The Last Time She Saw Him

May 2, 2016
Reporter Julia Gooden, the smart, relatable heroine of journalist Haseldine’s uneven debut, needs a break from her job at a Detroit newspaper. She finds peace at her vacation home on Lake St. Clair, Mich., with her two sons, Will and Logan. On the 30th anniversary of the 1977 disappearance of her brother, Ben, two-year-old Will is taken from his bed; the clues left are shockingly similar to those left at the scene of Ben’s abduction. In addition to recruiting the help of ex-boyfriend Det. Ray Navarro and estranged husband David, Julia decides to take matters into her own hands. In the next 24 hours or so, Julia manages to have a press conference, illegally search a suspect’s home, help search 30 acres of property, sit in on two interrogations, make a prison visit to someone who may have information about Will, and more. This improbable sequence takes credibility away from what is, for the most part, a competently written thriller—at least until the gruesome final showdown, which borders on the ridiculous. Agent: Priya Doraswamy, Lotus Lane Literary.

March 15, 2016

Thirty years ago, Julia Gooden's nine-year-old brother Ben--her older confidant and protector--vanished from the room they shared. Much to her frustration, Julia remembers nothing of the incident, but the unsolved crime now haunts her adult world. Dogged with unresolved guilt that she can't vocalize, Julia becomes a reporter because she "never found out the ending to [her] own story." She supervises her two sons with frantic and unhealthy fervor, enough to cause a rift in her crumbling marriage. The mental and emotional lingering of Ben's abduction becomes frighteningly tangible, however, when Julia's own two-year-old son, Will, is snatched from his bed on the anniversary of Ben's disappearance. Julia is convinced the abductions are related. But to find her son, she must also find herself. VERDICT Haseldine's first novel is a solid read that fans of Debbie Howells, Julia Dahl, and Laura Lippman will appreciate.--Erin Entrada Kelly, Philadelphia

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2016
Julia Gooden, the heroine of this ferocious thriller, is a Detroit crime reporter. She's the narrator, too, offering a first-person, up-close look at the slippery ways of the newspapering trade and giving the details of her tense, violent narrative a visceral punch that can rock even the jaded. Julia was tiny when her older brother was kidnapped. Now that she's a mom she obsesses that her two youngsters will endure the same fate. When it happens to one of them, we get to watch the hard-edged reporter crank up. She flirts with the handsome homicide detective and tricks his too-trusting staffer. She mocks and humiliates a big-haired psychic, whose revelations jar her to her core. She bluffs her way into a prison to grill a convict who might know something and gets so far ahead of the cops that it's almost her undoing. The last 80 pages, with guns, a knife, an axe, a knitting needle, and a river of blood, may strike some as over the top. But you can bet no one will stop reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

April 15, 2016
Never mix business with pleasure. Venture-capitalist David Hammar knows the wisdom of this saying, but somehow when it comes to Natalia De la Grip, he can't resist. David wants revenge on the people who ruined his life, and that means the De la Grip family. David has already set his plans in motion to take over the family's company, Investum, which is one of Sweden's biggest and oldest financial institutions, when he crosses paths with Natalia. Convincing one member of the De la Grip family to join him is key to his plan, and David is certain he can woo Natalie over to his side. However, one lunch quickly turns into a torrid affair with Natalia as David finds the desire he feels for her impossible to resist. Readers who miss the deliciously fun glitz-and-glam novels that Judith Krantz, Shirley Conran, and Judith Michaels used to write will be delirious with joy over Ahrnstedt's equally entertaining American debut. The author's ability to skillfully fuse a luxurious lifestyle, a refreshingly different Swedish setting, a plot riddled with revenge and financial intrigue, and plenty of steamy romance means All In will be the must-have leisure read everywhere this summer. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Swedish author Ahrnstedt is a best-seller in Europe, and All In is being avidly promoted as a hot new item: the first foreign-language romance novel to be translated and published in the U.S.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)