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This small town crime series featuring a star in Chief Maggie Riley is captivating! Hollinger is back with another addictive crime thriller. It’s a heartbreaking case that triggers more heartache for Maggie.
Thank you, Shannon Hollinger, Bookouture, & netgalley for my copy ! All opinions are my own.
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This is book 4 in the series in the Maggie Riley series. Love books that involve a crime in a small town. This book grabbed me from the very first page. It was "who did it" and I couldnt stop reading it to find out who it was.
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While I had forgotten a few details from the previous books, it was great to dive more into the past of Maggie and Steve. I specially liked getting to know more about Maggie's circumstances. I was horrified by how the case was treated for her brother and I hope to read more of her and how justice needs to be served !
Thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for access to this arc in exchange for my honest review.
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"One Little Sigh" is an intense and emotional thriller delving into the dark aspects of human nature. Set in a small, secluded community shrouded in secrets and deception, it follows a resolute heroine on the search for the truth. The story weaves through themes of loss, grief, and the quest for redemption.
In the fourth installment of the Chief Maggie Riley series, a four-year-old boy goes missing. Chief Maggie Riley faces the daunting task of finding the child before time runs out. However, the unthinkable occurs when the child's body is discovered floating in the river. The pressing questions now are: What happened, and who is responsible?
The mystery of the child's disappearance was profound. Every suspect had a compelling motive for the child's disappearance and ultimate death, considering their past and current involvements. This complexity made it difficult to determine the identity of the responsible party.
The investigation stirred up painful memories for Maggie, which constantly invaded her thoughts throughout the investigation. The story takes
readers on a journey through Maggie's past as she revisits these memories in flashback chapters. We not only revisit the memories with her but also share in her anguish and loss during this challenging period. Maggie isn't the only one grappling with past issues. Her fiancé, Steve, also harbors problems that he has concealed from Maggie. A secret that not only puts him at risk but also threatens to unravel his relationship with Maggie.
While each installment presents a unique mystery, I recommend reading the books in sequence due to the continuous developments in Maggie and Steve's lives. The unfolding events leave readers with lingering questions about how the consequences will impact everyone in the subsequent books.
Hollinger has crafted a series that captivates readers from the very first book. Overall, 'One little Sigh' was an excellent read and one I would recommend to fans of police procedural.
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TRIGGER WARNING: child murder
Maggie Riley is haunted by the disappearance of her little brother 5 years ago. Now another little boy has vanished and her emotions are in turmoil as she relives the past whilst trying to investigate...
One Little Sigh is the fourth book in the Detective Maggie Riley series.
A four year old boy disappears from his home and his mother is frantic whilst his father is disinterested. Maggie fears the worst and is proved right when a little body is found in the lake (we know this from the prologue). She wants to find the killer to offset her guilt that she couldn't save her own brother 5 years earlier.
The majority of the book is written from Maggie's first person perspective so we see her emotions and the progress of her investigation. Other chapters are from 5 years in the past as we witness her frustration at being unable to solve her brother's case. There are also chapters in the present day from Maggie's fiance Steve as he is struggling to keep a massive secret.
Any book that involves child death is bound to be heart wrenching and upsetting. This is balanced by Maggie's fierce determination to catch the killer and fight the shadow that has blighted her life and destroyed her family. Her strength brings reassurance that there are good people in this cruel world.
One Little Sigh is an emotionally charged and engaging detective thriller.
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One Little Sigh by Shannon Hollinger
Chief Maggie Riley #4
Complex, compelling, and haunting story about some dark issues found in Coyote Cove Main ~ Couldn’t put it down!
What I liked:
* Chief Maggie Riley: brilliant, capable, skilled detective, listens to her gut instincts, left Florica to work in Coyote Cove, Maine, has suffered personal loss, soon to marry her fiancé Steve, upholds the law, works with minimal staff, has a difficult relationship with her parents, great deductive skills
* Steve Winters: Maggie’s fiancé, financial wiz who lost his fire and moved to the country, understands and loves Maggie, protective, loving, caring, and his issues with old “friend” Wesley come to head
* Kal Kishore: Magie’s lieutenant, seems competent and protective, didn’t play a big part in this book but hope to see more of him in the future
* Sue: Maggie’s assistant at police department, wears interesting clothes to work, a bit of a mother-hen, didn’t have a big part in this book
* The visit of Steve’s mother, sister, and grandfather and the parts they played in the story
* The flashbacks Maggie experienced while searching for missing four-year-old PJ that stirred up memories of her missing brother and what happened when he went missing five years ago
* The plot, pacing, setting, and writing
* The police procedural aspects of the story and how all the threads were tied up at the end
* The hopeful ending of the story that left me with a desire to see what will happen in book five
What I didn’t like:
* Who and what I was meant not to like
* Thinking about how evil some of the characters were and wondering how they could justify doing what they did
* Having to wait to read the next book in the series
Did I enjoy this book? Yes
Would I read more in this series? Definitely
Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC – This is my honest review.
5 Stars
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I love when with each new book in a series, we get to delve deeper into understanding the characters that little bit more. The drip feed of information keeps you wanting more and more and I'm all for it!
In this new installment, book #4, we are taken back to 5 years ago when Chief Maggie Riley's four year old brother went missing and has never been found. Estranged from her parents, Maggie is still haunted and guilt ridden by the fact she has never found him
When Maggie is called out to the property of another missing child, 4 year old Brandon, memories that Maggie has tried desperately to bury, resurface. Can she deal with this case professionally without it affecting her too personally?
Alongside working this case with her newest partner Liam, her fiancé Steve's family are in town to discuss wedding plans but he is acting very strange, twitchy and anxious. Is he having second thoughts?
When the body of Brandon is found, submerged in a frozen lake, all thoughts of Steve and his family need to be put aside, she has a killer on the loose and all clues are pointing to the mother.... until she also goes missing.
This is a series that has really gained traction since the first book and I can't help but devour each one. It gets such a grip of me that the world disappears around me. This is definitely a series that I recommend reading from the beginning as there is a real backstory behind the characters and the location of Coyote Cove.
As all previous books, this was a real page turner with twists and turns galore. You'll think you have it all figured out and wrapped up neatly with a bow one minute and the next minute you're back to square one.
The biggest thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC.
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Are you looking for your next police procedural thriller series?! I recommend reading the Chief Maggie Riley series by @thiswritersays. The 4th book in the series, One Little Sigh, just came out a couple of weeks ago. This book series has everything I love in a police procedural thriller: a flawed, but strong female protagonist, a remote setting in small town Maine, fast paced, and twists you don’t see coming.
One Little Sigh picks up where book 3 left off and these new investigations become personal for Maggie. I love that we get to learn more about both Maggie’s and Steve’s pasts in this latest book. I also love that the book has a conclusion, but leaves you wanting to read more books about Maggie and Coyote Cove without ending on a huge cliffhanger.
Thank you @bookouture for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review.
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Wow, what a book! I love this series and this book is just amazing. I couldn't have thought the series could be bettered, every single book in this series has been a five star read - but this one raises the bar. Brilliant. Addictive. Just wow!
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3.5
There is something compelling about this series that brings me back over & over again. I can’t put my finger on it. But I’m still in a quandary if I like the main characters. The stories are page turners, and yet I found myself wondering about these imperfect characters. I guess I’ll see what book 5 brings since many cards are out on the table.
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This was a really decent read. It's cleverly written and incorporates two mysteries running parallel throughout the book. I'm mot sure the jump to the past pov was as Seamless as I'd have liked it but it didn't cause too much confusion or take me out the story that much. The characters were brought to life well and I loved that there were just so many people to dislike lol. Really well written, gave me everything I'd want!
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I say this not for sympathy. Only as part of a grovelling apology for the fact that, for the second time in as many tours for Shannon Hollinger's books, I've missed my review date by quite some margin. The reason is - and since the details would just take far too long to write down, I'll summarise it into just one word: - life. After being fairly hectic for almost the whole of this year, last month it moved into a whole different league of mania that meant reading almost didn't happen. Even on the rare occasions that I managed to find the time, I felt too exhausted to concentrate.
So Shannon Hollinger deserves a lot of credit for the fact that I managed - mostly - to stay focused on her latest book once I'd started it. I think that it's the fourth instalment in a series, that I've followed from the start helped. The setting of Coyote Cove, a fictional remote town in the US state of Maine and surrounded by mountains and dense forests, has become a character in its own right. The main human character of Chief Maggie Riley has become: I'm not sure 'likeable' is the right word, but she's wormed her way into my heart somehow. I sort of feel that she'd like to be my friend, but doesn't know how to be.
Most of all, though, it helped that the main storyline, involving the disappearance of a young child, is wonderfully done. On its own, it would be powerful. But the case has strong parallels with the disappearance of Maggie's own younger brother many years ago, and that gives the story a whole extra dimension. It makes it heartbreaking. The present and past storylines are beautifully intertwined without being confusing, and it meant that I absolutely understood Maggie's dogged determination to bring this child's family the closure that she hadn't been able to give her own parents. I loved the solution too: it's clever and intricate and yet still utterly believable.
So, a resounding five stars for Shannon Hollinger then? Er ... not quite. And it's here that I need to give another apology, because the reason might just be my fault.
The problem is this. Steve started out as Maggie's neighbour and, over the course of the series, has become her fiance. But he has a past, which, prior to the start of this novel, we knew very little about. And I criticised Shannon's last book, Shadow Girl, for this reason. I suggested that she needed to reveal all and let her readers decide what to make of him. Well, she's done just that here, but it didn't quite work for me. The trouble is that I thought it overshadowed the main story - and if there was ever a main story that I really didn't want to be overshadowed, this is it. Whenever I found that the next chapter was about Steve, and his insistence at keeping his background secret from Maggie, I found myself torn between wanting to yell at him to 'just tell her, you ******* coward' and wanting to simply skip the chapter altogether.
The good news though is that - and hopefully I can say this without giving away any spoilers - the 'Steve story' is brought to a sort of conclusion. Which, hopefully, means that in the next instalment, the author can concentrate on the main plot. If it's half as good as this one, I'll be itching to start it as soon as it's released. But, in the event that I have a criticism to make, Shannon would be well-advised not to pay any attention.
My thanks to the author and Bookouture for my inclusion on the blog tour, and apologies once again for my late review. Thanks also to Netgalley for the digital ARC. I will post my review on Goodreads, Amazon and my social media pages.
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This was a great read! I couldn’t put this book down. There were two mysteries that were each told from alternating perspectives, so the story never got slow or boring. As I haven’t read the prior books of this series so I would say you don’t necessarily have to read the books in order. But I’m definitely excited to jump into Book 1 and read the rest of the series. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!
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ARC Review ✨️ Chief Maggie Riley Series book 4 by Shannon Hollinger
✨️I loved the previous three books in the series. All were brilliant and suspenseful with excellent plots. This one is also gripping and unputdownable.
✨️ When Chief Maggie Riley got a call about a little boy, Patrick, missing, she knew it's something much sinister. Then she found the body of the little boy floating in the Beaverhead Lake in between the freezing mountains. Her own past memories came back when her little brother went missing, and the culprit was still roaming free. When she found that Patrick was murdered long before entering the lake, Maggie left no stone unturned in searching for answers. Then Patrick's mother, Jenny, first goes missing and then murdered. Everything spirals out of control. In between all of this, her fiancé Steve is hiding a shocking secret that will change their lives. His family is also visiting, and everyone's life is in danger. Maggie has to uncover the killer's identity before someone else gets hurt.
✨️ Full of tension and stress, this was a nerve-wracking police procedural, crime thriller. I loved Maggie and Steve both from the first book. Now I know so much more about their past. Told through both of their points of view and Maggie’s past struggles to find justice for her brother, it keeps getting intense and gripping throughout. Shocking secrets and painful reminders with balancing the investigation is Maggie’s efficiency.
The author has degrees in Crime Scene Technology & Physical Anthropology, and it shows throughout the details of the investigation. The climax is superb with perfect shock. I finished it in two days. It's out now.
✨️ Thanks a lot to the author, @Netgalley , and @Bookouture for the eARC.
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So many suspects, so many people to dislike! I love this series, but I really needed Steve and Maggie to be honest with each other, it was getting old. Secrets come out, and yet once again Steve., well lets just leave that there, you need to read the book, I do not do spoilers. I was surprised on who the actual culprit was, and so much was understandable. Absolutely loved some of the interaction with CeCe, but hey, nothing was said about the results One Little Sigh shares more of Maggies past, it goes back and forth between past and present and Maggie strives to do right. Loved the little bit of humor that is thrown in with Grandpa. I appreciate the opportunity to receive a free copy of this book with no expectations. I willingly share my thoughts and opinions. #OneLittleSigh #ChiefMaggieRiley #ShannonHollinger #Bookouture #NetGalley
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One Little Sigh by Shannon Hollinger is the fourth book in the excellent Chief Maggie Riley series and what an excellent series this has been. From the very first book called The Girl Who Lied it has been a hit with me. I love the main character Maggie Riley.
This book can be enjoyed as a standalone mystery or as part of the series, however, I do recommend you read all of these books within the series - they will not disappoint!
Big thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for an advanced copy of One Little Sign in exchange for a fair review.
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I liked the double mystery of what was occurring between the two POVs. It was a little off putting between the two POVs and then one of them going back into the past.
Overall, it was a good read! I felt like the book ended suddenly. I felt as though it could've been more to the ending. But overall, it was a good read.
Thank you for this opportunity in reading this book by such an amazing author!
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Chief Maggie Riley’s newest case of a missing boy brings back very sad memories for her. Previously, her little brother Brandon went missing, and this has left a huge void in Maggie’s life. Sadly, the missing boy’s body has been found, which makes this case even more personal for Maggie. So, this is how Maggie’s story changes. While her case is foremost in her mind, the story shifts between past and present by means of flashbacks. In fact, more about Maggie’s career and personal struggles are revealed.
Maggie is not the only one going through changes. In fact, her fiancé Steve is dealing with a situation from his past. A former friend is placing Steve in a difficult situation, and despite the dangers this entails, he is determined to keep this a secret from Maggie and his family.
The Chief Maggie Riley series has really gained traction and, as a reader I have really been enjoying getting to know Maggie when it comes to what makes her tick, but especially her resilience. Also, it was interesting to see how things with Maggie have been progressing with Steve, and what challenges they face. As this series continues to grow, it just might be a conflict with personal and professional as Maggie’s career continues to grow.
Shannon Hollinger has done a great job in building this series. When you factor in the characters, as well as the various layers in the stories, each book in this series have been excellent reads.
Many thanks to Bookouture and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
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This is a great crime thriller.
When a young boy goes missing, Maggie is determined to find him as she knows the hurt it causes as her little brother Brandon has been missing for several years.
Whilst Maggie is trying to find the little boy she can’t help but relive what it was like when Brandon went missing. We get flashback chapters from this time and it’s awful the way she was treated when trying to help with the investigation.
Maggie's fiancé Steve, is struggling with someone from his past but won't open up to her or his family. We have chapters from his perspective as well and it’s clear Wesley won’t stop until he gets what he wants.
There's a few layers to this book and I loved the way it all came together at the end.
Thanks to Bookouture and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.
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This is the fourth book in the Maggie Riley series. A little boy is murdered and then his mother turns up missing, did the mother have something to do with her son’s death or is she also a victim, Maggie is determined to solve this mystery, since it reminds her of her brother’s case. I have really enjoyed this series. Thanks Netgalley for my arc.