A young woman is found badly beaten, in an oversized dress & her eyes removed. Another woman disappears leaving her two young children alone in the house. The connection between them is that they both belonged to a group for those suffering a loss. The group met up regularly to socialise. The other two women in the group don't seem to have any useful information but on investigation there are some curious links between the women. Once again Lottie Parker is assailed from all sides. Family difficulties, Boyd distracted by the reappearance of his ex & her team at loggerheads.

I have been a huge fan of this series from the very start but I found this one a disappointment. The style seemed different, there were too many designer names cropping up in descriptions, & the plot seemed overly complicated. Hopefully this is just a blip & #13 will be back to its usual brilliance.

Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this book.

As this twelfth book in the fabulous D. I. Lottie Parker begins, a young mother Éilis Lawlor is returning home after a meet up with a small group of women. She sensed something wasn’t quite right, especially when she wasn’t greeted by her little dog. She had already dispatched her babysitter, but she suddenly panicks about her two children. She rushes to their rooms and they were sleeping just fine. So, she heads to her own room. Éilis was right. Something was very, very wrong. She is kidnapped. Taken from her two lovely children.

Detective Lottie Parker barely has time to look for the missing mother, as the body of another woman has turned up, with very distinct evidence of brutality, and then there are very little clues as to discovering her identity. As Lottie soon learns that Éilis has gone missing, she wonders if there is a connection between both women. She indeed discovers the connection, that small group of women where they are all widows.

Lottie’s detectives are distracted with this latest case. She is involved with Boyd, but the two barely have time to grow their relationship due to other issues. For Boyd, he is having problems with his ex-wife. She is coming to Ireland. Recently united with his eight-year-old son Sergio, Boyd worries if he will lose his dear son. Lottie has her own issues on a personal level. Her mother Rose has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and is currently staying with Lottie and her family. Then there is Kirby, known to have too many drinks, and now he is enamored with a woman named Amy, a woman he awoke and found in his bed.

Despite everything going on with the detectives, this case needs their fullest attention. Then there is friction in their workplace as well. Can Lottie pull all of them together, including herself with her own woes, and find the vicious killer of these women?

What a thrilling story! Compelling and intense, whether while trying to seek out the killer, or whether the detectives navigating their personal lives. This series keeps getting better and better. I love Lottie, especially when it comes to her determination to solve her cases, all while balancing both her team and her personal life.

While I was able to guess the murderer well past the halfway mark in this chilling read, there were enough twists and turns with a few cleverly placed red herrings to place me in doubt as well as to keep me both guessing and fully invested. I eagerly await book thirteen in this stellar series.

Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

Please enjoy my YouTube video review - https://youtu.be/DxqemfcQJmU

A woman is kidnapped in the middle of the night leaving her two kids alone. When her car keys and phone are found at home, Detective Lottie Parker and her team are called in to investigate the disappearance. Since the woman was a member of a widows support group, Lottie checks them out looking for clues, but when her body is found tortured they can't understand why someone would do this. When another woman from the group goes missing, Lottie begins to believe they are hiding more than they are saying. The torture and murders seem to start escalating and Lottie realizes her time to find the killer is running out.
If you enjoy dark and twisty reads, this author is for you. The writing keeps you interested and reading way past your bedtime. The characters are appealing and seem just like regular people with regular families. I have read another book by this author and it was just as much of a rollercoaster ride. Can't wait to read them all.

Isn't it clear from the title that the story in this book will keep you turning the pages and keep you interested?
That's not totally incorrect, but... Three Widows by Patricia Gibney is a terrific page-turner thanks to a fascinating murder, astute detectives, and a gripping plot. Additionally, readers gain insight into the hard lives of police detectives, including coping with a parent who is developing dementia as well as child custody disputes and alcoholism.

Orla, Eilis, Helena, and Jennifer are a group of four women that help widows under the name Life After Loss. The body of one of the women is found in a waste area, and Detectives Lottie Parker and Mark Boyd must find out why she was kidnapped before any more people go missing.

Then another disappears along with two more, and soon the corpse count is climbing and the list of suspects is getting smaller. They can't all be killed off at once, otherwise, there wouldn't be anyone left. However, the more the investigation team looks, it seems that Tyler Keating, a missing businessman who vanished a year ago, is at the center of everything.

What ties the missing businessman and the widows together? What, more importantly, is his whereabouts related to their passing? Are they linked in any way? Lottie, Boyd, and the team are in a race against time to stop the murder of additional women, and this case is one of their most puzzling and distressing ones ever.

This book has all it needs to keep readers fascinated till the very end, with a wonderful writing style, an engaging and compelling narrative, and a cast of amazing characters.
And it's all spiced up with twists, shocks, and surprises. That is jam-packed with characters and details, and it will undoubtedly keep you wondering!

Sounds intriguing? Then pick up this incredible thriller and immerse yourself in this dark and twisted reality...

What an action packed crime thriller -
Complete with family dramas and a serial killer!
With DI Lottie Parker leading the case
With lots of personal dramas of her own to face.

A young widow disappears out of sight
Leaving her two children in the middle of the night.
Where did she go, who took her and why?
Then her body is found. Why did she have to die?

A brutal killer is somewhere near
Members of a widows group need to fear.
When another member isn't to be found
Is she another victim buried in the ground?

A support group seems to hold the key
To helping to solve this crime mystery.
But they're keeping secrets, not giving clues -
Why? What do they have to lose?

With problems at her home and for Boyd, too,
As well as catching the killer to do,
A work life balance is hard to achieve and so
Something somewhere will have to go.

A gripping, gruesome story full of twists and more
To keep you guessing as the clues you explore.
A crime thriller with detectives who have many flaws
And a plot to keep you reading, not wanting to pause.

This is the eighth book in the series I have read (somehow missing books 2 to 5) and I have enjoyed watching Lottie's character grow and that of her children. However, they featured very little in this one as opposed to some previous ones. But as with the theme in all the books, Lottie's life is not an easy one. She now lives in the large house she inherited but it is in much need of repair and renovation but as Lottie spends so little time there, she hardly has had time to organise it.

This time round she is doing battle with her mother Rose who has developed dementia and is becoming even more unreasonable than normal, making Lottie's life a lot harder. Added to that is the sudden appearance of her significant other's eight year old son Sergio, who Boyd had only just found out about recently, his ex-wife having kept his son a secret until it suited her.

But Lottie has little time to ponder these troubles as a woman's body has been found on an industrial estate's wasteland, her battered body broken and her eyes gouged out. The victim was also wearing a yellow dress two sizes too big for her and her body has been washed of any DNA or forensic trace. It is soon discovered she was a member of a widow's support group called Life After Loss. And then another woman is discovered missing after her two young children raise the alarm to their babysitter that they can't find their mother. When a second body turns up, the team brace themselves for those little children becoming orphans.

Then another goes missing, along with two others and before long the bodycount is rising and the suspect pool is dwindling. Surely they can't all be killed off or they would have no one left. But the further the team dig, it appears everything comes back to missing businessman Tyler Keating who disappeared a year ago.

What do the widows and the missing businessman have in common? More to the point, what do their deaths have to do with his disappearance? Are they linked in some way? In one of their baffling and most disturbing cases yet, Lottie, Boyd and the team have their work cut out for them in their race against time before any more women are killed.

And then on top of Lottie's home life and the growing crime rate of Ragmullin, Boyd must now also contend with the reappearance of his ex-wife Jackie who has a proposition to put to him if he wants to keep his son. Honestly, I questioned as to why this was even included. Jackie is a nasty piece of work. She is so self-absorbed she can't possibly care more for her son than she does for herself and her inclusion in this story was so minimal it may not have even been there. All it served to do was put Boyd in a constant bad mood for the entire book. My one wish is that Gibney would just kill Jackie off in the next book PLEASE!!! There is enough angst going on we don't need anymore of what Jackie has to offer.

And speaking of another bone of contention...Lottie and Boyd. Can they just get married already? I mean Lottie even made it to her wedding day (and maybe even the church) but from memory Boyd didn't? And of course something had to throw it all to crap and stop them from finally marrying after half a dozen books of them will they/won't they. After twelve books, fans are getting bored and antsy of this crap and just want them to get it together at long last. I mean, are they even still engaged?

And then there is the motive for the actual murders that were the focus of this book. I mean, what was that? By the end, there were like only four people left that it could possibly be so the suspect pool was very small indeed. But when it was revealed I was like...really? Yeah...ok. I guess the motive kind of makes a weird kind of sense but it was just a tad delusional and kind of a let down by the end of the book. After 507 pages, I expected something a little more exciting that made a lot more sense.

However, don't get me wrong. I love this series and for the most part this was going to be a five star review. Until the end. And the senseless inclusion of Jackie.

Overall, THREE WIDOWS is one of the darkest stories of the series that is compelling and a real pageturner. But not one of my favourites. Gibney can do better. And I look forward to seeing where she takes us next.

I would like to thank #PatriciaGibney, #NetGalley and #Bookouture for an ARC of #ThreeWidows in exchange for an honest review.

This review appears on my blog at https://stinathebookaholic.blogspot.com/.

Intense, chilling and utterly gripping, the plotline in Three Widows is a busy one. The super-talented Patricia Gibney handles everything with her usual expertise making this novel extremely difficult to leave even for five minutes. Will Three Widows keep you guessing as it did me? Very highly recommended, I still really need to catch up on the instalments I've missed.

I received a complimentary copy of this novel at my request from Bookouture via NetGalley. This review is my own unbiased opinion.

Although I have yet to read all the books in this series, it's definitely one of my favourite crime series.

I was lucky enough to be gifted both an ebook and an audio version, so was able to switch back and forth.

Gibney's characters come alive throughout the pages and I would absolutely love for this series to be televised, for Lottie Parker to become a household name like Tennison and Cawood are.

Three Widows is a well plotted police procedural that's engaging, twisty and nail bitingly good.

Many thanks to Bookouture for my tour spot.

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is the first book that I've read by this author. I actually finished it a bit of time ago, but I was trying to figure out what was bothering me. It didn't reach out and grab me like I thought it would. It didn't have a consistent pace, and ok t seemed that much of what BB as written was just for word count. It for a bit more interesting toward the end. But slowness, too much bickering, and some odd the wall conversations seemed like a bunch of filler I have read reviews about this authors books, and I may start this series from the beginning.

Thank you to the Author, Publisher, and Net Galley for the advanced copy of this book!

When young widow Éilis Lawlor vanishes from her house, leaving her two young children behind, Detective Lottie Parker fears the worst when she finds her phone and keys in the kitchen. Her fears are realised when a body is found and a murder investigation begins. Discovering that Éilis was part of a group for widows, Lottie soon has reason to believe that her membership of this group could be the reason for her death when another young woman, and fellow member, is found dead. The other widows in the group clearly know more than they are saying but can Lottie break them before there are more deaths?

In Three Widows, Patricia Gibney has managed to seamlessly blend three separate parts of the story, each part contributing to another brilliant Lottie Parker book. The main murder plot twists and turns, leading you in one direction before hitting you with events that make you wonder the motives behind the killer and leaving you thinking who it could possibly be.

We also have the continuing story of Boyd and his recently-discovered son and the relationship he has with his ex-wife. I have enjoyed reading about events from Boyd’s past and particularly the bond he has developed with his son and am hoping that this story has a happy ending for the detective!

Patricia Gibney is doing a fantastic job in writing about a very emotive subject, namely how the effect dementia is having on Lottie’s family due to her mother’s diagnosis. I feel that Rose’s story is being handled in a sympathetic way while at the same time showing the humour that an illness like this can also bring. While it is inevitable that this plot will not end in a happy way, I applaud the author for writing about dementia in a way that feels very real.

The Lottie Parker series has become one of my favourites and book twelve is definitely up there with the best.

Captivating, and enthralling, yet another blinder of a novel for Patricia Gibney.
This is book 12 in the DI Lottie Parker series and it’s a cracker of a story.
All these books are thrillers with a good dose of police procedural thrown in!
I have read and enjoyed every single one of these novels and would recommend highly this series.
This book Carry’s on with the complicated personal life of our main protagonist Lottie Parker, her mothers illness, and her relationship with Boyd, while also giving good time and detail to the actual murder story of this book.
The story has a few surprises and keeps you guessing, it’s a good story and I liked the use of the widows as the initial subject/ theme.
If you haven’t already, you must read this series!

Thank you to #Netgalley and #Bookouture for the copy of #ThreeWidows by #PatriciaGibney
Much as I have enjoyed the Lottie Parker Series I found this one weak and contrived.
I hope the next will be back to normal.

Book 12. In one of my favourite series.
I still don’t know how you can get to book 12 and still have such a big impact
This is another cracking story.
A self help group of grieving women starts to lose members, and not in the best way.
Lottie Parker starts to think the group is more than just a few women who have recently lost their husbands
But why target the vulnerable women
Brilliant.

Detective Lottie Parker is back and thanks to a turbulent home life and a mountain of paperwork she's desperate for a new case to keep her and her Garda colleagues busy.

And she's about to get her wish. When the body of an unidentified woman is recovered and through a public appeal Lottie soon learns the victim is a widow named Jennifer O'Loughlin. Who hasn't been seen in a month and who belonged to a group for bereaved widows.

And just as the team begin to investigate who would want Jennifer dead. They hear that another member of the group has gone missing. And the race to get her back before she dies begins.

But with so much going on in Lottie and her teams private lives. Can they really track down the murderer before it's too late?

And with twists, shocks and surprises. This was an enjoyable read. That is chock full of characters and detail and it will definitely keep you guessing!

Again another brilliant book in this series.

Lottie not only has another case to deal with but with her mum is starting to display signs of dementia she also has personal issues. Boyd may be back, but he has his own issues to sort out as his sons mum comes back into their lives and starts demanding a lot from him.

I love this series so much, the author has become one of my favourites.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing a copy.

Very dark and very intense police procedural. I had no idea who the culprit was and was shocked by it. The lives of the main police officers are again as important to the book as the main plot and there are a few developments here. Well written characters and good plot. Didn’t really need the killer’s POV, but that is one of my pet peeves. It really added nothing to the book.

This is the 12th outing of DI Lottie Parker and does not disappoint. We have a continuation of Lottie's messy and complicated life along with an ingenious plot and lots of gruesome murders. This one will keep you up at night!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for this ARC!

Each book in this series do not disappoint. There’s a grit to them that makes them interesting. The mystery, the unravelling, and the suspense are all carefully written to enhance reading pleasure. This is a predictably good series.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this book

eilis lawlor disappears in the middle of the night leaving behind two young children....

whilst looking into the disappearance of eilis lawlor, lottie and her team find that she was a founding member of the widows support group and then they find eilis battered body

as the investigation hots up another member of the widows group goes missing and its all hands on deck

a confusing amount of people to get your head around but on the whole a gripping read that leaves you stunned when the answers are revealed....

Another winner by this author, a twisty and fast paced plot full or surprises and secrets to discover.
There’s a lot going on, a lot of suspects and possible motives. There’s a cast of realistic characters and Lottie who’s facing real world issues and giving her best in this investigation.
I read it in one sitting and didn’t stop till I knew who-and-why.
It’s an excellent thriller and I think it’s one of the best I read in this series: gripping, gritty and twisty.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to Bookouture and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.