Ryan and Anna continue to remind me of me and my Steve. I love the romantic aspect of these books and an insight into the personal lives of these murder detectives. It makes them more real and relatable. Having read the series from the start, I do feel like I almost know these characters personally. I look forward to catching up with them all and I can’t wait for book 16! On leave and recovering on the island after a personal tragedy (case gone wrong), DCI Ryan is living alone and disconnected. But this is a community where everyone is connected whether they like it or not. Add to the mix that Holy Island is set just before Christmas, it was opportune that I should read this book during this holiday period. Not only do we do get the frankly preposterous main story, but we then get the Epilogue. My most charitable thought is 'oh, you're over egging this now' but most of my thoughts were about laughing, or calling it hogwash, or something.

There are numerous characters, many of them suspects. Is there anyone who is trustworthy? Ross provides shadowy figures, and I never knew for certain who was speaking, since this was deliberately concealed. Just when I thought I might be onto something, there would be a new wrinkle. Holy Island is a perfect setting for a murder mystery; cut off from the main land twice a day when the tidal waters cover the causeway. When a murder at high tide happens it has to have been committed by someone still on the island. Fortunately although there is no standing police presence there a detective is on hand to handle the case. DCI Ryan has been recuperating in a local cottage for the past 3 months following a particularly difficult end to a murder investigation. So he feels both obligated and ideally placed knowing the island and many of its inhabitants already. The village was tiny, consisting of a few cottages and a castle which, they were thankful to learn, did have guest accommodation. Chillingham Castle had a reputation for being the most haunted castle in England, and ran ghost tours for the guests. I wish to sincerely thank the author and Booklover Catlady Publicity for furnishing the digital copy of Holy Island in exchange for my honest, unbiased review.

I will accept the actions of an isolated psychopath; I will accept group action in the heat of the moment. But I will not accept that a group of people will collude repeatedly with psychopathic actions, without any remorse, compassion or thoughts about not being found out. Especially when these weren't a group of people assembled as being of like minds, but people who happened to have roots and/or a long history in this village. We're told that 90% of the village is Christian, an unlikely figure when compared with barely 50% in the UK - and figures of 2% church attending, maybe up to 4% at Christmas. And yet, that disproportionately Christian population are also pagans and Satanists, simultaneously. None of it adds up.

I’m always excited to find a new book by LJ Ross in my Kindle library 😊 This author is a genius. I honestly don’t know how she does it! Holy Island by L.J. Ross is a 3-D delight: devilishly dark and dangerous. Set on the U.K.’s Holy Island of Lindisfarne in the North Sea, the events that occur in this sparsely populated isle are definitely unholy.Murder and mystery are peppered with romance and humour in this fast-paced crime whodunnit set amidst the spectacular Northumbrian landscape. I loved the setting of this story. Stranded due to heavy snow and having to take refuge in a castle sounds so exciting and terrifying all at the same time. Given it’s a murder mystery I had expected things to get interesting, but I was totally blown away by what eventually unfolds. Of Anna we discover that she's beautiful (of course), intelligent (of course), and damaged by past trauma (of course). And that's it. That's all the character she needs, being a woman and all. Her main purpose, apart from imparting a few bits of historic lore that a simple Google search would reveal, was to be the romantic counterpart to Mr Perfect. Their whirlwind romance was trite and utterly unconvincing. The story starts off with Ryan, Phillips and their partners all in good spirits until they get stranded due to the bad weather. I was quite envious of them to start with as they end up having to take shelter in a castle. The castle sounded fabulous and even the ghost stories about it being haunted, didn’t put me off in the slightest. I'm not even going to mention the romance aspect. The fact that it was inappropriate and unprofessional doesn't make it impossible, but given the various circumstances, it simply didn't ring true, and happened way too fast, at a time when both of them would be pre-occupied with the murders. The sex scenes seemed out of place, adding nothing to the storyline and being devoid of anything erotic. Some sane reviewers have referred to it negatively as 'Mills and Boon'!