The Birthday Girl by Sarah Ward - Reading Wales 2024

Title: The Birthday Girl
Author: Sarah Ward
Publication: Canelo Crime, paperback, 2023
Genre: Mystery
Setting: Wales

Description: Still recovering from an injury and a bad divorce, Malory Dawson retired from her job in London as a police detective and has taken on a temporary job as night manager of a boutique hotel on Eldey, an isolated island in Wales.

The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh – Reading Wales 2023

Title: The Last Party
Author: Clare Mackintosh
Publication: Sourcebooks, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Suspense
Setting: Wales

Description: Rhys Lloyd is a local boy who made good as an opera singer and returned home to develop a resort community on Llyn Drych, Mirror Lake, which is bordered by Wales on one side and England on the other. The Welsh locals from the village of Cwm Coed are wary of The Shore and its ostentatious inhabitants, so a party to which all are invited seems like a good idea until the next day when Rhys is found floating in the lake.