a house. A huge house. A huge dilapidated house. A house that needs a lot of work. And it's a place for her to start putting down roots. Even meeting a great guy.
Xander Keaton (Buffy fans, unite!) owns a garage in Sunrise Cove. He's not school-educated but he loves books. And it's through his love that we get passages dedicated to the love of reading. Happy sigh. Oh. And he's in a band. A smokin' hot band.
The problem being that, of course, Naomi tends to wall off her own heart because of her past and Xander can't help chipping away at it. Also, there's a serial murderer who has started killing in their town. Small detail.
I just re-read Blue Smoke and can see a LOT Of parallels with this story, but I liked this one so much more. There is less time in the past and more on the present. I also liked Xander so much better.
Roberts fans will be in love. People new to Roberts will love this book as well.

Hanover House by Brenda Novak

A perfect book for a spooky fall, Hanover House sets up a new series with psychiatrist Evelyn Talbot as the main character. When she was sixteen, her boyfriend murdered three of her friends and nearly succeeded in slitting her throat as well. Since then, she's studied serial murderers, trying to figure out what makes them tick. Her baby is a project called Hanover House, a prison being built in a small Alaskan town, not far from Fairbanks.
But the locals aren't exactly excited to have a bunch of sociopaths shipped up from the Lower 48. In fact, someone's been messing around in her building, writing nasty words on the wall and tearing down some of the construction.
Local law enforcement, Sergeant Benjamin Murphy, colloquially known as Sergeant Amarok, calls the good doctor to come up and see the damage.
Because this is such a short story, I don't want to give too much away. This is the start of a nice departure from a more heavily romance book to a bit more suspense for Novak. Her books have never been "comfort reading" for me so this fits in nicely to my perception. I just hope that Jasper (the ex who escaped from prison almost as soon as he was put in) is either sidelined for awhile , becomes more a background noise, or is dealt with quickly. He had way too much action and if that continues, it will get old fast.
WARNING: I didn't read the description carefully. This book is a prequel. It is short.

Followed by Her Darkest Nightmare