As I mentioned in my alibi series, July 2025 post, I got some reading done while vacationing in Trinidad and Tobago. In addition to the alibi series, I also read three other titles, Christ in The Rubble, Happy Life (I’ll cover these in future posts), and the topic of today’s post, Black Shield Maiden by Willow Smith and Jess Hendel.
The co-author, Willow Smith, informs us that she has been intrigued by Viking culture and history over the years and wondered if they ever encountered African peoples. Through discoveries during her research this novel, Black Shield Maiden, and its characters were born. The authors take us through a thrilling, page-turning, historical tale of women in a vicious world controlled by men.
The six short stories in this alibi crime collection about lies, deception, accountability, and without proof of means, motive and opportunity, the guilty party can walk free. These are really interesting, well written, thrilling mysteries that are great to finish-off on a ride somewhere or on vacation. I read them over a few days while vacationing in Trinidad.
Death Row by Freida McFadden
June 2025 BG’s Copy
The first in the series is a pretty good short thriller. A woman is on death row, but all is not what it seems. She’s been convicted of murdering her husband but spots him alive in the visitor’s area. She races against time to convince someone of her innocence. You don’t realize until the end what’s really happening. It’s a story about guilt, trust and actions you take when betrayed and going too far may lead to tragic, irreversible consequences. Creative, compelling story. I’ve read a couple novels from this author – Want To Know A Secret; The Wife Upstairs.
The Ex-Wife’s Club by Sally Hepworth
June 2025 BG’s Copy
Book two in this alibi series. Great short about the annoying, womanizing restaurant owner, who’s murdered but everyone, the apparent suspects, has an alibi! When a celebrity chef is found murdered in his walk-in freezer, his three ex-wives, who meet at the restaurant every Friday are immediate suspects. But who did it if everyone has an alibi? Sally Hepworth is author of Mother-in-Law andThe Good Sister.
False Note by David Lagercrantz
June 2025 BG’s Copy
A man is accused of killing his father and the only one who can verify his alibi, he has abused. His life is literally in this person’s hands. He’s the main suspect because of the toxic relationship he had with his charismatic, but cruel, womanizing, opera-singer father. He vows never to be like his father, but an explosive episode leads him directly to a dark side like his father’s, jeopardizing his alibi. Great short story! David Lagercrantz is the author of The Girl in the Spider’s Web.
The Skydivers by Chris Bohjalian
June 2025 BG’s Copy
Thrilling short story of two brothers who go skydiving and one ends up dead. Only the surviving brother knows what happened and the one witness on the ground tries to figure things out. Two brothers who are very different, one is a musician and the other an aerospace engineer, are battling over whether to keep their inheritance, their father’s dairy farm. All they can agree on is to spread their father’s ashes over the farm – a skydive, where everything goes wrong.
Good Neighbors by Chad Zunker
June 2025 BG’s Copy
Nice fast-paced short story about a neighbor who witnesses her friend’s husband murdered, only to run for her life and figure things out along the way. Kara only wants to help her neighbor, who suspects her husband is having an affair. So, one evening when she sees someone walking into her neighbor’s house with the husband, Kara slips out to take a closer look to possibly catch him in the act. But what she sees puts her in danger and running for her life.
Small Things by Wanda M Morris
June 2025 Bg’s Copy
The sixth and last story in the collection. A woman in an abusive marriage, where the husband belittles and controls her, decides to take her life back. A jewelry maker with a seemingly perfect marriage, is living an emotional nightmare behind closed doors. When her husband threatens to take away the only small thing that brings her peace and joy, she comes up with a plan that will leave no trace behind. Unexpected, satisfying ending.
The Alibi collection is a great set of six stories, that are filled with thrills, suspense and mystery, that can be read in one sitting or whenever you have a little time, you know, when you don’t want to take on a novel – just read one story and have closure, while taking a short break. It’s aIso a good, convenient way to explore new authors without giving up the time commitment. I discovered a couple new ones while reading them. Hope you give this entertaining collection a read.
I love science fiction. Whether it’s a subject that expands or is based on an existing premise or theory, or something that’s completely fabricated, as long as the author makes it fly off the page as believable while reading. I’ll get on that ride till the end. Love sic-fi. This title, The Guest by Alan Nayes is a great read!
This is based on an existing premise, with a twist of what if. The Voyager I probe, launched in September of 1977, has spent over 45 years in space. Mentioned in my December 2021 post, Fire & Ice by Natalie Starkey, Voyager I was sent to explore the outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. Voyager is now currently continuing its journey beyond our planets and the outer limits of the Sun’s sphere of influence, sending back images as it travels. So, when I became aware of this title, I had to give it a read.
As the novel begins, it’s late evening at NASA Voyager Control Center, when an anomaly is noticed by a doctorate candidate, Aarush Patel and the head of the Center, Dr Kayla Storm. Voyager I, now in interstellar space, beyond the gravitational pull of the sun, had started to decelerate, and had doubled in weight – how was this possible. Then the sensors showed Voyager was beginning to alter its course, again how was this possible? Voyager I, a body travelling at constant speed in a straight line would continue to do so unless disturbed by an outside force – they needed more data of Voyager’s surroundings. Then they lost contact.
Voyager begins transmitting again a few days later. It turned around, heading back on the exact path it took, at an alarming speed, thousands of miles per second, while maintaining its structural integrity. The scientists at the control center didn’t know how this was possible. An astrobiologist attending the control center’s media briefing raises a theory – Voyager has encountered and has been taken over by an alien species and the Voyager has been altered somehow – its components changed to withstand the journey back to Earth in days rather than years – changed to a strange and unfamiliar molecular combination of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.
Many groups were involved with monitoring Voyager at this point, with these new developments, the press, global scientists, the United Nations, and the military. They were all monitoring Voyager’s path that took decades to accomplish, being spanned in a matter of weeks. The once sleepy and dull Voyager project spanning decades in length, now became very interesting and perplexing. Indeed, when Voyager finally lands back on Earth, in the deserts of Arizona, the astrobiologist’s theory proves right, the probe did have an alien presence on board.
This alien had plans for the planet that did not include its current inhabitants. With its advanced technology, it begins transforming the planet into an ecosystem (atmosphere and temperature) that can support its alien life and is deadly to Earth lifeforms. The military and scientists try everything in their present arsenals to combat this alien but are unsuccessful. Their military force and technologies are completely inferior to the alien that seems unstoppable. Thier only hope is to figure out the base carbon-oxygen-hydrogen formula of their technology and then counter it.
This novel was really an interesting, thriller of a sci-fi. The conflict between the military and the science community with the impending, looming threat was intense. It really makes you think about this home of ours, the lands we have invaded in the past and if we have a right to this planet at all – if might is right and to the victor the spoils. And Voyager I? Where is it right now? Both probes are still out there travelling through the vastness of interstellar space in communication with Earth. You can track both Voyager I and II here Voyager – Mission Status (nasa.gov) and I hope you give The Guest by Alan Nayes a read!
Drowning written by author T J Newman, is an ex-flight attendant, so she really knows what the responsibilities and capabilities of flight attendants are. She brought them to the forefront of this story and gave them authentic power and relevance. Â
Crashed and submerged in the ocean, passengers aboard a commercial airplane come together to survive. The author educates us about the dynamics of the ocean, diving to its depths, and capabilities of underwater rescue. There are ten people aboard the submerged plane.
Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter, Shannon, are aboard a flight between Honolulu and his daughter’s summer camp in California. Minutes after take-off, one of the engines burst into flames, followed by system failures of the aircraft, forcing the crew to land on open water. They did not have the capability to turn around or reach anywhere else on land. Air traffic control is aware of their situation and approximate location, by way of the crew’s last communications. The crew has informed them they have to land on the ocean below them.
Will, an oil rig engineer is familiar with the environment and conditions of the ocean, and advises the surviving crew not to leave the cabin of the plane, which sounds crazy to the other passengers, who believe it’s the obvious course of action to go out to the open water away from the plane to be picked up by responding rescue crews. But Will explains that the engulfing fires outside combined with the trade winds over the open water, a slow-moving emergency raft or a person swimming, could not outmaneuver the unpredictable moving bodies of flames. Anyone going outside would eventually be burned alive. Some take his advice, some don’t. A short time after most of the passengers leave the plane, the engine explodes and the plane sinks to the ocean floor with the remaining passengers inside and the inferno above with the other passengers, with the rescue teams on their way.Â
Once submerged the author explains the dynamics of the ocean, how deep it is and the dangers of the pressure changes below. The ocean is broken into five zones, with the top five percent being the most inhabited sunlight zone. The remaining four were darker, colder, and subject to extreme pressure. Once the rescue teams arrived, they discovered that the plane was banked, nose down on the summit of a sunken volcano, that was now a broad shelf or cliff – they were within reach, 55 meters (180 ft) down. But how to get 10 people out of a sunken container without drowning them was the puzzle.
The co-protagonist in the novel is Will Kent’s wife, Chris, who is the owner of an underwater construction and rescue/recovery diving company. She is an expert diver and architect of new designs to fit unique situations that may arise in the marine environment. She believes her crew has the knowledge and capability to rescue the remaining crew and passengers of the submerged plane, however, being civilians among Navy and Coast Guard personnel, their expertise is sidelined and undermined, expending precious time and oxygen of the people below the surface. Not to mention failure could also mean compromising the vulnerable positioning of the submerged plane, sending it over the edge to the dark pressurized depths below.
The novel is fast paced, with technical mentions and explanations of the plane’s design, deep diving technique, and underwater rescue, which was interesting and intense. Relating this knowledge informed the reader just how dangerous and precarious the situation really was and that no one was safe, not the submerged passengers or those attempting rescue. Â
Simultaneously, on the emotional end, the experiences of the passengers and the plane’s crew are brought to life skillfully by the author, sometimes with tearjerking intensity. I loved the interactions between the passengers and the technical/rescue teams above, just great! Drowning by T J Newman is an action-packed thriller of a read, with tensions building right to the very end. I recommend this one for sure!Â
The Yeti by Rick Chester and Jack Douglas, about climbers to Mount Everest, on the Nepalian side of the Himalayas, wasn’t what I expected at all. It’s not about climbers being picked off, one by one, by some gruesome beast, although the imposing threat of the creature is always there. It’s about Everest, the challenges of the climb and why men and women risk their lives to climb it. The Yeti is a soul-searching, action-packed adventure, sci-fi, thriller!
This thriller opens with two Sherpa in the mountains of Nepal, following very large tracks of something, which leads them to a fatally wounded climber, who tells them that a Yeh-Teh (snowman) attacked him before he dies. The Sherpa are not sure what to think, the Yeti are legend, not real.
Back in Rhode Island, Zach Hitchens, an evolutionary biology professor, plans to take a trip with his wife to Nepal to climb Mt Everest – his wife is the climber. Before they leave, she dies in an accident, and he decides to take the trip and have her ashes released on the mountain. As mentioned, his wife was the climber, and Zach throughout the story is the novice, who has climbed smaller peaks before but nothing like this.
Once in Nepal, the author introduces us to the climbers and Sherpa guides on Zach’s climbing outfit, and the steps they have to take to first acclimatize to ascend to Mt Everest, the equipment that must be used and the competition between other climbing outfits. The group first takes a small plane to the starting point, a Sherpa town of elevation 9,000 feet. They would then have to acclimatize, giving their bodies a chance to adjust to the higher elevations and then move higher on to Base Camp, which would take several days. Failure to acclimatize could result in altitude sickness, which would be fatal. The climbers would have to go through this process of acclimatization at each camp while climbing higher toward the summit. The doctor in Zach’s group also describes to he climbers the stages of hypothermia and snow blindness, very interesting! Loved the attention to detail.
At this Sherpa town, shrieks of something large is heard by one of the climbers overnight in the forest, and by morning, most of the group’s yaks were brutally ripped apart, slaughtered in their pen, with the ones left, huddled in a corner in fear. The lead Sherpa guide tells the group that only one beast can kill in this manner – the Yeti. Zach, and the other climbers, of course just shrug this off as another myth believed by local, superstitious people.
As they climb up higher and higher from Base Camp to Camp 1 and beyond, they continue to hear loud noises, shrieks that don’t sound like rock fall or avalanche. We also get to know the individual climbers and why they are on this mountain risking their lives. Some are on the mountain because they don’t want to face the reality of the world below – Zach continually struggled with the circumstances of his wife’s death. Some were trying to prove their worth. And, a couple climbers were on the mountain to find the elusive Yeti.
The author also visits the past of the creature and why it was stalking these climbers, which was a nice twist. I don’t want to give away too much information and spoil the experience of these climbers not only having to deal with the challenging surroundings of Mt Everest, but also being watched by a fierce creature.
This novel takes you on a wild, suspenseful, thrilling ride while climbing mount Everest. It is also a learning journey if you don’t know much about climbing in these elements. The Yeti, by Rick Chester and Jack Douglas, was a great read, well written and well researched. I hope you read this one.
