Welcome, bookworm – don’t trip over the piles of books! I’m doing a little reorganisation of the bookshelves here following some anti-social behaviour amongst the bookshelves. Last night, the feel-good fiction books were most upset when the psychological thrillers started loudly telling them how nobody can be trusted, spouting statistics about men killing their wives, and generally trying to take away their feel-good. The non-fiction books, feeling frustrated at the noise which was spoiling their weekly thesis discussion, retaliated by picking holes in the psychological thrillers’ plots. It was chaos, and since nobody wants a holey plot, I am now moving the psychological thrillers nearer to the police procedurals and crime thrillers, so they can keep an eye on them. Hence the piles of books!

Speaking of crime thrillers, there’s one next to where you’re sitting which I think you might enjoy. It’s called Small Sacrifices by L.E. Luttrell.

Here’s the blurb:

Be careful what you wish for.

She wanted to be famous. But not like this.

Ellen Gibson always dreamed of being a star. At a young age those dreams were shattered.

Discovering she holds the winning ticket in a 55-million Powerball jackpot, Ellen sees it as her opportunity to be in the limelight. But at what cost?

Detective India Hargreaves and her small team are called in to investigate the disappearance of five- year-old Joshua Gibson, but the investigation is taken over by the big guns from Police Headquarters when it turns out to be a kidnapping.

When the media and the lead investigator suspect Ellen of being behind the kidnapping, her fame disintegrates into a nightmare and she seems powerless to stop events spiralling out of control …

Here’s a little about the author:

L.E. Luttrell was born in Sydney, Australia and spent the first 21 years of her life there before moving to the UK. After working in publishing for a few years she trained as a teacher and from the 90s spent many years working in secondary education, although she’s had numerous other part time jobs. A frustrated architect, L.E. Luttrell has spent much of her adult life moving house and renovating properties. Although she has written many more ‘books’, Small Sacrifices, is only the third of her books to be published. More will follow.

She currently lives in Liverpool, Merseyside – although if it hadn’t been for Covid 19 she would have been with family in Brisbane, Queensland.

Now, here’s my review: Have you ever imagined what you would do if you won the jackpot on one of the lotteries? My list would probably go something like help others, books, go on the trip of a lifetime, books, buy a house, books…. you get my drift! Ellen Gibson’s first thought is to use it as her ticket (no pun intended) to fame, to live the life of the celebrities she reads about in her glossy magazines. Unfortunately, this lottery ticket is someone else’s ticket to fortune too, as is her 5 year old son.

When young Josh is snatched from his home as his mother gives another interview inside, Detective India Hargreaves and her team begin to investigate. Everyone is a suspect, and no stone is left unturned. I enjoyed the pace of this novel and the characterisation. I was torn between feeling sorry for Ellen Gibson and feeling frustrated at her shallow opportunism but ultimately, my empathy won out. I liked Detective Hargreaves’ no-nonsense approach and the way she had to put her own judgements of Ellen aside to do her son justice.

I found myself a little confused a couple of times by how old Josh was, as sometimes he seemed closer to a toddler than a child and at others, he was mature enough to make me think he was an older child. It wasn’t a deal breaker for me though, and I lapped this story up. I enjoyed the interactions between characters, which I felt revealed more depths to them as the plot thickened.

I would recommend this for those who like a police procedural with a little less grit and a bit more cosiness than some in the genre and I’m definitely interested in reading more by this author. A solid 4 stars from me.

So bookworm, what do you think? If you would like to purchase your own copy, just click on the book image and it will take you to Amazon (I don’t receive anything for doing this, I’m just being a helpful bookworm). And now, I had better carry on with relocating books. I can hear some rustlings and suspect the psychological thrillers are about to start causing trouble again…