Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Review Round Up | Of Princes & Promises and Reckless Girls

Posted February 25, 2022 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! This series continues to baffle me a little bit. I enjoyed this book a similar amount to the first one. I was really hoping it was the characters from book one that prevented me from loving it but that turned out to not be the case here. If I were to read this without knowing Sandhya Menon wrote it, I’d be shocked to learn that she did. It just does not have the same feel as her other books, like the Dimple/Rishi universe. I think it’s mostly because she writes the characters as posh boarding school kids and her writing style feels weird as a result, like she’s trying hard to be fancy or something? In any case, this story followed Catarina and Rahul. She’s the pretty rich girl who rules the school and Rahul is the socially awkward kid whose family doesn’t even include him in public photos (his cousin stands in). The two of them had a ~moment~ after the school dance and Rahul is dying to capitalize on this. Catarina starts to “train him” to be a prince instead of a frog; she wants to make her cheater-ex-boyfriend jealous at some important events with a transformed Rahul on her arm. They acquire a magical […]

ARC Review: Wish You Were Gone

Posted February 18, 2022 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I’ve loved Kieran Scott (also known as Kate Brian) for many, many years. Her PRIVATE series has been on my list to reread (or at least finally complete) for YEARS. I hold that series up with GOSSIP GIRL and THE A-LIST as some of my favorite addicting series about rich and/or terrible teenagers. As Kate Brian, she blew me away with the SHADOWLANDS trilogy (some of the first reviews on my blog!). She also wrote a fun mythology-based trilogy a number of years ago that I really enjoyed as Kieran Scott. Since then, she wrote two horror/mysteries (that I haven’t gained the confidence to read yet) and a fun political-ish YA thriller. I love that she’s taken a turn writing adult mystery/thrillers because honestly it seemed right up her alley. WISH YOU WERE GONE is her adult fiction debut. It follows a family rattled by the sudden death of the patriarch. Emma and her son, Hunter, hear a crash one night and discover that her husband, James, has crashed through the garage and died. They both know he was probably drunk at the time. Her daughter, Kelsey, rushes home to see what’s happened. Turns out, James wasn’t the best guy and has more secrets than he can count. The story alternates between multiple characters, including Emma and her kids, to really understand who James was. There’s an interesting power struggle between Lizzie and Gray, Emma’s two best friends who don’t really get along, and Gray’s husband (James’ business partner). This […]

Review Round Up | The Hawthorne Legacy and You’ll be the Death of Me

Posted February 2, 2022 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I was super excited to start this book right away when it was released. I am very particular about what books I buy so it was a big deal to head to B&N on release day and snag this one. For whatever reason, I put it aside on and off over the course of multiple months. I think it’s primarily because I was doing a ton of reading in bed and therefore needed my Kindle with a backlight. As it got closer to the end of the year, I knew I had to crank through and finish it off to reach my reading challenge. Every time I sat down to read this book, I wondered how it was possible I kept putting it down and not reading it for weeks! The short chapters and overall plot make this book super addicting and hard to stop reading once you start. This book picks up soonafter the first, THE INHERITANCE GAMES, ends. Avery has inherited a multi-billion dollar empire, mansion, and all of the family drama that comes along with it, out of the blue. She didn’t know the billionaire who left it for her but quickly finds out how much he loved puzzles and riddles. His will and […]

Review Round Up | Good as Dead and We Can’t Keep Meeting Like This

Posted September 6, 2021 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! If I could leave this review as a link to THIS review, I would haha. Basically she said she hated the book from 45% on, but understood the choices that were made, and still rated it around 3 stars. I mean… same. This series has been by go-to during the pandemic. When I’m desperate to kick my reading into gear again, one of these books has helped me do that. I loved the first book so much and didn’t want to wait for the second, so I ordered it (and the third) from Book Depository as the UK versions instead of US. I was eager to read this ASAP when it came in (around a month before the US book publishes) and was somewhat addicted like the other two, but I genuinely had to put it aside for a few days because of the turn the book took in the middle. I had figured out a THING and then it took a major turn and then, as you can see, I took a couple of days off or could only read a little at a time. It’s really hard to review this without completely giving everything away, even if you’ve read the first two books in the […]

ARC Reviews: The Woods Are Always Watching and They’ll Never Catch Us

Posted August 2, 2021 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I enjoyed Perkins’ first foray into contemporary horror with THERE’S SOMEONE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE. It felt a little closer to a mystery/thriller for me, which is probably why it worked. The whole “teen thrasher movie” vibe was fun and I was eager to read her next. After reading this, I am definitely ready for her to get back into contemporary romance. The story centers around Meena and Josie, two best friends who decide to take a 20 mile backpacking trip in the woods before one of them leaves for college in California. The first half of the book is just them bickering and having issues as they hike, try to set up camp, and sleep in the woods. The story picks up a lot and was pretty addicting in the second half. Josie falls and injures herself, which forces the two of them to separate while Meena runs to get help. They’re a full day into their journey at this point so she has quite a ways to go. When they encounter some less-than-helpful fellow “hikers” in the forest, things get worse for them. This was definitely more horror than thriller, with some pretty terrible gore happening. I should have seen it coming obviously but it just felt yuckier than her previous horror novel. I didn’t really enjoy that this was mostly two girls walking through the woods and fighting for the first half – it was a little boring and I missed having a full cast of characters like I […]

ARC Reviews: The Box in the Woods and The Next Wife

Posted June 10, 2021 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I was obsessed with the TRULY DEVIOUS series and was completely over the moon when I saw a fourth book announced. The first three involved Stevie at Ellingham Academy trying to solve the school’s murder from many, many years ago, so I expected the series to end after that. This is a “standalone” installment where she spends the summer at a camp where infamous murders happened in the 1970s, in an attempt to solve it too. I could easily read a hundred books, Nancy Drew-style, where Stevie just goes around and solves mysteries everywhere. I liked that this crime happened in the 1970s so there were actually people in the town who were alive and/or involved with what happened back then. (I’ll also say that the 70s-based mystery involved a lot of Led Zeppelin references, which is always welcome for me.) The Ellingham mysteries were so long ago that she couldn’t rely on any actual witnesses or people from that time period. I love that this took place in a small Berkshires town in MA because I could completely picture it. It was nice to have her friends at the summer camp too because this felt like a continuation of the Ellingham series while also managing to be a standalone story. Good references to the past but not a ton (thank god because my memory for the rest of the series is terrible). This one was so twisty – I truly don’t think anyone could figure out the mystery in […]

Review Round Up | Finlay Donovan is Killing It, The Girls Are All So Nice Here, and The Ex-Talk

Posted May 21, 2021 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! This was so fun and refreshing – exactly what I needed! I’ve been intrigued by the cozy mystery genre, or at least “lighter” mysteries that focus heavily on the amateur sleuth and her personal life, but none have fully hit the mark. They’ve either been not-good in a compulsively readable way, or just straight-up not great in general. This one hit the mark for me in so many ways. Finlay is a struggling romantic suspense author and she finds herself caught up in a murder mystery, along with her babysitter-turned-roommate, Vero. They have a fun relationship – I loved how quickly Vero worked with Finlay to figure out what was happening, even getting involved with some extremely elicit activities. Like many mysteries like this, the crime/murder is a main point of the book, but you learn even more about the main character and their personal life as they try to figure out what’s going on. Finlay is dealing with her shitty ex-husband and his new perfect fiance while trying to be a single working mom of two cute kids. I enjoyed seeing how she attempted to balance it all and how Vero stepped in to help her… in more ways than one. I won’t spoil too much […]

Review Round Up | Influence, This is Not the Jess Show, and Girls With Rebel Souls

Posted April 7, 2021 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! All Sara Shepard books are the same… and I mean that as a compliment. I know what I’m getting into and her books always hit the spot. They’re so easy to read, are super addicting, and always have a surprising ending. That’s all I ask for with my mystery/thrillers, to be honest, and reading her books feels like coming home for me. I remember the good ol’ PLL days and some of her older series. So good, so classic. This one involves influencers – a topic I personally haven’t encountered much in YA books yet. Just a little bit here and there. It goes between Delilah, Jasmine, and Fiona, with flickers of Scarlet’s live streams and vlog transcripts in between as well. Delilah just moved to LA and is a budding influencer after saving a puppy from a burning shed. Jasmine and Fiona are well-established influencers hiding major secrets, both trying to break out of their shells. I liked each of the points of view here but Delilah’s felt a bit young compared to the other two. Of course, because it’s Sara Shepard, there’s a mystery involved. The book starts with a prologue where one of the girls (we assume one of the MCs) ends up dying […]

ARC Reviews: The Project and A Pho Love Story

Posted March 3, 2021 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I really loved SADIE – it was the kind of addicting read I’m always looking for when it comes to mystery/thrillers. It stuck with me for a long time after reading too. I’ve only read a few (at most) cult-related books so I was intrigued by THE PROJECT. Lo’s parents died in a car accident (she survived) and her sister joined The Unity Project, a group in New York that pretty much screams “cult” to everyone outside it, so she’s been alone for a number of years when the book begins. The story goes back and forth between her POV in present day and Bea’s (her sister) in the past as she is getting deeper in the Project. I enjoyed reading about how Lo tried to make a life for herself, as imperfect or sad as it was, and her time investigating the Project. It took me a really long time to get into this one. It was interesting for the most part but I knew exactly where it was headed. Too many reviews or summaries said the ending was “unexpected” so I kind of knew where it was probably going as a result. I kept mixing up the two characters names in my head and it went back and forth between them, which didn’t help me. While I liked the book overall, it won’t stick with me like SADIE did. I wish I didn’t see parts of the ending coming because I do think it impacted my reading. I […]

Review Round Up | Behind the Red Door, The Wife Upstairs, and The Cousins

Posted February 10, 2021 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 2 Comments

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I met Megan Collins at a book signing/talk when she released THE WINTER SISTER. I didn’t love that book but did enjoy her writing style. Collins is a local Connecticut author who teaches creative writing at the college Chris went to for a bit. I’ll always read and support her books for these reasons! However, this one was definitely a bit disappointing for me. Fern is headed to help her terrible father pack up his house so he can move to Florida. As a character, I enjoyed reading about her – she has major anxiety, has an amazing and thoughtful husband, and works as a social worker. When she and her husband see that Astrid Sullivan, a girl who went missing and returned somewhat unharmed as a child, has gone missing again, Fern feels like she knows her somehow. But how? She starts to find out bits of information from her past, as well as a shared history or common locations with Astrid, when she’s at home with her dad in New Hampshire. There are a ton of suspicious people and red herrings all around New Hampshire and Maine that Collins brings in to divert the reader. There are a lot of times where I SAY that […]