Thank you Atlantic Crime, #partner, for the finished copies of To Catch a Storm & A World of Hurt in exchange for my honest review. I borrowed the audiobooks from the library.
I am loving Mindy Mejia’s new Iowa Mystery series so much and I’m not sure why I haven’t seen more people reading these!! Books 1 & 2 are now available & book 3 is due out in September and I’m quite eager to get my hands on it!
I did actually read book 2 last year without reading book 1, not realizing it was part of a series, so when I heard the next book was coming out, I was determined to start the series from the beginning & read it in order.
Book 1: To Catch a Storm
Published: August 1, 2023, Atlantic Monthly Press
Summary:
In this brand new series from national bestseller Mindy Mejia, a physicist and a psychic reluctantly team up to solve two missing persons cases during an ice storm in Iowa.
When her husband’s car is found abandoned and on fire—in the middle of a rainstorm—Eve Roth becomes the police’s number one suspect. After all, her husband was suspended from the University of Iowa for inappropriate conduct with a student, and who else but an atmospheric physicist could incinerate a car in a downpour? But Eve has no idea why her husband disappeared. She’s desperate to find him, both for herself and her beloved, disabled father-in-law.
Jonah Kendrick appears on their doorstep with a theory. He’s seen Eve’s husband, bound and bleeding in a barn. Claiming to be a psychic detective who dreams of the lost, Jonah has helped find missing people his entire life. He dreamed about a young woman trapped in the same barn months ago, and she’s still missing.
As a firm believer in the laws of nature, Eve rejects anything to do with psychics, but their investigations soon collide. As the temperature drops and Iowa turns to ice, Eve and Jonah race across the state to discover what happened to the people they’ve lost. But the truth is more deadly either of them expected, and the physicist and the psychic must learn to believe in each other if they want to escape this storm alive.
My thoughts:
I loved seeing how this series started. Jonah & Eve are an interesting pair – Jonah is a psychic who works on feelings & Eve is is scientist who works in facts. This was such a good procedural, with a fun twist. I was completely invested in this story from the start & loved the twists this one took.
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Book 2: A World of Hurt
Published: August 6, 2024, Atlantic Monthly Press
Summary:
When someone dies to save your life, how do you ever forgive them?
A World of Hurt is Mindy Mejia’s highly-anticipated follow-up to the “propulsive” USA Today bestselling thriller To Catch a Storm where an Iowa City police officer and a DEA informant must work together to hunt down the remains of a hidden drug empire.
Kara Johnson always knew she’d die young and violently. It didn’t matter who delivered the final blow, she would deserve it—her years spent running drugs and spreading violence would guarantee it. But death doesn’t always go as planned. When her girlfriend sacrifices herself to save Kara’s life, Kara is left grieving and adrift. She doesn’t know why she’s alive until the DEA shows up and offers her a go to prison or turn informant to lure out the last of the drug trafficking ring that murdered her girlfriend.
Max Summerlin is the kind of cop who needs answers—he’s been shot twice in the last year while looking for them. Despite his family’s objections and his struggle with chronic pain, he accepts an invitation from the DEA task force eagerly. That is, until he realizes he’ll be babysitting reformed drug trafficker Kara Johnson as she goes undercover. Max knows Kara is keeping secrets. Kara doesn’t trust anyone, let alone Max. But the cop and the criminal will have to find a way to work together fast, because they aren’t the only ones hunting down the remains of a drug empire. And the kingpin who lurks in the shadows will stop at nothing to win.
My thoughts:
Another gripping story that involves a paranormal angle. I love how both main characters were introduced in the previous book, but as I found the first time I read this, it wasn’t absolutely necessary to have read that one to enjoy this one. I loved that we get a cop and informant now working together & that there is always this sense of not knowing who to trust. Again, the twists kept me guessing and I was all in from the start!
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Audio thoughts:
I did an immersive reading of both these, finding the audio really helped bring the stories to life. Each had different narrators, but considering the main characters were different, that made sense. I think either way you go with these books, you are bound to enjoy them!
Books in this series:
- To Catch a Storm
- A World of Hurt
- The Whisper Place – due out September 16th
