Category Archives: Sheena Kamal

Review: No Going Back by Sheena Kamal

Title: No Going Back by Sheena Kamal
Nora Watts Series Book three
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 368 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss

Summary:

From Strand Critics Award winner Sheena Kamal, comes the third novel featuring the brilliant, fearless, deeply flawed Nora Watts whose vendetta against a triad enforcer escalates when he places a target on her daughter’s back.

Find your enemy. Before he finds you.

Nora Watts has a talent for seeing what lies beneath strangers’ surfaces, and for knowing what they’re working hard to keep hidden. Somehow, it’s the people closest to her she has trouble truly connecting with. In the case of Bonnie, the teenage daughter Nora gave up for adoption, she has to keep trying. For Bonnie has a target on her back—and it’s all because of Nora.

Two years ago, Bonnie was kidnapped by the wealthy Zhang family. Though Nora rescued her, she made a powerful enemy in Dao, a mysterious triad enforcer and former head of the Zhangs’ private security. Now Dao is out for revenge, and she needs to track him down in order to keep herself—and Bonnie—safe.

On Dao’s trail, Nora forms an unlikely partnership with Bernard Lam, an eccentric playboy billionaire with his own mysterious grudge to bear, and reunites with Jon Brazuca, ex-cop turned private investigator and Nora’s occasional ally. From Canada to southeast Asia they pursue Dao, uncovering a shadowy criminal cabal. But soon, the trail will lead full circle to Vancouver, the only home Nora’s ever known, and right to the heart of her brutal past.

Review:

No Going Back by Sheena Kamal is a pulse-pounding mystery. Although this newest release is the third installment in the Nora Watts series, it can be read a standalone.

Nora Watts returns to Vancouver only to discover that someone is after her and her estranged daughter, Bonnie. Nora knows exactly who wants her dead and her nemesis will stop at nothing to exact his revenge. Nora puts all of her energy into locating him and she becomes allies with very unexpected people as she travels from Canada to Indonesia in hopes of stopping his nefarious plan.

Nora is still at loose ends following what happened to her in Detroit. She feels guilty that she put someone dear to her in harm’s way.  Learning Bonnie might be in danger because of her devastates and frightens her.  Discovering her foe is still after her, Nora does not want to endanger anyone else. But her former AA sponsor, private investigator Jon Bruzuca refuses to let her search for her enemy on her own.

Nora has an uncanny ability to read people and she knows there is more to Bruzuca’s offer to help her than he is telling her. She is very reluctant to agree to work together, but he has connections she desperately needs. Nora’s wary of her new alliance but she will do anything to keep Bonnie safe.  Despite her reservations and concerns, Nora is soon on an island in Indonesia where she hopes to face her rival once and for all. But will the plan she and her comrades put into action go as they envision?

No Going Back is a tension-filled, suspenseful mystery with a clever storyline and colorful characters. Nora is fearless and reckless as she tries to protect the people she cares about. She is distrustful of offers of assistance but despite sensing hidden motives, she pushes her doubts aside in order to vanquish her deadly adversary. 

With stunning twists and jaw-dropping turns,  Sheena Kamal brings this latest addition to the Nora Watts series to a shocking, uneasy conclusion. I greatly enjoyed and highly recommend this riveting mystery to old and new fans of this marvelous series.

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Filed under Mystery, No Going Back, Nora Watts Series, Rated B+, Review, Sheena Kamal, Suspense, William Morrow Paperbacks

Review: It All Falls Down by Sheena Kamal

Title: It All Falls Down by Sheena Kamal
Nora Watts Series Book Two
Publisher: William Morrow
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 336 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss

Summary:

The brilliant, fearless, deeply flawed Nora Watts—introduced in the “utterly compelling” (Jeffery Deaver) atmospheric thriller The Lost Ones—finds deadly trouble as she searches for the truth about her late father in this immersive thriller that moves from the hazy Canadian Pacific Northwest to the gritty, hollowed streets of Detroit.

Growing up, Nora Watts only knew one parent—her father. When he killed himself, she denied her grief and carried on with her life. Then a chance encounter with a veteran who knew him raises disturbing questions Nora can’t ignore—and dark emotions she can’t control. To make her peace with the past, she has to confront it.

Finding the truth about her father’s life and his violent death takes her from Vancouver to Detroit where Sam Watts grew up, far away from his people and the place of his birth. Thanks to a disastrous government policy starting in the 1950s, thousands of Canadian native children like Sam were adopted by American families. In the Motor City, Nora discovers that the circumstances surrounding Sam’s suicide are more unsettling than she’d imagined.

Yet no matter how far away Nora gets from Vancouver, she can’t shake trouble. Back in the Pacific Northwest, former police detective turned private investigator Jon Brazuca is looking into the overdose death of a billionaire’s mistress. His search uncovers a ruthless opiate ring and a startling connection to Nora, the infuriatingly distant woman he’d once tried to befriend. He has no way to warn or protect her, because she’s become a ghost, vanishing completely off the grid.

Focused on the mysterious events of her father’s past and the clues they provide to her own fractured identity and that of her estranged daughter, Nora may not be able to see the danger heading her way until it’s too late. But it’s not her father’s old ties that could get her killed—it’s her own.

Review:

It All Falls Down by Sheena Kamal is an intriguing quest for the truth about troubled young woman’s family. This second installment in the Nora Watts  series can be read as a standalone but I highly recommend reading The Lost Ones for important background information.

Nora Watts is taking caring of her friend Sebastian Crow as he battles cancer when she is approached one night by a veteran who tells her startling details about her father Sam Watts’ military service. With most of her family history unknown due to her father’s death and her mother’s abandonment, Nora is desperate to learn as much as she can about this new information. Since Sam was part of the Canadian government’s practice of removing Indigenous children from their families, Nora’s search for answers about her father’s past begins in Detroit, MI, where he was adopted as a child. Armed with nothing more than an address on a handful of post cards, Nora learns little about Sam but she uncovers shocking information about her mother, Sabrina.  With someone gunning for her for unknown reasons, Nora refuses to give up her attempt to unearth the truth about her family’s past.

Nora is still a loner who refuses to back down when trouble finds her. Long haunted by the horrific memory of discovering her father’s lifeless body when she was an child, she is eager to discover anything she can about his past. Nora is stubborn and tenacious as she follows even the smallest detail she uncovers about Sam. Disappointed her investigation leads to scant information about Sam, Nora is absolutely stunned when her inquiries turn up shocking news about her mother.

Back in Vancouver, Nora’s former AA sponsor, private investigator Jon Brazuca is hired by Bernard Lam to investigate the overdose death of his pregnant mistress Clementine.  Not exactly enthusiastic about his newest case, he nonetheless exercises due diligence as he begins trying to identify Clementine’s drug dealer.  Jon’s investigation takes an alarming turn and he is very concerned for Nora’s safety.

It All Falls Down is an intricately plotted and even paced mystery. Interwoven into the storyline are true to life events that add a compelling layer to this complex and fascinating story. Sheena Kamal brings the novel to a suspense-laden conclusion. An outstanding addition to the Nora Watts  series that old and new fans are sure to enjoy.

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Filed under Contemporary, It All Falls Down, Mystery, Nora Watts Series, Rated B, Review, Sheena Kamal, Suspense, William Morrow

Review: The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal

Title: The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal
Publisher: William Morrow
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 352 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss

Summary:

A dark, compulsively readable psychological suspense debut, the first in a new series featuring the brilliant, fearless, chaotic, and deeply flawed Nora Watts—a character as heartbreakingly troubled, emotionally complex, and irresistibly compelling as Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander and Jo Nesbø’s Harry Hole.

It begins with a phone call that Nora Watts has dreaded for fifteen years—since the day she gave her newborn daughter up for adoption. Bonnie has vanished. The police consider her a chronic runaway and aren’t looking, leaving her desperate adoptive parents to reach out to her birth mother as a last hope.

A biracial product of the foster system, transient, homeless, scarred by a past filled with pain and violence, Nora knows intimately what happens to vulnerable girls on the streets. Caring despite herself, she sets out to find Bonnie with her only companion, her mutt Whisper, knowing she risks reopening wounds that have never really healed—and plunging into the darkness with little to protect her but her instincts and a freakish ability to detect truth from lies.

The search uncovers a puzzling conspiracy that leads Nora on a harrowing journey of deception and violence, from the gloomy rain-soaked streets of Vancouver, to the icy white mountains of the Canadian interior, to the beautiful and dangerous island where she will face her most terrifying demon. All to save a girl she wishes had never been born.

Review:

The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal is a rather gritty but surprisingly humorous mystery about recovering alcoholic and somewhat troubled Nora Watts’ efforts to locate missing Vancouver teenager Bonnie Walsh.

With an uncanny ability to tell when someone is lying, Nora’s job as a research assistant and receptionist for a journalist and private investigator is the perfect fit for her. She initially believes Everett Walsh is reaching out to her for assistance in locating fifteen year old Bonnie due to her employer.  Needless to say, she is shocked when Lynn Walsh blurts out the truth-Bonnie is the daughter Nora gave up for adoption immediately after giving birth. Her first instinct is to refuse their request, but given her firsthand experience as someone who has been easily overlooked due to her heritage and bad decisions, she knows all too well that the police will not take the Walsh’s concern seriously.  The discovery that someone has the Walsh home under surveillance is Nora’s first inkling that Bonnie’s disappearance might be more than just a troubled teenager running away from an unhappy home. She is also very concerned when someone from her own dark past starts immediately tries to make contact with her.  Not knowing whom to trust, Nora continues investigating Bonnie’s disappearance but it soon becomes quite clear that someone is willing to go to any lengths to ensure that she does not locate the missing teenager.

Nora  survived an incredibly violent and horrific ordeal and her scars run deep. A rough around the edges loner with trust issues, she does not like being in the limelight and she is most comfortable in the underbelly of society. She is long estranged from her sister Lorelei who does not temper her contempt for Nora or the mistakes she has made. Nora’s sobriety is hard won but the temptation to blunt her emotions is a daily battle that she wins only because of her beloved canine companion, Whisper. When Nora hits a brick wall in her investigation, she turns to her former AA sponsor and police detective Jon Brazura for assistance but she has plenty of misgivings about trusting him.

The Lost Ones is a dark mystery with an engaging and unpredictable storyline that is quite compelling. Despite her gruff exterior and dubious choices, Nora is a surprisingly sympathetic protagonist that is very easy to root for. Her investigation into Bonnie’s disappearance takes some very unexpected twists and turns and Sheena Kamal brings the novel to an adrenaline filled, nail biting conclusion.  A stunning debut fans of the genre are going to thoroughly enjoy.

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Filed under Contemporary, Mystery, Rated B+, Review, Sheena Kamal, Suspense, The Lost Ones, William Morrow