Book Review & Giveaway: Landscape for Murder by Joyce T. Strand

NEW RELEASE…..

A friend’s murder. An unconnected cast of suspects, including the victim’s missing adult daughter. As if that wasn’t enough, Brynn Bancroft’s winery has been broken into. Can she deal with her co-owner ex and help the police find her friend’s murder so she can finally overcome her own troubled past and enjoy family life with her teenage ward?

Book available from….

Amazon.co.uk   Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble

About Brynn Bancroft
Brynn Bancroft evolved from the Jillian Hillcrest mysteries where she served as Jillian’s manager while Chief Financial Officer of Harmonia Therapeutics in Silicon Valley. A shapely blonde with a MENSA IQ, she had an affair with the CEO of the company.

Unfortunately for Brynn, the CEO’s wife figured out that the two were involved and asked Brynn to leave the company, which she agreed to do.

In the meantime, her husband, Liam—not unfamiliar with extramarital affairs himself but also understanding that Brynn grew up in an abusive household- grew tired of waiting for Brynn to commit to their relationship and asked for a divorce. At the same time, he solicited her assistance in developing his new winery in Sonoma County, Calif.

Much like Jillian–who does appear in the Brynn Bancroft mysteries–Brynn, too, attracts mystery and murders as she grows to enjoy life at her ex-husband’s Hilltop Sunset Winery.

 

My Review

I read the first Brynn Bancroft book, Hilltop Sunset, and I was looking forward to what mystery Brynn would end up involved in this time. Right away Brynn finds out about the murder of a friend and, of course, she is curious why someone would murder a retired man who enjoyed painting.

I had trouble relating to Brynn in the first book, but she was much easier to relate to in Landscape for Murder. She and her ex-husband, Liam,  get along much better now that they’re divorced. And she is a good mother figure for Josh, a teenager who is her legal ward.

Anyone who likes murder mysteries will like Landscape for Murder. Even though it’s the 2nd book in a series, it definitely stands on its own. It has more than one mystery to solve, a couples twists, and a little suspense. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

 

Also Available

Hilltop Sunset: A Brynn Bancroft Mystery
A mystery set in wine country pitting financial exec Brynn Bancroft against a determined stalker, a troubled love interest, and career clashes.

Brynn Bancroft learns that a former employee who beat her nearly to death has returned to stalk her and her friend, Jillian Hillcrest, also a former victim.

Recently divorced, Brynn turns to a new love interest only to encounter additional unwelcome issues. Meanwhile, short-timer Brynn, who has resigned from her Silicon Valley company, becomes bored fulfilling her remaining responsibilities there. She begins to prefer supporting the launch of her ex-husband’s new hilltop winery while waiting to move to her next position. Between her stalker and her new love interest, Brynn faces a series of life-changing events.

Book available from….

Amazon.co.uk   Amazon.com   Barnes & Noble   Paperback    Autographed Paperback

About the Author

Joyce T. Strand is the author of who-done-it mysteries set in the San Francisco Silicon Valley and Napa-Sonoma wine regions of California.

Her most recent novel, Landscape for Murder, follows Hilltop Sunset which was the first of a new series featuring protagonist Brynn Bancroft, a financial guru in transition to winemaker from corporate executive. Brynn Bancroft is a minor character in Strand’s novels On Message, Open Meetings, and Fair Disclosure–three mysteries solved by Jillian Hillcrest, a publicist whose boss was Chief Financial Officer Brynn Bancroft.

Much like her protagonist Jillian Hillcrest, Joyce Strand headed corporate communications at several biotech and high-tech companies in California’s Silicon Valley for more than 25 years. Unlike Jillian, however, she did not encounter murder in her career. She focused on writing by-lined articles, press releases, white papers, and brochures to publicize her companies and their products.

Strand has been a mystery fan since she read her first Nancy Drew and Hardy Boy stories as a teenager. She admits that in between reading Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, Erle Stanley Gardner, and John McDonald in her youth, she also checked out Tolstoy, Steinbeck, Faulkner, and Dostoyevsky, but her love of the “puzzle” always drew her back to the latest fictional detective. Today she favors John Grisham, Louise Penney, Linwood Barclay, Michael Connelly, and Stieg Larsson. She has always enjoyed the challenge of following clues to solve the puzzle of a mystery before it is revealed.

Joyce lives with her two cats and collection of cow statuary in Southern California, and seeks out and attends as many Broadway musicals and other stage plays as possible.

She received her Ph.D. from the George Washington University, Washington, D.C. and her B.A. from Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA.

Find the author on the following sites….

Website   Blog   Facebook   Twitter   Pinterest   Google+   Goodreads   Amazon Author Page

 

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I received this book to review through Beck Valley Books Book Tours, all the opinions above are 100% my own.

 

 THE AUTHOR’S GIVEAWAY

1st Prize – Win $50 Amazon.com GC / Paypal Cash(winners choice)

2nd Prize – Win $25 Amazon.com GC / Paypal Cash (winners choice)

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Ending on Tuesday 22nd December at 11.59pm EST

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