Author

Henrietta Thornton

Review

The Ones We Love

by Henrietta Thornton

The Jansen family is newly arrived in LA from Melbourne, Australia. Janus, the father of the family, is sure the screenplay of his successful novel will be their fortune. Things take a very sinister turn when daughter Liv wakes with a hangover and bruises, and her parents seem furious with her. Her bedroom is padlocked shut—it’s the law, Janus and wife Kay say, because there’s a mold issue. Son Casper suspects that there’s something much worse afoot; his parents won’t talk to each other and barely seem aware of him, and that locked room is suspicious. Liv herself can’t remember anything but starts to catch on that there’s a problem when her friend who was out with her on the mysterious night in question won’t return texts. What happened? That’s carefully revealed in a tense psychological thriller that masterfully examines love and fear from every angle. The fully fleshed out teenage characters make this a solid YA crossunder. Get it on your TBR list!

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Review

Princess of the Savoy

by Henrietta Thornton

For glitz, drama, and mystery, there’s no better setting than a fancy hotel, and it doesn’t come fancier than London’s Savoy. It’s the swinging ‘60s in the late Emery’s (Death at the Savoy, Scandal at the Savoy) last book, her third starring a quiet champion of the hotel’s steely reputation, press officer Priscilla Tempest. (Emery was herself a press and public relations officer at the hotel.) The young Canadian is used to the casual sexism that is women’s lot in the era, but Europe’s classism is harder for her to take, and when two dueling cousins, Italian princes, arrive as guests, her patience is sorely tested. One of the princes fears he will be the subject of a story by “that blighter Percy Hoskins at the Evening Standard,” and stopping the muckraking story at the behest of her boss leads Priscilla into the lairs of London’s underworld gangsters and some decidedly upper-class ones, with England’s very way of life on the line. A fast-moving story whose initial frothy air is a clever mask on the serious stakes soon underway. Readers will want to go back to the first two books in the series, and after that can try Nita Prose’s hotel-set Maid series.

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Review

The Close-Up

by Henrietta Thornton

Novelist Zoe Weiss is stuck. Her first novel was successful enough to land her a deal for another, which is now a year overdue, with no ideas on the horizon, let alone drafts to pass along to her increasingly irate agent. If she doesn’t come up with something, she’ll have to pay back the $250,000 advance, and working at a Los Angeles florist, that doesn’t seem possible. When she drops an arrangement at a flower delivery and her ex-fling, Zach, happens to be there to help, everything seems suddenly better. Maybe he can help her pick up the pieces of her life, too? Zach’s a famous actor now, and his glamorous life could be the makings of a novel. Soon the two are appearing in the tabloids as an item and the writer’s block is as missing as Zoe’s bikini top in that one swimming pool photo. Only one issue: Zoe signed an NDA, so writing about this is forbidden, but that’s the least of her worries when creepy happenings start—a real heart is left on the window of her car—and she thinks someone is following her. Oops, Zach has a stalker, one who’s not too happy about his new girlfriend. Zoe’s problems and her florist-by-day, glam-girl-by-night bizarro life are realistic and absorbing, and the plot equally so. Twists and a totally unexpected epilogue are the cherry on top.

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Review

The Department

by Henrietta Thornton

Get ready to face big questions in Faber’s novel, one that uses a southern college’s philosophy department as a magnifying glass on relationships between haves and have nots; having power and not, that is. Decidedly a have not in this equation is Neil Weber, a professor whose chances at tenure are fading, a situation he’s desperate to change but too depressed to take real action over. Instead, he becomes enmeshed—his friends and the police say obsessed—with the disappearance of student Lucia Vanotti. This young woman, whose narration alternates with Neil’s, is technically a have not, the daughter of Italian immigrants who own a local restaurant. But a chance encounter has Neil placing her on a pedestal and desperate to find her. As he digs deeper into the student’s life and related goings on in the town, and before-disappearance Lucia brings us further into her trauma-ridden life, readers will ask, can love ever be enough? Who is a savior acting for? Humming in the background of the drama is the perplexing question of what happened to Lucia, the answer to which brings delicious twists. An absorbing debut.

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Review

The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne

by Henrietta Thornton

Men do live in Waterville, Maine. They even live in Petit Canada, the staunchly French neighborhood where “people [have] more trouble than money.” But the town’s men seem mostly beside the point. The women, on the other hand, use “visiting”—sitting over coffee—as time to “organize, decide neighborhood business, and leverage collective will to solve problems.” Chief at both causing and solving those problems is self-proclaimed “goddamn cast-iron bitch” Babs Dionne, who runs the town and is feared by all, but also fiercely loved. A teenage Babs commits a crime as the book opens, one that follows her over the decades of the story, corroding her ability to show love to the children she adores. One of them, Sis, is now missing and the family suspects her drunken husband is to blame. Babs and her other daughter, Lori, who’s using drugs to push down the PTSD she gained in Afghanistan, set out separately to find the woman, Lori desperate to spare Babs from the pain of likely tragedy. At the same time, a character known as “The Man” is not so gently working to convince Babs that the underworld business she’s controlled for decades is his now. We’ll see about that. Currie’s tale and his powerful writing are reminiscent of small-town sagas by Richard Russo, and are peopled by the same kinds of won’t-let-you-go characters. An immersive book to be savored.

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Review

The Matchmaker

by Henrietta Thornton

Nura Khan has taken over Piyar, her grandmother Khala’s matchmaking business, which is a mix of old and new. Matchmaking is traditionally how young people in her Pakistani American community find their spouse, but Nura will only work with the prospective bride or groom, not their parents, and the young couple meets and dates before marrying. Nura grew naturally into the role; her father died before she was born and after her mother died in an accident, she went to live with her loving, successful aunt Khala, eventually taking over the Atlanta business. She loves the work, but there’s a problem: she’s single, and for a matchmaker who’s already reached the ripe age of 31, it’s not the best look. That’s why she brings Azar, her childhood friend who at one point almost became more—how she wishes it did!—to the many events involved in desi wedding celebrations. A worse problem arises when Piyar’s matches start to go terribly wrong and the business is getting trashed on social media. It’s a dangerous path to finding out who could have a grudge against Nura, one that brings in handsome doctor Azar and Nura’s lovable circle of friends and employees. Desi readers, fans of the reality shows dedicated to matchmaking, and everyone who loves a mystery and romance combo will savor YA author Saeed’s first novel for adults.

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Review

Heroic Measures

by Henrietta Thornton

Colonel Stephen Englehart is a great medical examiner, which in the bureaucratic backwardness of the U.S. Army means he’ll be promoted any day now to paper pusher. No, thank you. Besides, he has an ambivalent attitude toward the whole organization, given that his soldier father was mostly absent and the “uncle” who took over—his father’s fellow soldier who is now one of Stephen’s superiors—is chilly at best. Retirement is beckoning, but his plans are exploded by five corpses arriving at his base. Don’t autopsy them, comes the order. Just hold them until their storm-damaged plane is repaired. That’s weird enough, but then one of the dead seems to have been untouched by the grenade he was supposed to have been killed by, and a medical examiner’s worst nightmare comes true: the man opens his eyes. At the same time, Stephen’s sister, Major Sharon Englehart, is arriving in Germany, where Stephen is based, and the two will try to steal some time to meet…but she never arrives at her post. The secrets, lies, and fearsome technology behind this fast-moving, exciting novel will keep readers turning the pages as they also enjoy the sibling loyalty and Stephen’s sidestepping of military rules—including his affair with a subordinate. This is a great step into military and technothrillers for fans of Patricia Cornwell and other forensic crime authors, and an equally perfect introduction to more relationship-based novels for military fiction buffs.

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Review

Gothictown

by Henrietta Thornton

Locals call small-town Juliana, Georgia, “Gentle Juliana.” New York chef Bille Hope calls it her family’s best chance at a new start after the pandemic finished her restaurant. The offer to move to Juliana is incredibly generous: the ad Billie spots says that the family can buy any vacant home in the town—look at those Victorian mansions!—for just $100 if they open a business there. Billie; her husband, Peter; and their daughter, Mere, are Georgia residents before you know it and even purchase a fabulous house that wasn’t supposed to be available. In no time, Billie’s new restaurant is booming, but so is the family’s fear that they have made a bad mistake. The house has a malevolent feeling and Peter is exhausted and depressed by his never-ending search for a dangerous open well that a strange neighbor tells them is on the land. While Billie begins to fall for the owner of the store next to hers, she also starts to investigate what’s really going on in the town and why she and Mere have the same nightmares about trapped, crying children, a puzzle that readers know a little about from the book’s sinister opening chapter detailing an event in the town’s early years. This has just the right amount of creepiness to add a scary but not terrifying element to the promised gothic tale, and the post-pandemic what-do-I-do-now feeling is spot on. Read this alongside Sylvie Perry’s The Hawthorne School and start looking gift horses in the mouth.

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Review

Burn This Night

by Henrietta Thornton

Kate Myles has a lot going on. The former LAPD cop, her career ruined by a pain-pill addiction brought on by a car crash, has lost her marriage and custody of her beloved daughter, Amelia. She’s now working as a private detective, rolling her eyes at old-time movie assumptions. It’s far from glamorous, and she’s far from ready for more drama in her life. But no matter: while living at her mom’s, she discovers paperwork that leads her on a quest to find biological relatives, a plot line that includes an intriguing aspect of the use of DNA in crime cases, and that also leads her to Idlewood, a town with a sad history. Hired to clear the name of a drug addict who’s accused of killing his sister in an arson attack, she also investigates a local cold case, of a young woman who was killed years before. How all these things are related is the story of every small town, with Kenna perfectly portraying the intertwined regrets, missed opportunities, and love that make each place unique. Better again is her portrayal of Myles, a gutsy, lovable character who pushes herself to the brink and more for those she loves. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

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Review

Anyone But Her

by Henrietta Thornton

The love surrounding a beloved neighborhood institution shines through in Swanson’s latest, in which a 1979 Denver record-store owning mom is shot dead in a robbery, her forlorn young daughter, Suzanne, left behind. But Suzanne’s hapless dad has the perfect solution. It’s all figured out! His old girlfriend, Peggy, is moving in. Peggy seems much too eager for this arrangement. She’s also far more motherly toward Suzanne’s devastated little brother, Chris, than Suzanne would like, while nasty toward Suzanne herself. But Suzanne’s mom used to call her daughter “my little seer,” and indeed, after some time, she gets visits from her mom, hearing again her “warm, round voice–like the sun speaking.” When we fast forward in alternating chapters to 2004, adult Suzanne is moving back to Denver from California with her husband, disgruntled teenage daughter, and nine-year-old son. Trying to settle in, she opens a new business in her mom’s old shop, but sinister things start cropping up–a girl is missing in town, and elements of the case are strangely familiar. Then there’s the rat left on the family’s doorstep. What it all means leads this protagonist on a frightening and gripping path to the truth about what happened in 1979, a tale that is enriched with details on the music of the time and the feeling of enduring love. For fans of T. Jefferson Parker’s A Thousand Steps, which is steeped in the same emotions, and all who love a solid mystery

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