Books I've Read: Daisy Darker

Set over one night in a house on a remote island only accessible at low tide, this was a very creepy little thriller.

After many years apart, Daisy's family gather at Nana's house to celebrate her 80th birthday.  As kids, the three girls spent a lot of time here, especially after their parents divorced, yet their memories of their time on the island are not all sunny and fun-filled.  So, each family member arrives with a lot of baggage (and I'm not talking about suitcases).

At midnight, when the tide is at its peak and the island is cut off from the mainland for the next 8 hours, Nana is found murdered in the kitchen.

As a storm rages outside, the family gather to try and figure out who could have done something so heinous.  When, an hour later, another body is found, it becomes increasingly clear that a killer is among them, determined to bump them off one by one before the tide goes out.

The book does a good job of weaving together the present-day mystery with their secrets from the past, creating an ever-ratcheting tension as the bodies pile up and the list of suspects narrows.

I enjoyed this one.  I always like a book with a compressed timeframe and a ticking clock. It really makes every detail important.  And in this book, there were so many details I kind of overlooked as being unimportant before the twist at the end revealed exactly how important they really were.

While definitely contemporary, this book felt like one of the old mysteries by Agatha Christie I read when I was a kid (I went through a period when I was 12 where I read everything the Queen of Crime wrote) and that's not a bad thing.  There's a reason why she was called the Queen of Crime.  And the setting was perfect for this kind of mystery where there's absolutely no possibility the killer isn't among the people in the house.

So, I'd recommend this for people who like a good mystery, especially one that takes place over a single night in a unique, creepy locale.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.

The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows…

Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.

With a wicked wink to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Daisy Darker’s unforgettable twists will leave readers reeling.

Weekly Goals 16-3-26

 I don't have a whole lot of goals this week.  

I got my RevPit entry in over the weekend, which was good.  I still don't think I've 100% nailed the formatting for that manuscript, but I guess it doesn't matter too much, so long as it' s readable and understandable.  It's just tricky because of the way it's written, it kind of demands to be formatted differently to a regular MS.

I have a busy week ahead of me.  The Arts Festival is over, but the Symphony season kicks off next week for the year.  I'm ahead of the game and have everything ready to go up until mid-July, but I should probably start looking at what I need to get done for the second half of the year so I can get a jump on that before things get crazy.

Otherwise, it's kind of a waiting game.  I have some manuscripts out with agents, a whole lot of unanswered queries out and I'm waiting for a new book idea to sweep me off my feet.  I just don't have anything big enough to start writing yet.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 13-3-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

It's the weekend!

I've had a busy week and dealt with some rather difficult people as part of it, so I'm looking forward to having a couple of days to decompress.

I'm getting my materials together to enter RevPit, a contest I have entered the last couple of years.  I've never won, but I have got some really useful feedback on my query and openings pages.  I'm going to enter Street Smarts this year, since it's the most raw of my completed manuscripts and could benefit most from a professional edit.  I hadn't really finished writing a query, or even started thinking about a synopsis until now, so that's going to be my weekend...

I got to go to the dress rehearsal of a beautiful dance work this week.  One of the pieces is by a very well known New Zealand choreographer and I saw a performance of it in the '90s when it premiered.  At the time, it was quite shocking and groundbreaking and made a huge impression on me.  Now, when so much contemporary dance has adopted these techniques,  it's less shocking, but still a very hauntingly beautiful piece.

I've managed to stave off the cold I thought I was getting, but my partner got hit hard.  I have my fingers crossed it was me who brought the germs into the house and that I won't get it now.

What are you celebrating this week?

Books I've Read: The Bad Angel Brothers

I've always enjoyed Paul Theroux as an author, so when I saw this at the library, I just had to pick it up.  Even more so, because I always enjoy reading about the relationship between brothers.

Cal and Frank Belanger - known around town as the Bad Angel Brtothrs - could not be more different and their relationship is troubled from the time they are children.  Their mother dotes on Frank and feels he can do no wrong.  Cal does not agree, all too aware of the way Frank manipulates the truth and steals other peoples' stories to make himself look better.

As they grow up, their relationship becomes more distant.  Frank becomes a successful lawyer and a pillar of the community it their small hometown.  Cal becomes a geologist and works in the mining industry, usually outside the States.  Yet, despite the contentious nature of their relationship, Cal is constantly drawn home for visits with his mother and Frank.  Visits he tolerates, but rarely enjoys.

As they grow into middle age and are forced to deal with first their mother's decline and then her death, what has been a distantly unsteady relationship, becomes a full-blown war in which there can really be no victor.

I enjoyed this book.  Cal was a delightfully slippery narrator and I was kept wondering through most of the book if Frank was as truly awful as he was through Cal's eyes.  Especially since everyone else in their small town from their mother to random people on the street all seemed to think Frank was some kind of saint.  I started wondering if Cal was an unreliable narrator or if Frank really had this entire town duped into believing he was a good person.  It makes for compelling reading.

As I expect from Theroux, the sections about Cal's travel to far-flung places as part of his mining work were detailed and well-drawn.  And while demonizing Frank, Cal was under no illusions about his own failings as a man and a husband and father.  But, by the end of the book, you really feel Cal's pain as he struggles to find his feet in a life Frank has all but destroyed.

So, I'd recommend this one.  It's a distinctive portrait of two people and a lifetime of struggling to negotiate each other.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

An evocative novel about two brothers whose rivalry as youths in the Massachusetts town of Littleford reverberates throughout their lives, with striking consequences. As they grow into men, they develop into very different people on very different paths - Frank becomes a successful lawyer, and Cal becomes a geologist - but they are constantly drawn back to one other. As they grow into middle age, their relationship reaches crisis point after the death of their widowed mother. The Bad Angel Brothers is an intimate portrait of family, resentment, and the bonds that shape our lives.

Weekly Goals 9-3-26

 I had a very busy weekend with Arts Festival shows and a powhiri and various other events, so now I feel like I need a weekend!   But, no rest for the wicked, as they say.  Thankfully, the cold I felt like I was getting seems to have changed its mind and gone away.  Must've been all the vitamin c and echinacea I've been taking.

It's going to be another busy week at work - when isn't it? - so I'm not going to set any really heavy goals for myself.  Especially since I said I'd help out the Festival with some front of house stuff since they're short staffed.

I haven't managed to get my daily flash fiction done every day recently; it's been more like four times a week, rather than six or seven.  This week I'd like to aim for five, but we'll see.  Time is kind of at a premium at the moment.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 6-3-26

 

It's the end of the week, so what am I celebrating?

I made it through my first week at work and am feeling okay.  I suspect I may be getting a cold, but I'm trying hard to ignore it.  Maybe if I don't pay attention, it'll go away.  Not being able to do any exercise other than walking is beginning to get to me a little - walking takes a lot of time which I don't have.

The Arts Festival I worked for in my previous job is currently on and I've been to a few shows and have a few more to go to this weekend.  Saw a very thought-provoking one-man play called Nowhere which I thought was great.  Going to music things both nights over the weekend, and hopefully to a dance show during the week.

Got another couple of rejections for Stranger this week.  Maybe it just isn't the right time for this book, no matter how good it is.

What are you celebrating this week?

ISWG- March 2026

 It's the first Wednesday of the month so it's time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group..

This month's hosts are PJ Colando, Ronel Janse van Vuuren, and Natalie Aguirre, so let's give them a cheer!

This month's question is one I'll be interested in reading other peoples' posts about:

What elements do you include in your book launch? Or what do you have in mind for your future book launch? Or what advice do you have to offer to others planning to launch a book?

I'm actually pretty useless at releasing my books and I'm not ashamed to say it.  I have a company I work with (Itsy-Bitsy Book Bits if you want to know) who help with social media and stuff which I'm useless at.  They also have a big stable of in-house reviewers and that helps at release time too, especially since about 90% of the reviewers I approach directly usually turn me down.

Finding reviewers is usually the biggest part of my launch strategy and I spend a lot of weeks reaching out to bloggers and reviewers who read contemporary YA.  Most never respond, and the ones that do are  usually too busy with other books to accept anything new.  But I still feel like this is probably the best use of my time because reviews are so important when a new book is released.

I try to do some interviews if anyone will have me, and write some specific blog posts.  I also try to put together some kind of social media campaign of my own that's different to the stuff the company does - usually some graphics with the cover of the book and some quotes from the story and maybe some good early review stuff.

I make sure there's a page for the new book on my website with links to where to buy it, any good review quotes and other useful stuff to know about it.

And.... that's kind of it.  I don't have the budget to invest in ads or anything like that, and my publisher doesn't do much other than a couple of social media posts, so my books end up launching into a void.  My latest release also suffered from Amazon assigning it some truly bizarre keywords that hasn't helped that one at all.  I managed to get the non-fiction tag taken off, but it's still listed as sci-fi and fantasy which, as a contemporary novel about brothers, is probably not helping the right readers find it...

I'd be very interested to hear what other authors do to launch their books, especially if, like me, they don't have thousands of dollars lying around to spend on ads or billboards or anything like that.  So tell me what you do to launch your books into the world.  I'm listening!