Review - Cross and Sampson

Title:   Cross and Sampson

Author:  James Patterson; Brian Sitts

Series:   Alex Cross #35

Publisher:  Little, Brown and Company 

Genre:   Mystery & Thrillers

Format:  Kindle ARC

No. of Pages:   368

Date of Publication:   February 9, 2026

My Rating:   5 Stars

DESCRIPTION:

Detectives Alex Cross and John Sampson are better together—until they’re called to separate locations to investigate a pair of serious crimes. 

In Washington, DC… Metro PD detective John Sampson stands in a crater in the middle of a DC street, calling in the bomb squad. “Dispatch, this is Sampson. Contact the FBI and the ATF. We’ve got a suspected terrorist attack here.” In Chapel Hill, NC… Alex Cross searches the apartment of a missing psychology grad student—his own son Damon. Has following in his famous father’s footsteps made Damon a target? From FBI headquarters, in police stations, on airplanes, and at murder scenes, the detectives track crimes committed hundreds of miles apart. It will take more than distance to weaken the partnership of Sampson & Cross.

Link to purchase the series

MY THOUGHTS:

In Cross and Sampson, Detective Alex Cross, his best friend and fellow officer John Sampson, and Alex’s wife Bree find themselves locked in a race against time. When Alex learns that his college-aged son, Damon, has gone missing, he and Bree immediately fly to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, launching a desperate search for answers.

In nearly every major case Alex has faced, Sampson has been right by his side. This time, however, a deadly bombing in Washington, D.C. forces Sampson to remain behind, separating the partners as they pursue parallel investigations under mounting pressure.

From the moment Alex and Bree arrive in Chapel Hill, the urgency is relentless. Damon, who lives off campus in an apartment he shares with his girlfriend, becomes the focal point of Alex’s frantic search. The story moves at a fast pace, keeping readers on the edge of their seats from beginning to end.

The cases faced by both Alex and Sampson are equally gripping, and Alex’s fierce love for his family is palpable throughout the story. Just as powerful is the deep bond between Alex and Sampson, whose long-standing friendship adds emotional weight and depth to the high-stakes thriller.

I’ve been a devoted fan of the Alex Cross series since its inception and thoroughly enjoyed Cross Down, the 31st installment in the series. As it is also the first book in the John Sampson series, Sampson played a significant role there and that strong presence continues in Cross and Sampson.

While I always look forward to more Alex Cross stories, it’s refreshing and exciting to see Sampson take on a more prominent role as well. I’ll be eagerly awaiting future installments in either or both series.

Many thanks to Little, Brown and Company and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

James Patterson is the most popular storyteller of our time. He is the creator of unforgettable characters and series, including Alex Cross, the Women’s Murder Club, Jane Smith, and Maximum Ride, and of breathtaking true stories about the Kennedys, John Lennon, and Tiger Woods, as well as our military heroes, police officers, and ER nurses. Patterson has coauthored #1 bestselling novels with Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton, and collaborated most recently with Michael Crichton on the blockbuster Eruption. He has told the story of his own life in James Patterson by James Patterson and received an Edgar Award, ten Emmy Awards, the Literarian Award from the National Book Foundation, and the National Humanities Medal.

Web | X

BLOG TOUR - The Orphan at the Irish Adoption House

DESCRIPTION:

Ireland, 1920. As they take my baby away, I choke on my tears. I grew up alone, abandoned in a place like this. I won’t let my newborn share the same fate.

Arriving at St Patrick’s Mother and Baby Home, it’s not the first time Mary-Kate has faced hardship. She grew up in a poor orphanage in Dublin after her father died and her mother gave her up, and never stopped working for a better future.

But, as her baby is taken from her arms moments after coming into this world, Mary-Kate almost loses all hope. She can’t do this by herself. The baby’s father has made it clear he wants nothing to do with the child. And she hasn’t heard from her only friend since she was trapped here. 

When a kind nun finally hands her a letter, it revives some of her determination. Help is coming for Mary-Kate and her baby. But as much as the secret plan to get them out raises her spirits, the letter is also gut-wrenching. Why was she left to grow up all alone… when her father is actually alive?

Could Mary-Kate really have a family out there to rely on? Or will counting on the offer of help in the letter leave her more alone than ever?

This achingly beautiful and emotional historical novel is perfect for fans of Jean Grainger, Lisa Wingate and Sandy Taylor. The family secrets will have you sobbing – and you won’t be able to put it down! 

BUY LINK:

• • Amazon: https://geni.us/B0FY3NQ857social

Title:  The Orphan at the Irish Adoption House

Author:  Michelle Vernal

Series:  The Irish Adoption House Book 3

Publisher:  Bookouture 

Genre:   Historical Fiction 

Format:  Kindle ARC

No. of Pages:   310

Date of Publication:  February 6, 2026

My Rating:  5 Stars

MY THOUGHTS: 

Having spent several years in a Dublin orphanage, Mary-Kate’s life has been shaped by hardship. Yet despite everything she has endured, she maintains an optimistic outlook. When she becomes pregnant, life grows even more complicated. Unwed but determined, Mary-Kate plans to raise her baby herself. However, the nuns at St. Patrick’s Mother and Baby Home, where she is forced to seek refuge, doe their best to take that decision away from her,.

Mary-Kate’s early life marks a pivotal turning point in the novel. Having never known her father and having been abandoned by her mother, she is determined that her child will not suffer the same fate. The deep bond she feels with her unborn baby, filled with fierce love and hope, fuels her determination as she tries to plan a future for them both.

Her childhood becomes even more tragic when a man claiming to be her uncle removes her from the orphanage. Sadly, this was an act that quickly proves to have nothing to do with love. These years are marked by profound pain and trauma. Still, despite being only fifteen years old, Mary-Kate’s strength and resilience shine through. These experiences prepare her for what will soon become the fight of her life.

This was a heartbreaking read. I was moved to tears when Mary-Kate went into labor and faced the devastating events that followed. As more truths about her past are revealed, the story becomes even more gripping, drawing me deeper into the emotional turmoil she must endure. Michelle Vernal once again delivers a deeply sensitive and compelling story, one that held my attention and my heart from beginning to end.

Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Michelle Vernal is a New Zealand author who writes stories that will take you onto the page with her characters and make you feel part of their lives. She writes with humour and warmth, and her readers describe her books as unputdownable, feel good and funny. Her writing has been likened to Maeve Binchy but with a modern-day vernacular. In 2015 she was shortlisted for the Love Stories Award. In 2020 she won the Reader's Favorite Gold Medal Award for Chick lit, and in 2021 was shortlisted for the Page Turner Book Awards.

 

Author social media: 

 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MichelleVernal

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellevernalnovelist/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michellevernalnovelist

Website: https://www.michellevernalbooks.com/

Newsletter sign up: https://www.bookouture.com/michelle-vernal

 

BLOG TOUR - The Wife Before

DESCRIPTION:

She says your new boyfriend killed his ex. He says it’s all lies. Who do you believe?

When I first met Jack, he broke down in tears as he told me about the tragic death of his wife, Natalia, on a family holiday. As our relationship blossomed and we started planning a future together, I would lie awake worrying about filling Natalia’s perfect shoes. But everything changes when her mother turns up at my door…

‘Your boyfriend killed my daughter,’ she says.

Jack swears she’s lying, and I want to believe him but something isn’t right. Why doesn’t he have a single picture of her? And why do I feel afraid when I confront him about the night Natalia died? What if it wasn’t grief after all, but guilt?

As I stroke my baby bump, I wonder if I can really trust the man I love. If he killed Natalia, could I be next?

Fans of The Housemaid, The Perfect Marriage and The Girl on the Train will be absolutely hooked on this nail-biting psychological thriller. Prepare to be gripped!

BUY LINK:

Amazon: https://geni.us/B0G3WL466Msocial

You can sign up for all the best Bookouture deals you'll love at: http://ow.ly/Fkiz30lnzdo

MY THOUGHTS:

Title:   The Wife Before

Author:  Sheryl Browne

Publisher:  Bookouture

Genre:   Psychological Thriller

Format:  Kindle ARC

No. of Pages:  372

Date of Publication:   February 6, 2025

My Rating:   5 Stars 

The Wife Before is a gripping psychological thriller that kept me hooked from beginning to end. Kara, a woman scarred by the loss of her young son and husband in a tragic accident, finds herself on the brink of a tentative second chance at happiness with her partner, Jack. Pregnant and cautiously hopeful, Kara dares to envision a future once more. However, this newfound optimism is shattered as the shadow of Jack’s first wife, Natalia, and the circumstances surrounding her tragic death begin to unravel. This threatens to destroy everything Kara hopes to build.

Kara and Jack aren’t the only ones trying to build a new life. Jack’s teenage daughter, Evie, is part of the equation, and soon his former mother-in-law, Lina, enters the picture as well. Evie is fiercely devoted to her grandmother, especially as Lina’s worsening memory issues become impossible to ignore. Bringing Lina into their home quickly disrupts the fragile balance Kara is trying to maintain. Already vulnerable, Kara begins to question whether opening her heart - and her home - was a terrible mistake.

Things begin to go awry for Kara, things that make her doubt her sanity, even her safety. Although I couldn’t help but think of the film Gaslight, it is purely evident that this book is so much more. It is drama and intensity, doubt and uncertainty, even to the point of danger entering the picture. With a sharp dramatic edge, this book is certain to take readers on a ride and even wanting to yell at more than one of the characters. I wanted to reach my hand through my Kindle screen and pull Kara out of that situation. 

For a suspenseful and emotionally charged read, look no further than The Wife Before. It is certain to keep you on edge and have you questioning everything until the very last page.

Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sheryl Browne writes psychological thriller and edgy contemporary fiction. A member of the Crime Writers’ Association, Romantic Novelists’ Association and awarded a Red Ribbon by The Wishing Shelf Book Awards, Sheryl has several books published and two short stories in Birmingham City University anthologies, where she completed her MA in Creative Writing.

• Mailing List: https://bookouture.com/subscribe/sheryl-browne
• Website: https://sherylbrowne.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sheryl.browne.1
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/sherylbrowne
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sheryl.browne
• 
  

Review - Good Intentions

Title:  Good Intentions

Author:  Marissa Walz

Publisher:  St. Martin’s Press

Genre:   Psychological Thriller 

Format:  Kindle ARC

No. of Pages:   336

Date of Publication:   February 3, 2026

My Rating:   5 Stars

DESCRIPTION:

A deft and immersive psychological suspense debut about a luxury party planner who becomes obsessed with a woman she encounters in a hospital waiting room.

Cady has worked hard to have a good life. She has a thriving luxury event-planning business, the man she’s loved since she was seventeen, and a social calendar she can barely keep up with. She also has Dana, her identical twin, her beyond best friend, her most trusted confidante. When Cady gets a call that Dana has been in a serious accident and arrives moments too late to say goodbye, her world falls apart.

But to Cady’s family’s growing concern and confusion, it’s not Dana’s death that consumes her. It’s Morgan, a grieving mother Cady encountered in the hospital waiting room, the day her sister died. It can’t be a coincidence, that they both experienced tragedy at the same moment, in the same place—Cady doesn't believe in coincidences. Instead, she is convinced that she must help this stranger overcome her tragedy, in order to come to terms with her own.

Or...is there more to it? Is it possible that Cady wants something else from Morgan? Something she can’t even admit to herself?

Slyly twisted and deeply provocative, Good Intentions captures the moral ambiguity that can arise in the face of impossible choices. Like the aftermath of a car accident—and against your better judgment—you won't be able to look away.

Link to purchase the book

MY THOUGHTS:

How often do we wonder what goes on behind the closed doors of other people’s lives? How many of us are quiet people-watchers, filling in the blanks with our own assumptions? In Good Intentions, an exquisite debut novel by Marisa Walz, those curiosities take a dark turn as Cady detonates her own life after developing an obsession with another woman, Morgan.

Cady and Morgan meet under devastating circumstances. Both are seated in an emergency department, waiting while medical staff fight to save their loved ones. Cady loses her twin sister, Dana; Morgan loses her twelve-year-old son, Christopher. The shared trauma forges an unspoken bond between them, yet it seems inevitable that their connection stops there.

But Cady has no intention of letting that happen. Though their connection is rooted in tragedy, Cady inserts herself into Morgan’s life with increasing intensity—an attachment that quickly crosses from unsettling into deeply disturbing. Instead of turning inward to process the profound loss of her twin, Cady fixates on Morgan, raising an unsettling question that lingers throughout the novel: why does Cady need Morgan so desperately?

Cady is a fascinating and complex character. She is a woman hollowed out by grief, and the way that grief mutates into obsession paints her as deeply unbalanced. This is where Walz truly shines. Written in first person, Cady’s voice is intimate and unnerving, made even more unreliable by her ongoing internal conversations with Dana. Readers may find Cady difficult to like. Her motives are consistently questionable, but Walz leans into that discomfort, offering moral ambiguity rather than easy answers. 

Good Intentions challenges readers to sit with unease and uncertainty, asking us to make sense of a narrator we cannot fully trust. When the novel closes, it does so with a bang. A heart-stopping, unforgettable conclusion that marks Marisa Walz as a debut author to watch.

Many thanks to St. Martin’s Press and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Marisa Walz writes books about people behaving badly. Her debut novel, Good Intentions, will be published by St. Martin's Press in February 2026.

A lifelong writer and an alum of The Writers' Loft in Chicago, Marisa's authorly aspirations started at the age of seven with her painstakingly detailed childhood diaries and some horrible poetry. In her teen years, off the avocado-green Acer in her parents' basement, she ran e-zines that regurgitated the fashion, beauty, and lifestyle advice she read about in Cosmo and Seventeen. She finally got her first paid writing gig in college as an opinion columnist and reporter for the campus newspaper, where she may or may not have fabricated a couple man-on-the-street quotes.

​

These days, Marisa sneaks her writing in before her two young children wake up and after they go to bed. ​She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband, kids, and a labradoodle that throws balls to itself and eats whole entire socks.​

Web | Twitter

BLOG TOUR -This Book Made Me Think of You

Title:  This Book Made Me Think of You

Author:  Libby Page

Publisher:   Berkley

Genre:   Women’s Fiction; Romance

Format:  Kindle ARC

No. of Pages:   416

Date of Publication:   February 3, 2026

My Rating:   5 Stars

DESCRIPTION:

Twelve stories. Twelve months. Once chance to heal her heart...

When Tilly Nightingale receives a call telling her there’s a birthday gift from her fiancé waiting for her at her local bookshop, it couldn’t come as more of a shock. Partly because she can’t remember the last time she read a book for pleasure. Mainly because Joe died five months ago…

The gift is simple – twelve carefully-chosen books from Joe, one for each month, to help her turn the page on her first year without him.
Tilly sets out on a series of reading-inspired adventures that take her around the world. But as she begins to vlog her journey, her story becomes more than her own. With help from Alfie, the bookshop owner, her budding new following and her friends and family, can Tilly’s year of books show her how to love again?

Link to purchase the book

MY THOUGHTS:

This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page was hands-down, my favorite read of January. 

This is a beautifully-written story about love, loss, and healing. Tilly is grieving the loss of her husband, Joe, over the past year, and she is reminded of him in the most tender and thoughtful way. Knowing that his time was limited, Joe arranged a very special gift for Tilly: a carefully chosen book to be delivered to her each month for an entire year. Each selection is deeply personal, but more than that, each book gently nudges Tilly toward new experiences and opportunities she may never have considered otherwise.

What makes this journey even more special is that Tilly isn’t alone. There’s Alfie, the kindly bookshop owner who keeps each book safe until the right month arrives. Alfie is a truly endearing character, and a quiet, heartfelt story unfolds alongside Tilly’s. This story is one that adds warmth and depth without overshadowing her own path of rediscovery.

A quick note. It is often said that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but that’s exactly what I did and this brings me great joy. Having completed both a diamond painting with stacked books, as well as a cross stitch pattern with a similar style, when I saw this book on NetGalley, I knew that I had to read it. I didn’t even look at the genre or synopsis, and it turned out to be a wonderful decision. In fact, not only was this my favorite read of January, but it may very well earn a spot in my top five books of 2026.

Many thanks to Berkely and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Libby Page previously worked in marketing, moonlighting as a writer. She graduated from The London College of Fashion with a BA in Fashion Journalism before going on to work as a journalist at the Guardian. THE LIDO is her first novel. It was pre-empted within 24 hours of submission for six figures in the UK, pre-empted for six figures in the US, and will be published in 2018 by Orion UK and Simon & Schuster US, followed by eleven other territories around the world. 

Libby has been a leading campaigner for fairer internships and has spoken on TV and in parliament in support of fair pay for interns. Libby has been writing from an early age and when she was 16 she wrote an illustrated book called Love Pink to raise money for Breast Cancer Care.

After writing, her second passion is outdoor swimming. Libby lives in London where she enjoys finding new swimming spots and pockets of community within the city.

Web | Twitter