Author

Charlotte Del Vecchio

Review

Desperate Spies

by Charlotte Del Vecchio

At 75 years old, retired FBI agent Ethel Fiona Crestwater returns for another case of digging up dirt and showing up perps. Ethel may have hung up her badge, but that does not make her any less active on the cases that impact the people closest to her, especially the steady stream of FBI agents she rents rooms to in her home. When an old colleague calls in a favor, she accepts without question. But as she dives deeper into the case, Ethel discovers that it originates in the very sting-operation-gone-bad that sent her into retirement, involving the murder of a college student and the Russian mob. Now, 18 years later, Ethel is back on the case with a new team and even more to lose. De Castrique’s (Secret Lives) sharp protagonist must use her skills and resources in the form of some tech-savvy spies, including Jesse, her beloved double-first-cousin-twice-removed, to keep state secrets out of the wrong hands once and for all. Fans of elderly sleuths will enjoy this political thriller, as well as Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series and Deanna Rayborn’s Killers of a Certain Age.

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Review

The Tarot Reader

by Charlotte Del Vecchio

Jade Crawford, or as her clients know her, Madame Ravencroft, is a 25-year-old psychic, offering a variety of services thanks to her supposed connection with the great beyond. However, Jade’s spiritual talent is nothing more than a creative ruse, delicately toeing the line between criminal and therapeutic. Jade and her younger sister, Stevie, run their Psychic Parlor and Shoppe out of Winston-Salem, NC, struggling to make ends meet and searching for income by any means necessary. After losing their mother to a tragic accident and their father to a prison sentence, the girls were forced to take on the family business and continue the con in order to survive. When a sleazy local politician goes missing, Jade sees an opportunity to promote her business and maybe claim the reward money by sending in a tip offering the location of the body to the police, claiming to have seen it in a vision. When her “vision” is revealed to be hauntingly accurate, Jade and Stevie find themselves in a whirlwind of media and customers demanding a piece of the magic. As Jade continues to spin her web of lies around the police and the town, she finds her sister and herself entangled in the investigation not only as suspects but possibly the next victims. Fans of Samantha M. Bailey will appreciate this thrilling twist on a female-driven thriller with layers of secrets and complexities throughout.

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Review

Behind These Four Walls

by Charlotte Del Vecchio

When Isla’s shady side business of digging up dirt for hire leads her back to the all-too-familiar Corrigan Group, she must face the demons this powerful family has held over her for the past 10 years. Isla had a tough start to life, orphaned young and stumbling through her formative years until she met Eden Galloway and finally felt like she had found her family. At 16, Isla and Eden’s plan to run away is interrupted by Eden’s insistence on resolving her mysterious unfinished business with the Corrigan family in Virginia. Promising to return before Isla wakes up the next day, Eden is never seen again. And since Isla is an unhoused 16 year old running from the threat of foster care, she has no option but to keep moving. Isla never forgot about her friend, she just never had a way in—until now. As Isla digs deeper into the Corrigans, she finds unlikely friends and even stronger enemies working their own agendas within the powerful family. Isla must push through the network of lies and family loyalties in order to discover the only truth she really cares about: what happened to Eden? Find yourself as a fly on the wall in the home of this power-hungry, treacherous, and deceitful family as all of their secrets come to light in one final stand-off.

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Review

Dark Sisters

by Charlotte Del Vecchio

The small Southern town of Hawthorne Springs holds a dark and twisted history of witchcraft and sin, carried through generations of the women who live there. In this historical thriller, we meet three women whose fates, spanning hundreds of years, have been bound to the magic that flows from this town. Anne Bolton is a healer in 1750 fleeing with her daughter from persecution for witchcraft, placing her faith in a powerful natural entity and encouraging others to do the same. Mary Shepard is a housewife in 1953, entertaining a sapphic affair as an escape from her monotonous life in a restrictive community. Camilla Burson is the defiant daughter of a preacher in 2007, fighting against the community and the church to discover the truth behind the sinister and mysterious disease that plagues the women of Hawthorne Springs and how it connects to the Dark Sisters, a parable of two wayward women that may be all too real. Is there truly a source of magic in this town, or are the Dark Sisters simply a story preachers share to incite fear and keep women in their place? Visit three different time periods as DeMeester addresses generational trauma, cult-like religious practices, and the collective power of women who are willing to take down the patriarchy.

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Review

A Killer Getaway

by Charlotte Del Vecchio

For the past five summers, Lily Lennox has left her successful business in Cincinnati to work as a lifeguard at elite Caribbean Island wellness resort the Riovan. But no one knows why. They also don’t know about the string of deaths attached to the Riovan that conveniently align with Lily’s annual stay. As the protagonist returns to her annual island lifestyle, she exposes the truth behind the Riovan’s problematic wellness practices and her own reasons for returning. But this year, Lily’s plans are interrupted by a mysterious journalist, Daniel Black, who is intent on chipping away at any crack in the resort. Their attraction to each other only grows as Lily resists and attempts to divert his attention away from the resort’s secrets. This summer-vacation thriller provides a witty outlook on wellness culture and exposes the harsh impacts of body-image obsession while following a female antihero along a dark path of revenge, reflection, and romance. For fans of Emily Henry’s feel-good nature and Jeneva Rose’s twisted thrills, who will be uncovering its mysteries until the very end.

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