After the annoying Laura Swallow(from I want you gone) I thought Pippa Durant would redeem the Miranda Rijks for me. And she did, but only a little.
When lottery winner Leanne's Smith is found dead, her face, beaten to a pulp with psychologist Pippas picture placed on the body of the victim, Pippa finds herself in the middle of a huge media storm. Battling a trial by media, Pippa finds her reputation torn to shreds and she must get to the bottom of the mystery & find the murderer who's trying to defame her. Trusting her lie-detection skills is DS Joe Swain who needs to bring in the killer before they murder anyone else. It soon becomes evident, Pippa is connected to the crimes when another body with her photograph turns up. Can they both identify the killer before Pippa becomes the next victim?
The only characters likable in this book are Benjie, Leanne's sweet grandchild & Mungo, Pippas faithful Labrador. Ok, and maybe Pippa too, but just a little. I feel ambivalent towards her at this point. I thought DS Joe Swain was a highly incompetent & condescending character for a police officer. Which decent officer laughs at victims to their face?
If you can ignore wacky behavior from the characters in the book, it is pretty good!
I can't seem to get over the fact that all the characters behave so damn bizarrely. Pippa seems to experience extreme emotions going from happy to sad, panicked to content in a matter of seconds. The way the characters respond to certain events in the book doesn't feel realistic at all.
As strange as the behavior of most of the characters is, the story was pretty good and I couldn't keep this one down. The start is gripping, the end is tension-filled. The middle is just average. Maybe there's hope for Pippa Durant after all. If the characters in this book/series can get a hold of their emotions and behave how normal human beings do, there's great potential for the series! I'm curious about the next book - Fatal Flowers and will be picking that one up soon.
Thank you Netgalley, Miranda Rijks & Inkubator Books for an arc.

This is my first book by the author and I am still not sure if I liked it or not. The premise of Pippa being a human lie detector is what drew me in. Sadly this doesn't really play into the story at all. The characters are scattered and unrealistic. The mystery was easy to guess the ending to. I am going to try the second in the series to see if it improves since the first book in a series doesn't always reflect the way the whole thing will go.

The author wrote a thriller that started with a bang and just kept going! The twists kept coming, so I couldn't put it down. I cannot wait to read more from this author!

This book is well written, but unfortunately the plot is based on pure nonsense, which makes it hard to enjoy.

An interesting read through the scenes and events that are created.
Living in the proximity of the scenes presented in the book was a bit of a surprise as I definitely wasn't expecting that
I’ve read it in one sitting and was indeed on the edge of my seat to find out what will happen next and how everything will wrap up. The suspense was present and well proportioned for my liking.
What I didn't like much: maybe the chapters were a bit short, short sentences as well even if keep it short and simple is advisable, I felt like I needed more because the female character is a psychologist and was expecting more elaborate thoughts. Also, I love having both pov and I don't mind any time or person but I found a bit off the repetition of the name of the male character for almost every paragraph in one chapter. Don’t get me wrong, I’m nowhere near an expert or anything, I enjoyed the book and all these are my honest opinions.
Overall it was a great story and I’m looking forward to more from this new to me author.

he book started off exciting, a woman was murdered, and the picture of a psychologist Dr. Pippa Durrant was placed on the body. That led to the start of the investigation by DS Joe Swain. The dead woman was Leanne, a million pounds lottery winner, and her family especially daughter Donna was absolutely shattered.

Pippa was suspected by the cops in the beginning, and with her photo being released to the press, she started losing her clients. She had to get into the investigation to clear her name, as along with being a forensic psychologist, she had training in reading micro-expression and graphology, so she was kind of a human lie detector. So that aspect was quite thrilling.

My first book by Miranda Rijks was suspenseful to begin with. I was intrigued by the killer who had so much anger as shown by the mutilated bodies. Pippa was said to be extremely intelligent, and I liked most parts of her characterization.

However, throughout the story, my niggles kept haunting me. There was something off about the reactions of both Donna and Pippa. Donna hated her mom as she refused to share the lottery money. But the way she was shown heartbroken left me scratching my head. She kept crying for her mother. Where did the love come from suddenly?

Pippa being suspected by the cops felt odd. They had no proof except the photograph on the corpse. Yet she became their prime suspect. Huh? What was that about? Also, most of her reactions didn't match the actions. The spark of attraction between Pippa and Joe was great initially, but it became a bit weird. Joe laughed when she said her house was broken into and her dog taken. Even Joe's investigation felt so unprofessional.

There was no logic in the reactions of all the characters in the book, but the basic whodunit was great. Wanting to know who the murderer was made me turn the pages till the end.

My second book by this author in the last few weeks. Miranda writes well, and you can visualize her characters in your head as you are reading her words. A complex story of rejection and betrayal where you can’t trust the narrators. Easy, breezy read.

I really enjoyed this story, it was gripping and the storyline really had me hooked from the first chapter. If you do get a chance to read the book I am sure you will agree that after the first few pages I couldn’t wait to see what would happen to Dr Pippa!

I thought that the characters were great, Dr Pippa was very well developed and I really liked her she was a genuine character and I really liked getting to know more about her as the book progressed. I found the book to be very well written and this author has certainly made herself one to watch now for me.

It is five stars from me for this one, I loved the characters, the plot was very strong and I loved how it held my attention right from the start to the fantastic ending! Can’t wait to read the next book in the series!

I enjoyed this book. It was a great psychological thriller. I look foward to the next book in the series.

I voluntarily reviewed an advance reading copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and the publisher. The mystery was well written and fascinating but the characters lacked the ability to connect with the reader.

There are some good parts to this story. The murder mystery element was interesting; I enjoyed figuring out the clues. The suspense just didn’t last long enough. By 32% it was pretty clear who had committed the crimes.

Fatal Fortune’s Pippa reminded me a little bit of Gwen Marcey, a character from my favorite Carrie Stuart Parks series. Her ability to psychoanalyze people fascinates me! I loved that part and wish there were more books with that type of character.

Otherwise, I’m sad to admit that Fatal Fortune was a bust for me. I couldn’t stand most of the other characters. They came across as self-absorbed and utterly forgettable. The repetitive words and details annoyed me, though it may have been the author’s intentional way of bringing continuity to an otherwise fragmented story. The only character I really liked was Mungo the dog.

I hesitated to read Fatal Fortune since this author’s last book didn’t rate high with me, but decided to give it another shot. Unfortunately, this author’s writing style just doesn’t resonate with me. I’ll skip the next one.

Having not encountered Miranda Rijks's fiction before I had no idea about what expect, but I thought that it was a good opportunity to see what she's all about with this being the first thriller in a brand new series featuring psychologist Dr Pippa Durrant, a specialist in lie detection. I liked the idea that there was apparently a little bit of everything included and apparently something for everyone - romance, mystery, suspense and what some readers will likely term as thrills.

However, I was rather taken aback by just how far-fetched and immature both the plot and characters were. Now I am not one of those people who demands my fiction to be realistic as I appreciate that often improbable incidents can add great excitement to a story provided you can suspend your disbelief and just go with it. But, here, I simply couldn't enjoy it. I think it was a case of too many issues and finishing it was such a tedious slog. I also, sadly, found the characters excruciatingly annoying.

Having a deep interest in psychology and the expertise involved in criminal profiling I was looking forward to some of the talk about the topic by Dr Durrant but unfortunately, the frenetic pace meant that the plot moved at such an unrelenting pace so you were given no time to let any interesting information sink in. I also found that I had correctly guessed how the story would go by the 20% mark.

The second instalment, Fatal Flowers, due to be published on 25 May 2019 is highly unlikely to make it onto my Kindle given that there are so many fantastic thriller writers out there penning superb novels. I'm afraid I would rather play a little safer by opting for one of them. Many thanks to Inkubator Books/Weapenry Co-Op for an ARC.

What a great first chapter in a new series. The dynamic between the battle-hardened policeman and the world-weary psychologist has a perfect balance of professionalism and likability. Pippa has had her share of shock and grief in her life which I strongly suspect might come into play in future stories...I hope so.

Thanks to Netgalley and Inkubator for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars.

This book centers around Pippa, a psychologist, whose picture ends on up on the murdered body of a woman who recently won the lottery. She becomes a suspect, sort of, and gets involved with the case.

I thought this book started out well with an interesting premise, but I thought the fact that Pippa was a suspect was odd. It didn't make sense to me and that kind of threw me off from that point on. I thought the characters, Pippa and Donna, the daughter of the murdered woman, were very reactive and behaved in an irrational manner often, which is the same way I felt about the main character in this author's previous book. The end was somewhat of a surprise and that got the rating up to 3.5 stars.

Thank you NetGalley and Inkubator Books for the eARC.
This is the second book I've read by Miranda Rijks and have unfortunately decided not to read any more of her books. The characters are over the top emotionally and seem to make disastrous decisions time after time. The pace is frantic, it didn't make me want to continue, it just irritated me. I ended up flipping through the book to find out 'whodunit', and I had guessed correctly. This book has terrific reviews, so I'm definitely in the minority, which makes me feel bad...sorry!

This is the first in the Dr Pippa Durrant series, and it was really lovely to come in at the beginning of this new collection.
Pippa, although a little morose, was a likeable character. She has been through something really terrible in her past, and I’m really hoping that gets explored more in future books. Her history was outlined in this book to whet our appetites. She does make some questionable decisions; however, I think because of her past this has hindered her from thinking logically during this current trying time.
The book is a little bit of a mix between crime fiction and psychological thriller, but the balance worked well. I thought I had figured out who the killer was and even though I sort of guessed correctly, there was still a brilliant twist that I just didn’t see coming. There is enough suspense to really grip you and to make sure you keep turning the pages; it is very well-written.
I liked the chemistry between Pippa and Ds Joe Swain, it was very subtle, and again I hope this gets explored more in future books. It certainly lightened the feel of the book somewhat which was a pleasant relief to the intensity of the murders and the suspense surrounding them.
This is the second Miranda Rijks book that I have read, and I have to say I’m very impressed. I very much look forward to reading more about Dr Pippa Durrant!

I don't want to ruin this book for everyone who still has to read it, but believe me when I say that you are in for a thrilling read!
The story is really well written and I could not put it away. Can highly recommend!

This novel is full of suspense and twists and turns as you try to read and discover what is happening to Pippa's life. After a strange phone call one morning when her brother calls to check in on her PIppa sees her picture in the news with coverage of her death. But Pippa is alive and her name/picture switched with a murdered lottery winner named Donna. Why were the pictures switched, who was Donna and did someone kill her to obtain her winning lottery money? The budding relationship between Pippa and detective Joe Swain is adds interest to the story. This is the first book in the series about Pippa.

"Fatal Fortune" by Miranda Rijks.

My second time reading that author. I first read "I want you gone" and loved it!
Now I can say I loved "Fatal Fortune" as well and can't wait to read the next book!

The title couldn't have been chosen better!

A woman wins the lottery, wants to remain anonymous. Then ends up dead, murdered. The photo on the news, in the paper... is someone else : Dr Pippa, a psychologist. She's never even met the woman, so how did her photo end up on the body? Who put it there, why? Everyone becomes a suspect...

Different POVs, fast paced, clever, well written, really interesting plot, good characters... A real investigation.

I liked that the story starts right away, no waiting half the book for something to happen, I hate those!

Thank you to NetGalley and Inkubator Books for the ARC of this book. This is my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Fatal Fortune characters lacked direction and were placed it the story to only move it forward without any reason for their actions or lack of action. The plot moved along but had very little focus. The synopsis has readers excited for this story that ends up losing readers with its lack of focus and direction.



Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of Miranda Rijks Fatal Fortune.