Before the Fall by Noah Hawley

Title: Before the Fall

Author: Noah Hawley

Publisher: Grand Central 2016

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 416

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

Where I Got It: Library

On a foggy summer night, eleven people--ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter--depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean. The only survivors are the painter Scott Burroughs and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul's family.

Was it by chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something more sinister at work? A storm of media attention brings Scott fame that quickly morphs into notoriety and accusations, and he scrambles to salvage truth from the wreckage. Amid trauma and chaos, the fragile relationship between Scott and the young boy grows and glows at the heart of this stunning novel, raising questions of fate, morality, and the inextricable ties that bind us together.

Our book club selection for January and it was a bit of a mess. We start out with the plane crash and immediate aftermath. I was intrigued by the mysteries of the passengers and what caused the crash. We start to explore the backstories of our characters. Very quickly the book starts to drag along. The backstories get more and more boring and tangential. I just found myself caring less and less about these characters. I kept wanting this is actually all connect somehow. But in the end, the cause of the plane crash was so stupid and frustrating. I almost threw my book at the wall.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel

Title: The Hitchcock Hotel

Author: Stephanie Wrobel

Publisher: Berkley 2024

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 352

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Library Love

Where I Got It: Library

Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan. He is the founder, owner, and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a sprawling Victorian house in the White Mountains dedicated to the Master of Suspense. There, Alfred offers his guests round-the-clock film screenings, movie props and memorabilia in every room, plus an aviary with fifty crows.

To celebrate the hotel’s first anniversary, he invites his former best friends from his college Film Club for a reunion. He hasn’t spoken to any of them in sixteen years, not after what happened.

But who better than them to appreciate Alfred’s creation? And to help him finish it.

After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a body.

This book is a bit of a slow burn. The murder doesn’t actually happen until very far into the story. Before that, we get a great atmospheric set-up complete with unreliable narrators. We have reason to suspect that every single character is keeping a big secret that could harm another. Slowly the secrets start coming to the light and the tension increases. At a certain point in the story, I was on the edge of my seat just waiting for something terrible to happen. Thankfully it did. And then we get the big unraveling of all the mysteries, at least for the reader. While I liked how this one ended, I felt it was a bit too coincidental. I cannot believe that none of the other characters figured it out. Oh well. I guess people want to see what they want to see. Still, it was a very enjoyable mystery/thriller.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Murder Road by Simone St. James

Title: Murder Road

Author: Simone St. James

Publisher: Berkley 2024

Genre: Thriller/Horror

Pages: 341

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Unread Shelf Project; Spooky Season

Where I Got It: BOTM March 2024

July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.

When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.

Not my favorite of St. James’s books (that’s The Book of Cold Cases), but still an enjoyable thriller/horror book. I enjoyed the random throwback to the 90s as we follow Eddie and April on their ill-fated honeymoon. They are both carrying secrets and I enjoyed seeing them be revealed throughout the story. Our book opens with a great propulsive sequence, so of course I was intrigued. Once the Carters start investigating the murder and the mystery of Atticus Lane, the book slowed down. There was a lot of circular conversations and actions in the middle that started to drag things down. Thankfully it picked up towards the end and we barreled across the last pages. I didn’t love the neat-as-a-bow wrap-up, but overall enjoyed this book with moderate ghost involvement.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

Title: The Housemaid (The Housemaid #1)

Author: Freida McFadden

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing 2022

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 325

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Lifetime - Character in 20s; Library Love

“Welcome to the family,” Nina Winchester says as I shake her elegant, manicured hand. I smile politely, gazing around the marble hallway. Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like. But I’ll soon learn that the Winchesters’ secrets are far more dangerous than my own…

Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out… and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of…

I’ll admit that I was hesitant about this book club selection. I usually find thrillers to be very trite and predictable. For the first section, I thought this book as going to be the predictable crazy wife trope. And then a shift happens. I bumped up my star rating to a 3 during the second portion of the book. And then we get to the last two chapters and I was completely sold on the book. I don’t want to spoil the story, but it ended in such a way that I was pumping my fists and yelling “yes!” I cannot wait to discuss this book at book club in a few weeks. And I might just read the second book in the series.

The Housemaid

• #1 The Housemaid

• #2 The Housemaid’s Secret

• #3 The Housemaid is Watching

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Paleontologist by Luke Dumas

Title: The Paleontologist

Author: Luke Dumas

Publisher: Atria Books 2023

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 356

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Unread Shelf Project; 52 Book Club - Grieving Character

Curator of paleontology Dr. Simon Nealy never expected to return to his Pennsylvania hometown, let alone the Hawthorne Museum of Natural History. He was just a boy when his six-year-old sister, Morgan, was abducted from the museum under his watch, and the guilt has haunted Simon ever since. After a recent breakup and the death of the aunt who raised him, Simon feels drawn back to the place where Morgan vanished, in search of the bones they never found.

But from the moment he arrives, things aren’t what he expected. The Hawthorne is a crumbling ruin, still closed amid the ongoing pandemic, and plummeting toward financial catastrophe. Worse, Simon begins seeing and hearing things he can’t explain. Strange animal sounds. Bloody footprints that no living creature could have left. A prehistoric killer looming in the shadows of the museum. Terrified he’s losing his grasp on reality, Simon turns to the handwritten research diaries of his predecessor and uncovers a blood-soaked mystery 150 million years in the making that could be the answer to everything.

A complete impulse buy around Christmastime. I thought it might be a fun thriller with a focus on dinosaurs. And it mostly is. We get a potentially unreliable narrator who decides that his next step in life is to revisit a place that holds the beginning of his trauma. Seems like a bad idea to me, but Simon does it. From there, the paranormal elements start to occur and we are left to piece out the mystery of just what is happening the museum. My biggest complaints are focused on the side characters. The various employees of the museum are pretty terrible. The board members are extra terrible. Every time I picked up the book, I really did it pretty begrudgingly. By the end of the book I really as pretty tired of every one and the story. A bit of a disappointment, but it was fine.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Last One by Will Dean

Title: The Last One

Author: Will Dean

Publisher: Emily Bestler Books 2023

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 448

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Clock - One; 52 Book Club - Abrupt Ending

When Caz steps onboard the exclusive cruise liner RMS Atlantica, it’s the start of a vacation of a lifetime with her new love, Pete. On their first night they explore the ship, eat, dance, make friends, but when Caz wakes the next morning, Pete is missing.

And when she walks out into the corridor, all the cabin doors are open. To her horror, she soon realizes that the ship is completely empty. No passengers, no crew, nobody but her. The Atlantica is steaming into the mid-Atlantic and Caz is the only person on board. But that’s just the beginning of the terrifying journey she finds herself trapped on in this white-knuckled mystery.

I’m not usually a thriller person. I find them way too predictable and silly. But I heard good things about this one and was intrigued by the last person on a cruise ship setup. Of course she’s not actually the only person on the ship, that would get old quick, but a great limited people setup is revealed near the beginning. I sped through the pages desperate to see what happened next, wondering what the next challenge or obstacle would be. There was one particular scene near the end that made me gasp out loud. This was the perfect book to spend a few days on the edge of my seat reading.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Whalefall by Daniel Kraus

Title: Whalefall

Author: Daniel Kraus

Publisher: MTV Books 2023

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 327

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year.

The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out—one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.

Another mediocre read for me this week. I picked this up on th suggestion of a couple of lists with new horror style books for 2023. Ultimately, I wasn’t a huge fan. This read more like a thriller with long chapters of flashbacks and introspection. We didn’t get a sense of building dread that I really love in my horror novels. Instead, the whale swallows Jay pretty quickly and then we slowly have to follow his stream of consciousness and struggle to survive. There are a few parts that turned extremely gory, like even I was a bit grossed out. Overall, I just don’t think I really connected to this story and ended up with a “Meh” reaction at the end.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Girls of Brackenhill by Kate Moretti

Title: Girls of Brackenhill

Author: Kate Moretti

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer 2020

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 316

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Fall TBR; COYER

When Hannah Maloney’s aunt dies in a car accident, she returns to her family’s castle in the Catskills and the epicenter of a childhood trauma: her sister’s unsolved disappearance. It’s been seventeen years, and though desperate to start a new life with her fiancé, Hannah is compelled to question the events of her last summer at Brackenhill.

When a human bone is found near the estate, Hannah is convinced it belongs to her long-lost sister. She launches her own investigation into that magical summer that ended in a nightmare. As strange happenings plague the castle, Hannah uncovers disturbing details about the past and startling realizations about her own repressed childhood memories.

Fueled by guilt over her sister’s vanishing, Hannah becomes obsessed with discovering what happened all those years ago, but by the time Hannah realizes some mysteries are best left buried, it’s too late to stop digging. Overwhelmed by what she has exposed, Hannah isn’t sure her new life can survive her old ghosts.

Ultimately, the twist at the end really annoyed me. In general, I steer away from mystery/thrillers as I often guess the twist or it’s so off the wall that it’s just not believable. For whatever reason, this one was on my recommended list (maybe from the podcast I like?) and I picked up for spooky season. We get some spookiness right towards the beginning, but this book quickly veers into very humdrum murder territory. I thought Hannah was an interesting main character, but by the end, I was not rooting for her at all. What is is with all these thrillers where the FMC is with someone boring, but instead of just breaking up with them goes out and cheats on them or does something truly horrible? Very much dislike that trope. Anyhoo, the house was not given enough atmospheric tension for my liking and I came away from the book pretty disappointed.

Next up on the TBR pile:

56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard

Title: 56 Days

Author: Catherine Ryan Howard

Publisher: Blackstone 2021

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 305

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: COYER

No one even knew they were together. Now one of them is dead.

56 DAYS AGO

Ciara and Oliver meet in a supermarket queue in Dublin and start dating the same week COVID-19 reaches Irish shores.

35 DAYS AGO

When lockdown threatens to keep them apart, Oliver suggests they move in together. Ciara sees a unique opportunity for a relationship to flourish without the scrutiny of family and friends. Oliver sees a chance to hide who—and what—he really is.

TODAY

Detectives arrive at Oliver’s apartment to discover a decomposing body inside.

Can they determine what really happened, or has lockdown created an opportunity for someone to commit the perfect crime?

After hearing about this book for the past two year, I finally put it on my shortlist and start reading. I was very annoyed by all of the characters at the beginning, but as the mystery began to unspool, I was hooked. Once we know of the dead body, even a few thoughts, I was desperate to finish the book and put all the pieces together. Oliver and Ciara we two very flawed, but interesting characters to follow. Amongst the various thrillers that I have tried, this was in the top tier. Thrillers still aren’t my favorite, but this particular book was a good one.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Getaway by Lamar Giles

Title: The Getaway

Author: Lamar Giles

Publisher: Scholastic Press 2022

Genre: YA Thriller

Pages: 400

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 52 Book Club - Starts with “G”

Jay is living his best life at Karloff Country, one of the world’s most famous resorts. He’s got his family, his crew, and an incredible after-school job at the property’s main theme park. Life isn’t so great for the rest of the world, but when people come here to vacation, it’s to get away from all that.

As things outside get worse, trouble starts seeping into Karloff. First, Jay’s friend Connie and her family disappear in the middle of the night and no one will talk about it. Then the richest and most powerful families start arriving, only... they aren’t leaving. Unknown to the employees, the resort has been selling shares in an end-of-the-world oasis. The best of the best at the end of days. And in order to deliver the top-notch customer service the wealthy clientele paid for, the employees will be at their total beck and call.

Whether they like it or not.

Yet Karloff Country didn’t count on Jay and his crew--and just how far they’ll go to find out the truth and save themselves. But what’s more dangerous: the monster you know in your home or the unknown nightmare outside the walls?

Another recommendation from my favorite book podcast. I was a bit leery, but just jumped into this one immediately without any really knowledge of the book. This is a ride. Not one that is for everyone, but such a ride. The book really gets into a lot of very serious topics all while setting the story in a future setting. Do not read if very affected by violence. I have to admit that there were even a few scenes that I struggled to get through due to the violence depicted. I really felt for the four main characters. Sure, they each had flaws, but that’s what made them real characters. I wish that the story would have spent a little more focused on the main characters and how they dealt with the interpersonal relationships. Still this was a force of a book.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Drift by C.J. Tudor

Title: The Drift

Author: C.J. Tudor

Publisher: Ballantine Books 2023

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 340

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 52 Book Club - Published in 2013

Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. Evacuated from a secluded boarding school during a snowstorm, her coach careered off the road, trapping her with a handful of survivors. They’ll need to work together to escape—with their sanity and secrets intact.

Meg awakens to a gentle rocking. She’s in a cable car stranded high above snowy mountains, with five strangers and no memory of how they got on board. They are heading to a place known only as “The Retreat,” but as the temperature drops and tensions mount, Meg realizes they may not all make it there alive.

Carter is gazing out the window of an isolated ski chalet that he and his companions call home. As their generator begins to waver in the storm, something hiding in the chalet’s depths threatens to escape, and their fragile bonds will be tested when the power finally fails—for good.

The imminent dangers faced by Hannah, Meg, and Carter are each one part of the puzzle. Lurking in their shadows is an even greater danger—one with the power to consume all of humanity.

What an absolute ride! Usually books billed as thrillers really fall flat for me. They just lack the oomph that I’m looking for or the characters are so incredibly unlikeable that I’m wishing all of them would get murdered. This one I went in blind except for a recommendation from my favorite podcast. The host purposely left the summary mostly hidden so as not to spoil the reveals and that’s exactly the way to go with this one. I dove in and immediately started piecing the big connections and storyline together. We are plopped right into the middle of a bus crash, a stalled ski lift gondola, and a mysterious locked “retreat.” From there, we have to understand exactly what is going on in the outside world, who each of the characters actually are, and how they intend to survive the situation and the elements. I got so wrapped up into the story that I ended up finishing this book in one day. I was completely along for the ride. Once the big reveals happen, I actually gasped out loud (I hardly ever do that.) It was just so good! A great book to end my work on.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

Title: Daisy Darker

Author: Alice Fenney

Publisher: Flatiron Books 2022

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Pages: 352

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges:

Daisy Darker was born with a broken heart. Now after years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in her crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. When the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.

But at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows…

Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide goes out and all is revealed. As seen on the TODAY show and picked by Book of the Month, Daisy Darker's family secrets and Alice Feeney's trademark shocking twists will keep readers riveted.

Another book that I somehow skipped right up to the top of the holds lists and snagged in ebook form. I dove in just knowing that some of my favorite podcast hosts were recommending it. Again, I purposely didn’t read the summary to go into the story blind. We dive into the story and right away know that Nana’s birthday party is not going to go well at all. The murders start and they don’t let up until the end of the book. This book is a sorta retelling of And Then There were None by Agatha Christie. In fact, a character mentions that Christie’s book is her favorite. Even though this is a sorta retelling, it felt fresh and interesting. I sped through the pages just waiting to see who would be revealed as the murderer. The twist came and I was floored for a few minutes. Definitely an entertaining read for a few nights.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

Title: Hidden Pictures

Author: Jason Rekulak

Publisher: Flatiron 2022

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 373

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

Fresh out of rehab, Mallory Quinn takes a job as a babysitter for Ted and Caroline Maxwell. She is to look after their five-year-old son, Teddy.

Mallory immediately loves it. She has her own living space, goes out for nightly runs, and has the stability she craves. And she sincerely bonds with Teddy, a sweet, shy boy who is never without his sketchbook and pencil. His drawings are the usual fare: trees, rabbits, balloons. But one day, he draws something different: a man in a forest, dragging a woman’s lifeless body.

Then, Teddy’s artwork becomes increasingly sinister, and his stick figures quickly evolve into lifelike sketches well beyond the ability of any five-year-old. Mallory begins to wonder if these are glimpses of a long-unsolved murder, perhaps relayed by a supernatural force.

Knowing just how crazy it all sounds, Mallory nevertheless sets out to decipher the images and save Teddy before it’s too late.

I got this recommendation from Meredith at the Currently Reading Podcast. Every once in a while I really want a fluffy spooky thriller. I want something that I can speed through and get involved in a story but not think too much about anything. This book hit just exactly what I needed this week. I immediately got sucked into the spooky drawings and figuring out the mystery of what they mean. We are on a roller coaster of emotions as we speed through the mystery. I wasn’t the biggest fan of the unreliable narrator trope. Couldn’t we have made Mallory a regular person and not a former drug addict? Why dies every protagonist have to have a tragic backstory? Other than that quibble, I enjoyed the rest of the story. I definitely did not guess the ending of the mystery.

Next up on the TBR pile:

A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham

Title: A Flicker in the Dark

Author: Stacy Willingham

Publisher: Minotaur Books 2022

Genre: Mystery Thriller

Pages: 357

Rating: 2/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

When Chloe Davis was 12, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, her own father had confessed to the crimes and was put away for life, leaving Chloe and the rest of her family to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath.

Now 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. While she finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to achieve, she sometimes feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. So when a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, seeing parallels from her past that aren't actually there, or for the second time in her life, is Chloe about to unmask a killer?

Ooof. This is not what I wanted tor read this past week. I was hoping for a good mystery/thriller, but this is just full of 2-dimensional characters and terrible tropes detrimental to women. Our main character sometimes act like she’s 19 and other times like she’s 30. There’s a big mixed bag to her behaviors. And then we see how she operates as a psychologist and there is just so many ethical violations that I couldn’t take her seriously. Worst yet, she’s painted as an addict popping pills and downing alcohol that leaves her in a fugue state for most of the book. Can we stop with this trope. Women can have lots of issues and baggage to deal with without resorting to drugs and alcohol. And some women are addicts and alcoholic without the issues and baggage. The book really paints Chloe as some “typical” damaged woman and I was very over it but the middle of the book. And then we get to the central murder mystery and I cannot believe how the plot resolved itself. I was so angry. One visit from Chloe to her Dad or even her listening to mother would have pointed Chloe to the real killer. Instead we get the big red herring of the fiancee. And don’t get me started on the fact that the fiancee never actually communicated anything with Chloe. All these people kept way too many secrets from each other and that resulted in multiple girls being murder. I just could not handle this book at all.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield

Title: The Apollo Murders

Author: Chris Hadfield

Publisher: Mulholland Books 2021

Genre: Mystery

Pages: 480

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

1973: a final, top-secret mission to the Moon. Three astronauts in a tiny spaceship, a quarter million miles from home. A quarter million miles from help.

NASA is about to launch Apollo 18. While the mission has been billed as a scientific one, flight controller Kazimieras "Kaz" Zemeckis knows there is a darker objective. Intelligence has discovered a secret Soviet space station spying on America, and Apollo 18 may be the only chance to stop it.

But even as Kaz races to keep the NASA crew one step ahead of their Russian rivals, a deadly accident reveals that not everyone involved is quite who they were thought to be. With political stakes stretched to the breaking point, the White House and the Kremlin can only watch as their astronauts collide on the lunar surface, far beyond the reach of law or rescue.

I went into this book with very high hopes and unfortunately, this did not live up to my expectations. Inside this book is a great political thriller. I loved the bits that dealt with the politics of the space program. I loved the intrigue of spyycraft. And the various characters were intriguing to follow. But then, the actual text gets bogged down in the technical writing. I really did not need to know exactly how Cessna airplane actually works. I imagine that this could have been edited down at least 100 pages to help trim the fat. As it stands, I kept wanting to put it away and read something with a bit faster pace. There’s something here, I just don’t think It completely works as is.

Next up on the TBR pile:

All These Bodies by Kendare Blake

Title: All These Bodies

Author: Kendare Blake

Publisher: Quill Tree Books 2021

Genre: YA Thriller

Pages: 304

Rating: 2/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

Summer 1958. A gruesome killer plagues the Midwest, leaving behind a trail of bodies completely drained of blood. 

Michael Jensen, an aspiring journalist whose father happens to be the town sheriff, never imagined that the Bloodless Murders would come to his backyard. Not until the night the Carlson family was found murdered in their home. Marie Catherine Hale, a diminutive fifteen-year-old, was discovered at the scene—covered in blood. She is the sole suspect in custody.

Michael didn’t think that he would be part of the investigation, but he is pulled in when Marie decides that he is the only one she will confess to. As Marie recounts her version of the story, it falls to Michael to find the truth: What really happened the night that the Carlsons were killed? And how did one girl wind up in the middle of all these bodies?

Oh blergh. I went into this book thinking that it would be a spooky suspenseful young adult novel. Unfortunately, we didn’t really get any of the spook except for a few very brief scenes. Instead, we got a very stilted and strange retelling of a criminal case written by a teenage boy. I was not a fan of the voice of the book. The writing was all over the place and not well constructed. I kept getting pulled out of the story every time Michael referred to something that would happen in the future or some realization that he made at a later date. But most of the story is written in a very present sense. Beyond the writing style, I was not a fan of the story and specifically the constant misogyny. Every other page is felt like some character was saying that there was no way that Marie killed anyone because she was a, wait for it… girl. I just could not. I realize that the book is set in 1958, but it was written last year. I don’t think we need to focus on this aspect so much. And finally, we get to ending and I was completely flabbergasted. It’s a terrible ending. Such a disappointment.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz

Title: The Plot

Author: Jean Hanff Korelitz

Publisher: Celadon 2021

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 336

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he’s teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what’s left of his self-respect; he hasn’t written―let alone published―anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need Jake’s help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot.

Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker’s first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that―a story that absolutely needs to be told.

In a few short years, all of Evan Parker’s predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says.

As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his “sure thing” of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?

Our book club selection for January. I wasn’t convinced that this was going to be my book from the overall impression I got from people who loved it. And it turns out, that I was right about what my review would be. This just didn’t landed with me. I rarely love thrillers and this one felt very obvious and yet very slow and ponderous throughout. Right away I did not care for the main character. I understand that he’s not to well-loved, but I struggled to find anything redeemable about him. So no good connection the characters. From there, we spend way too much time slowly moving through his life. I was thoroughly bored. We don’t even get to the thriller part of the mystery until way after the halfway mark. I just couldn’t deal with the pacing at all. And then the actual reveal is a giant multi-page monologue from the “villain.” The story becomes so convoluted that we needed the villain to monologue for that many pages to explain their actions. I just didn’t really care at that point. Thrillers… just not my thing at all.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Woods are Always Watching by Stephanie Perkins

Title: The Woods are Always Watching

Author: Stephanie Perkins

Publisher: Dutton Books 2021

Genre: YA Thriller

Pages: 238

Rating: 3/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Seasonal TBR

Bears aren’t the only predators in these woods.
Best friends Neena and Josie spent high school as outsiders, but at least they had each other. Now, with college and a two-thousand-mile separation looming on the horizon, they have one last chance to be together—a three-day hike deep into the woods of the Pisgah National Forest.

Simmering tensions lead to a detour off the trail and straight into a waking nightmare … and then into something far worse. Something that will test them in horrifying ways.

TW: Sexual Assault

Another teen thriller from Stephanie Perkins. I was hoping this was going to be fun spooky-ish read. forOctober. Unfortunately, I got a mixed bag on this one. I liked the first half focusing on the relationship between Neena and Josie. Once Josie becomes injured, the tension increases, but my enjoyment decreased. The villains were too focused on the sexual assault. I could not deal with the sexual talk and it really knocked off stars for me.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Drowning Kind by Jennifer McMahon

Title: The Drowning Kind

Author: Jennifer McMahon

Publisher: Gallery Press 2021

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 285

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: 

When social worker Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes that it’s just another one of her sister’s episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmother’s estate. When Jax arrives at the house to go through her sister’s things, she learns that Lexie was researching the history of their family and the property. And as she dives deeper into the research herself, she discovers that the land holds a far darker past than she could have ever imagined.

In 1929, thirty-seven-year-old newlywed Ethel Monroe hopes desperately for a baby. In an effort to distract her, her husband whisks her away on a trip to Vermont, where a natural spring is showcased by the newest and most modern hotel in the Northeast. Once there, Ethel learns that the water is rumored to grant wishes, never suspecting that the spring takes in equal measure to what it gives.

I’m not usually one for thrillers, but the premise of this one intrigued me. Plus, two of the hosts of my favorite bookish podcast, Currently Reading, really enjoyed this one. I had to pick it up and I ended up loving it! I get very annoyed when books are labeled as supernatural thrillers but then don’t have any actual ghosts. This one has actual ghosts and it made my heart happy. Right away we are plunged into the very creepy setting og Sparrow Crest and the springs right off the patio. You just know that something tragic is going to happen (and has happened many times before) and it does. From there, we follow Jax as she attempt to unravel the mystery and deal with her own future. We also get the story of how Ethel came to know of the springs and how it affected her life in the late 1920s. I actually liked both story lines, probably because I liked both women. I wanted to see how they were connected and what actually lived at the bottom of the springs. The book did not disappoint. This reminded me of The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James. I got the same kind of creepy creepy vibes. I might have to pick up McMahon’s previous book soon.

Next up on the TBR pile:

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

Title: The Sun Down Motel

Author: Simone St. James

Publisher: Berkley 2020

Genre: Paranormal Thriller

Pages: 326

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Currently Reading - Can’t Wait to Give Someone!

Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary.

Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.

I was hesitant coming into this book (I have a horrible track record with thrillers), but this one was deliciously creepy and kept me entertained. I hate when books claim to be creepy, but they are actually just plots with something vaguely suspenseful. This one is completely creepy and I loved every page of it. We get real ghosts! I love it when we get real ghosts in books. I was even hesitant to read this before bed due to the creep factor. Perfect! Beyond that aspect, I didn’t mind the modern storyline in this one. Usually I find that one of the sides of the story isn’t that interesting or boring, but Carly is a decent character in her own right. She’s not just driven to find out what happened to her Aunt Viv, but also exploring her own relationships in this new-to-her town. I really enjoyed this one!

Next up on the TBR pile: