Initially, it seems innocuous enough in Hannah Mary McKinnon’s domestic suspense novel Her Secret Son (MIRA). Yet as the plot of this unpredictable thriller unfolds, one looks back for any clue that might provide answers. Josh, a thirty-five-year-old landscaper with a history of bad luck, has found the love of…
Gisèle LewisAugust 19, 2019
If art imitates life, one might think Hannah Mary McKinnon is a fidgety person. Just when you think you may have entered the slightest comfort zone in her thrillers Her Secret Son (Mira) and most recently Sister Dear (Mira), something happens to turn her plots inside out. Maybe as a…
BookTribJune 22, 2020
https://booktrib.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Hannah-McKinnon-2-300x300.jpg Hannah Mary McKinnon Domestic suspense Drama Portrait of a family on the edge of disaster and a father desperate to hold onto the boy who changed his life. I was born in the UK and grew up in Switzerland where I earned a couple of degrees in finance and…
BookTribJune 25, 2019
It’s true. It is possible to be in two places at once. It’s even possible to be in two different times at once! It’s the fascinatingly complex and incredibly revealing method used by authors in books with two separate timelines. You’ve read them — part of the book is marked…
Hank Phillippi RyanJanuary 14, 2021
I can’t think of toxic mother-daughter relationships without hearing Joan Crawford screech about no wire hangers! Or remember the sinister Mrs. Coulter in Philip Pullman’s brilliant novel The Golden Compass, trying to lure her daughter Lyra into giving up the precious alethiometer. (And who was Cinderella’s real mother, anyway, who…
Hank Phillippi RyanSeptember 17, 2020
I wanted a perfect Mother’s Day selection of books, but not about perfect mothers. Because bad mothers — in fiction at least — are more intriguing. So I asked myself: What books have bad mothers? And I answered in a whispery little voice: your own. Well, that was surprising. But…
Hank Phillippi RyanMay 7, 2020
What if one day you discovered that the parents who raised you weren't your parents at all? Or that the man you thought was your dad wasn't your dad? Or that some other secret about your lineage had been kept from you? Countless adoptees and other children have gone through…
BookTribAugust 17, 2020