Category: thriller

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book club Book review crime fiction reading thriller

Read and Review (R&R)

My latest read was “The Boomerang” by Robert Bailey.

The president of the United States has terminal cancer. Chief of Staff Eli James, his faithful consigliere and best friend, is one of the few who know. But just as the president’s condition mysteriously improves, Eli’s hit with another blow: his daughter has cancer too.

This is a thought-provoking, action-packed, political thriller with heart.

Bailey and his cast of interesting characters fill the pages with ethical dilemmas, corruption, deception, conspiracies, and alliances to the end.

This is the first book I have read by this author, and I will definitely be reading another.

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book club Book review crime mystery psychological thriller reading thriller Uncategorized

Read and Review (R&R) – Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six by Lisa Unger

In Lisa Unger’s psychological thriller, “Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six,” three couples who are related through marriage and longtime friendship are intent on leaving the pressures of life behind. They travel to a luxury cabin in the woods with breathtaking views, a hot tub and a personal chef who shares with them the history of the property.

What could possibly go wrong?

As the drinks flow and the twists start, the dream getaway turns into a nightmare when they become cut off from the world because of spotty internet, and a torrential rainstorm that threatens to flood the road out and down trees. And then, you guessed it, the power goes out and the backup generator fails.

An underlying theme of genetics and DNA flow through this story along with the fact that everyone has a secret and these characters’ secrets run blood deep.

Lisa Unger does a great job of weaving tension throughout.

This story was told from different points of view and although I enjoyed it very much, without giving too much away, I would have liked to see the perpetrator have a greater role in the actual storyline much earlier on.

All that said, I would still give it four stars and will read another Lisa Unger book.

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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 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 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.

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Book review fiction mystery reading suspense thriller Uncategorized

Read and Review (R&R) – The Love of My Life by Rosie Walsh

The Love of My Life, by Rosie Walsh was my book club’s April choice. It was also a Good Morning America Book Club pick.

Rosie Walsh is a New York Times bestselling author. Her other book is Ghosted.

The Love of My Life is a mystery-filled story of love, lies, and forgiveness. This book poses the question – Is it possible to love someone and not really know who they are?

The plot centers around Emma. She is an intertidal ecologist. Her adoring husband is Leo, an obituary writer.

Because of Emma’s tv star status, Leo is tasked with writing a stock obituary for her. He feels it is his place as he knows her best.

However, as the story unfolds and you turn the pages, we find out that almost everything Leo thinks he knows about his wife is a lie.

Leo tells us that “she studies the places and creatures that are submerged at high tide and exposed at low.”

He tells us how she adores their young daughter, Ruby, and their rescue dog named John Keats; that she’s also a former star of a BBC series on marine wildlife and a recent cancer survivor. Leo says,

“I think it was Kennedy who said we are tied to the ocean — that when we return to it, for sport or leisure or some such, we are returning to the place from whence we came. That’s how I feel about us. To be near to my wife, to Emma, is to return to source.

“So when I learn, in the days following this morning — this innocent, commonplace morning, with dogs and frogs and coffee … — that I know nothing of this woman, it will break me.”

This is a story told in alternating narratives with short chapters and constantly changing viewpoints and flashbacks.

There are questions of trust, betrayal, mental illness, trauma, and is it ever acceptable to hold things back from one’s spouse.

One of my favorite quotes from the book “I don’t know anything, other than that it’s only when something’s damaged beyond repair that we realize how beautiful it was.”

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Book review crime fiction mystery reading thriller

Read and Review (R&R) – “The Guest List” by Lucy Foley

This month my book club pick was “The Guest List” by New York Times bestselling author, Lucy Foley. It was published in 2020 and is a murder mystery about a death at a wedding.

The story is told from the point of view of multiple people and has alternating timelines – the bride, the bridesmaid, the best man, and the plus-one.

The secrets, grudges, and mysterious pasts of the guests are slowly revealed ultimately unveiling who is killed and the killer.

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty, and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?

Agatha Christie perfected what’s called the “locked room mystery.” Foley updates this method using a moody island and a brewing storm.

“It feels personal, this storm. As if it has saved all its fury for them.”

This book reminded me of “Big Little Lies” in a spooky setting, teasing about a murder in the prologue and spending the rest of the time working through multiple POVs to reveal who wants the victim dead.

I give this book three stars – a “liked it,” but didn’t “love it.” I really liked the premise and the setting. I would have liked more action in the first 200 pages. It is only in the last 100 pages that Foley ramps up the plot twists.

Okay, readers of my blog –

Were you able to guess who the victim was?

Were you able to guess who the murderer was?

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Book review crime fiction psychological thriller reading suspense thriller unreliable narrator

Read & Review (R&R) – The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

This month my book club read the psychological thriller “The Housemaid” by Freida McFadden.

Right from the above opening lines I was hooked. “If I leave this house, it will be in handcuffs. I should have run for it while I had the chance. Now my shot is gone.” – Prologue

This story was definitely a page-turner filled with a major plot twist in the end that I didn’t see coming.

Millie Calloway has recently lost her job and is living out of her car. When she is offered employment as the housekeeper for the wealthy Winchester family, Millie jumps at the chance. Anything is better than sleeping in her car-even a small cot in the attic bedroom with a sealed shut window and a door with a lock on the outside. Her new employer, Nina Winchester is constantly making messes and confusing dates and times. Nina’s husband, Andrew is charismatic, intelligent, and rich. He treats Millie well. Soon, Millie starts to like Andrew and imagines what it would be like to be his wife. Millie will do anything to stay employed with the Winchesters, including ignoring major red flags popping up in the household.

This is a well-written story with unreliable narrators, gaslighting, major plot twists, and chilling menace throughout.

Believe me when I say in this book, things are not always what they seem!

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book club Book review psychological thriller thriller

Read and Review (R&R) – Verity by Colleen Hoover

Have you read Colleen Hoover?

This is our book club’s second read by her. The first was “It Ends With Us.”

Colleen Hoover has a huge, loyal following of fans on various social media sites and I recently saw on Instagram that her sales this year have topped Dr. Seuss and she has sold more books than James Patterson and John Grisham combined.

Below is the synopsis taken from the back of Verity –

Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish.

Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity’s recollection of what really happened the day her daughter died.

Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue to love her.

What did I think of Verity?

Page-turning tension!

It was an easy, creepy read and I read all 314 pages in three days. You can sense the danger pulsing all around in this book.

A dark and disturbing erotic romantic thriller with an ending twist I did not see coming and is still messing with my brain!

There is a lot of sex in Verity and without giving out any spoilers, this book had some very graphic descriptions and touched on some subjects that as a mother I had a hard time reading, but that being said, kudos to Colleen Hoover for her writing and book successes.

Will I read another Colleen Hoover book? Yes, but not for a while.

Once I get this book out of my head, can someone please suggest a funny cozy mystery?