Category: suspense

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Book review crime mystery suspense

Read and Review (R&R) – “The Boyfriend” by Freida McFadden

This month’s book club read was “The Boyfriend,” by Freida McFadden.

She’s looking for the perfect date. He is looking for the perfect victim.

Is he the man of your dreams or your worst nightmare?

Once I read these two taglines, I couldn’t wait to read this book. And once I started, I couldn’t put it down.

This is my favorite book thus far from #1 New York Times bestselling author, Freida McFadden.

I thoroughly enjoyed the dual timelines that collide at the end.

I thought I had figured the perpetrator out, but then, whoa, big plot twist.

Sydney Shaw has had her share of bad dates on a dating app. And then, she hits the jackpot and meets a man who is charming, handsome, and a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney thinks she has met the man of her dreams.

But then, there is a brutal murder, and Sydney starts to get suspicious of her perfect man.

If you’ve read or are reading any of the books I blog about or post on my social media, please reach out and let me know. I would love to hear from you.

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book club Book review crime fiction reading suspense

Read and Review (R&R) – The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill

July’s book club read was “The Woman in the Library” by Sulari Gentill. This author’s writing style is impressive. I loved this book.

It is a story within a story. I admit I was a bit confused at the beginning, as I had never read a book written this way. Once I understood the structure of writing, I was hooked. I did not figure the perpetrator out until it was revealed, so hats off to the writer. Lots of plot twists!

Book jacket synopsis:

In every person’s story, there is something to hide…

The ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is quiet, until the tranquility is shattered by a woman’s terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who’d happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning—it just happens that one is a murderer.

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Book review crime debut novel mystery psychological thriller reading suspense

Read and Review (R&R) – First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

“First Lie Wins” is a twist-filled, cat and mouse psychological thriller.

It is the first adult novel by Ashley Elston and is told in first person.

Although the main character, Evie is a con-artist, you can’t help but cheer her on.

Evie is given an identity, location and target for each new assignment by her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith. She must learn everything she can about her target and then assume the identity and infiltrate into the target’s life. It is when she moves in with her boyfriend, Ryan, that Evie’s normally cool, calculated plans fall apart.

If you do not like a timeline that moves around and flashbacks, this book might not be for you.

I read that actress-producer, Octavia Spencer has secure the rights to adapt this book into a series for Hulu.

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Book review crime fiction suspense thriller

Read and Review (R&R) – “Out of Nowhere” by Sandra Brown

This month my book club read was Out of Nowhere by Sandra Brown. This book is classified as suspense thriller, but it is also a romance.

Trigger warning-the subject matter is a mass shooting.

I appreciated the Author’s Note at the beginning telling her reasons for writing a story about such a sad, but so prevalent in our world subject line. To summarize-Sandra Brown says it isn’t a story about death. It’s a story about survival. In a society where another mass shooting has become a familiar refrain, it is far too easy to tune it out. We as a society must never become inured. She writes that she supposes what motivated her was to honor the casualties and she ranks the survivors among them.

Also of note, there are some graphic love scenes.

Although reviews are mixed on this book (mostly referencing Ms. Brown’s older work and the subject material), I felt this story was a well-written, tense page-turner with a very emotional storyline. While I didn’t take the subject matter lightly, the author did her best to write the story with compassion.

The mass shooting happens at a Texas county fair and centers around children’s book writer, Ellie Portman, and Calder Hudson, an arrogant corporate consultant. It is a relationship which probably would never have happened aside from the tragedy that brought them together and will forever connect them.

At first, the police think that the shooter is among the dead, killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. When it is determined that the perpetrator is still at large, the witnesses/survivors are in great danger.

Ellie and Calder share a common, all-consuming goal – justice. But is the unimaginable tragedy too heartbreaking and difficult to sustain their attraction for each other?

I did not know who the killer or their motive was until the author’s reveal.

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Book review crime fiction mystery reading suspense thriller

Read and Review (R&R) “Don’t Believe It” by Charlie Donlea

This month’s book club read was Don’t Believe It by Charlie Donlea. If you haven’t read anything by him, I would recommend adding one of his books to your TBR list.

This suspense novel centers around a woman, Grace Seabold, who has been imprisoned for ten years in St. Lucia for the murder of her boyfriend, Julian Crist.

Sidney Ryan is an up-and-coming film producer who in the past produced two documentaries shedding light on a person in jail who was believed to be wrongfully convicted. This puts her in the radar of every convict in the country who believes they are innocent. Grace Seabold is one of those convicts. She writes to Sidney asking for her help to dig into her story and show the world she is innocent. Sidney travels to St. Lucia, meets with Grace and heads back home to make a pitch to the suits at Events, the station for which she is working as a producer. Given the green light, Sidney starts investigating the murder and the cast of characters that will make up the documentary The Girl of Sugar Beach. With each episode, more and more people become hooked on the one episode a week documentary which has Sidney finding things out along with the viewers. As Sidney becomes increasingly entwined in the case and begins to uncover inconsistencies, she and her audience of twenty million viewers are starting to believe that Grace Seabold is innocent. But is she?

Although about three-quarters of the way through the book, I was pretty sure who might be behind the murder, I wasn’t 100% sure. With an ending I didn’t see coming, Charlie Donlea had me turning pages and reading this book in a week’s time. I will have to say I had hoped for a different ending, but it was cleverly done. This is the second book I have read by this author. The first was titled, Twenty Years Later. Charlie Donlea is a master storyteller. His books are full of plot twists, and I will definitely pick up another novel by this author.

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Book review crime debut novel fiction suspense

Read and Review (R&R) – “In The Dark I See You” by Mallika Narayanan

Some of the reviews I post on my blog are of books written by Pittsburgh authors who I’ve met through The Mary Roberts Rinehart Chapter of Sisters in Crime. When I can, I like to highlight local authors and reviews are so important whether you are a new author or established.

To that end, I hope you read this review and pick up In The Dark I See You. It is the debut psychological suspense novel written by Mallika Narayanan, one of the members of our local chapter and an award-winning writer of flash and short fiction.

I really enjoyed this book.

The suspense slowly builds as the characters backstories and current days are revealed through a weaving of multiple timelines and two points of view. I thought from both a writer and reader perspective that she did a great job of this. I myself have never tackled dual points of view and am always impressed when I read someone who has.

The author is skilled at character development and her characters were flawed and relatable. Making one of the character’s blind added depth.

The end twist was unpredictable and a WOW moment which I didn’t see coming until the actual reveal.

I felt the complex storyline, plot twist, and ending make any reader want to pick up another book by this author.

The below is the blurb on the back cover –

When a young woman, Sarah Connelly, is found murdered in her home in New York’s elite Sleepy Point suburb, it triggers questions about the neighbor who discovered the body, Audrey Hughes. This kind of attention is the last thing Audrey wants. Moving to Sleepy Point was supposed to provide her with a new, quiet start after a trauma left her with incurable blindness. But the other reason she settled next door to Sarah was to spy on her. Police scrutiny moves Audrey like a pawn on a chessboard from witness to suspect, after it’s revealed that she had a volatile argument with Sarah hours before her death. The deeper the police delve into the case, the murkier the truth becomes. As the book twists and turns through alternating points of view and timelines, a compelling and complex scheme emerges that threatens all involved . . . and the ticking clock of investigation collides with the explosive secrets Audrey and Sarah have been keeping.

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book club Book review crime fiction mystery suspense thriller Uncategorized

Read and Review (R&R) – “Local Woman Missing” by Mary Kubica

This month’s book club read was “Local Woman Missing” by Mary Kubica. This is my first read by this author and it didn’t disappoint. It’s a gripping, page-turning, suburban thriller. Everyone in our book club gave it five stars.

I will admit that at first I almost didn’t continue past part one. It was disturbing and contained abuse of children. I continued, and I will say this book is one of the best recent thrillers I’ve read. Mary Kubica’s characters are well-developed and likeable. The story is fast-paced and filled with suspense, tension, mystery and an end plot twist I didn’t see coming.

It seems lately the thrillers I have been reading are told from multiple points of view and this one was as well. Local Woman Missing is told from three points of view and with 11 years before and now timelines. I still found it very easy to follow.

Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Now, 11 years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find….

Wow!

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book club Book review crime fiction psychological thriller reading suspense Uncategorized

Read and Review (R&R) – “Watching You” by Lisa Jewell

Watching You by Lisa Jewell is our book club’s October read. It is a psychological thriller published in 2018 and this author’s sixteenth book. She has twenty published novels.

This was my first read of her books.

Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England; home to doctors and lawyers and old-money academics. It’s not the sort of place where people are brutally murdered in their own kitchens. But it is the sort of place where everyone has a secret. And everyone is watching you.

As the headmaster credited with turning around the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is beloved by one and all—including Joey Mullen, his new neighbor, who quickly develops an intense infatuation with this thoroughly charming yet unavailable man. Joey thinks her crush is a secret, but Tom’s teenaged son Freddie—a prodigy with aspirations of becoming a spy for MI5—excels in observing people and has witnessed Joey behaving strangely around his father.

One of Tom’s students, Jenna Tripp, also lives on the same street, and she’s not convinced her teacher is as squeaky clean as he seems. For one thing, he has taken a particular liking to her best friend and fellow classmate, and Jenna’s mother—whose mental health has admittedly been deteriorating in recent years—is convinced that Mr. Fitzwilliam is stalking her.

Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, a schoolgirl writes in her diary, charting her doomed obsession with a handsome young English teacher named Mr. Fitzwilliam.

The book starts out with a diary entry and a murder and then goes back to a narrative told in multiple points of view. It took me a while to get into this book. The beginning felt too slow and filled with the routine lives of the characters (some of them a bit creepy). Once the true action started, I found myself wrapped up under a blanket and reading for three hour stretches.

I did figure out who the killer was quite early on, but Lisa Jewell’s world-building and storytelling had me hooked and I continued to read to see how it would play out.

The author did a nice job of tying up all the loose ends and even pulled at your heart strings (slightly) for the killer.

Categories
Book review crime mystery suspense Uncategorized

Read and Review (R&R) – “Twenty Years Later” by Charlie Donlea

Suspense, mystery, plot twists, and riveting, well-developed characters with secret-filled pasts.

The story is told from several perspectives and has a dual timeline of then and now. Once the story and the characters came together, I could not put this book down.

Twenty Years Later centers around Avery Mason. She is seeking her next big story as she negotiates her contract for the popular primetime show American Events. When a bone fragment of Victoria Ford, a woman who perished in 9/11, is identified through new developments in DNA testing, Avery sees an opportunity to guarantee rating gold. While doing her research, Avery learns that Victoria Ford was to stand trial for the gruesome murder of bestselling author, Cameron Young when she perished on 9/11.

Things change for Avery when she meets with Victoria’s sister, Emma, who shares tapes of Victoria’s frantic calls from the World Trade Center declaring her innocence and her plea for her sister to clear her name. Avery realizes that her story will be much bigger than she had imagined. Walt Jenkins, the lead investigator of the murder case, comes out of retirement to help Avery. But what Avery doesn’t realize is Walt has reasons of his own for helping.

Some of Charlie Donlea’s writing was repetitive, but I think the author thought keeping all the characters and plot lines straight for the reader was necessary.

This is Charlie Donlea’s sixth novel and a great read that will keep you guessing throughout.

Categories
Book review crime fiction psychological thriller reading suspense thriller

Read and Review (R&R) “The Couple Next Door,” by Shari Lapena

A friend of mine loaned me this book and it turned out to be the perfect purse companion for my recent flight and trip.

This psychological thriller is Shari Lapena’s debut novel and a very engaging, suspenseful quick read. The story is a compulsive page turner.

The Couple Next Door asks readers the question: How well do you know your friends and family?

It all started at a dinner party. . .

Anne and Marco Conti are a young couple with friendly neighbors, a beautiful baby girl, and a seemingly perfect life. When the couple are invited to a dinner party at the neighbors and the babysitter cancels, they go anyways, taking along a monitor and taking turns checking on the baby every half hour. Of course, we all know where this bad decision is going…the unthinkable happens: their baby is kidnapped. What follows is a roller-coaster ride of deceit, betrayal, and family secrets.

This book is filled with emotion and readers will find themselves drawn deeper and deeper into the secrets of the Conti family.

An unnerving plot, characters you can’t trust, and a shocking ending.