On A Quiet Street by Seraphina Nova Glass

On A Quiet Street by Seraphina Nova Glass

Published by Grayson House ISBN 9781525899751

Trade paperback, $16.99, 320 pages

Sometimes you read a book that takes a while to catch your interest, sometimes a book grabs you right away and doesn’t let go. Seraphina Nova Glass’ new novel, On A Quiet Street, took a hold of me on page one and never let up.

The story follows three women who live in a quiet, wealthy enclave called Brighton Hills on the Oregon coast. Paige is mourning the hit and run death of her 22 year-old son Caleb, who was killed near their home. His mother has made it her mission to discover which one of her neighbors killed her son and left him for dead. She is a regular visitor to the police department, and has narrowed her list of suspects. Her husband Grant has moved out, but he still loves his wife dearly.

Cora is married to  Finn, mom to two teens, and spends much of her time doing various charitable works. She doesn’t trust her husband, believing that Finn is once again cheating on her. Finn tells Cora that she is crazy to think he is not loyal to her, and he is tired of the accusations.

Paige offers to use her newfound sleuthing skills to help Cora get the evidence she needs to prove that Finn is a liar and cheat. Fed up, Cora takes Paige up on her offer.

Georgia is married to Lucas, a well-respected judge in the community. She spends all her time caring for their baby Avery, and is rarely seen outside of the home. Cora has tried several times to befriend Georgia, only to be rebuffed. Lucas has told people that Georgia has mental health issues and is agoraphobic, but Cora thinks there is something more.

As the lives of these three women are about to collide, will they find the answers to their problems?  I raced through On A Quiet Street, and couldn’t put this book down. Seraphina Nova Glass ratchets up the suspense in this well-crafted novel, and although as she ties up the loose ends a bit too tidy, overall this is a psychological suspense novel I would recommend. If you were a Desperate Housewives fan back a few years ago, this one is for you. 

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on their Summer Mystery/Thriller Blog Tour. 

The Happiness Thief by Nicole Bokat

The Happiness Thief by Nicole Bokat

Published by She Writes Press ISBN 9781647420574

Trade paperback, $16.95, 280 pages

How can you resist a book that opens with "I think I killed my mother."? Nicole Bokat's novel The Happiness Thief begins with that intriguing sentence that encourages the reader to discover why Natalie would think that.

When Natalie was thirteen, she was in a car accident that killed her mother. Natalie suffered a serious brain trauma, and she can't remember exactly what happened, except that she fears that she shined her flashlight in her mother's eyes and that is what caused the accident.

Natalie is with her stepsister Isabel on a Caribbean island where Isabel is speaking at a Happiness Conference.  Isabel is a self-help guru (think Glennon Doyle or Brene Brown) who is trying to build her brand after writing a successful book, and working to finish a second book. People surround Isabel at the conference, wanting any piece of her and her advice that she can give them.

"Isabel was the powerhouse and the bulwark, while Natalie was the sensitive one" in the family. Natalie's husband recently left her and their teenage daughter Hadley for a younger colleague. The dissolution of her marriage has left Natalie depressed, and this trip is supposed to cheer her up.

While driving on the island at night, a car follows them and shines highbeams at them. Natalie is driving and hits something in the road, leaving blood on the bumper. She panics, and flashes back to the accident that killed her mother. Isabel and the man in the car behind them get out and look for what was probably an animal, but Natalie is convinced it was a person.

When they return home to Boston, Natalie receives an email from somone who says he knows that she hit someone on that road. Even though Isabel does her best to prove Natalie that she didn't hit a person, Natalie is not convinced.

There are two mysteries here- was Natalie responsible for her mother's death and did she hit someone on the island? I didn't find myself as invested in the mysteries as I did with Natalie's home life. The relationship between Natalie and her daughter Hadley was the strongest part of the book, that felt true and honest.

I found it difficult at first to keep track of the family situation- Isabel's mom (deceased), Natalie's mom, Natalie's dad who died when she was young, her stepfather who is Isabel's father. It took awhile to get it straight. 

There are a lot of moving parts in this story, this is the kind of book you have to pay close attention to when you're reading. If psychological suspense and family drama is something you enjoy in a book, The Happiness Thief will quench your thirst.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Nicole Bokat's tour. The rest of the stops are here:

Review Stops

Friday, June 4th: Instagram: @readyourworriesaway

Saturday, June 5th: bookchickdi

Monday, June 7th: Books and Bindings

Tuesday, June 8th: Stranded in Chaos

Wednesday, June 9th: Write – Read – Life

Thursday, June 10th: Instagram: @whatalyssareads

Friday, June 11th: Instagram: @berittalksbooks

Monday, June 14th: 5 Minutes For Books

Tuesday, June 15th: Instagram: @babygotbooks4life

Wednesday, June 16th: Instagram: @sealedwithabook

TBD: Wednesday, June 2nd: Live, Read, and Prosper

TBD: Thursday, June 3rd: What Is That Book About

The Other Mother by Carol Goodman

The Other Mother by Carol Goodman
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062562647
Trade paperback, $15.99, 336 pages

Carol Goodman writes mysteries usually set in the Catskill Mountain/Hudson Valley area of New York State, where she resides and where my husband grew up. It's a unique setting, where she paints a picture of spookiness and dread amid the beautiful mountains and valley.

In her latest novel, The Other Mother, before the story begins, we know that it will be about a woman who is diagnosed with Postpartum Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which means that she will have thoughts about harming her child. The reader is uncomfortable right away.

As the story begins, Daphne Marist has taken her baby daughter Chloe and is hiding from her husband. Is she a victim of domestic violence? Daphne has taken a job as an archivist for Schuyler Bennett,  who happens to be Daphne's favorite author. When Schuyler greets Daphne, she calls her Laurel. Why?

From Daphne's journal entries, we discover that Laurel is her best friend from a mommy support group. Laurel also has a young daughter named Chloe, and Laurel helps bring Daphne out her shell. She spruces Daphne up, getting her new clothes and a new haircut, similar to Laurel's. She even finds her a babysitter so that the two ladies can go to yoga class.

The women bond over their children and the fact that they both lost their parents at a young age. They both have degrees in library science  (and Laurel is an archivist as well) and Laurel says that it's because they "both wanted to put the world in order after it had fallen to pieces."

The story goes back and forth from Daphne's journal entries to her new job with Schuyler. Schuyler lives in a old stone home, replete with a tower, on the grounds of a psychiatric hospital that her father, a reknowned psychiatrist, founded.

Daphne becomes intrigued by a patient whom Schuyler's father treated, who many years ago left her baby in a dumpster at college and has lived at the hospital ever since. But Daphne's interest in this woman draws the attention of a doctor, and that causes trouble.

As the story progresses, we find out why Daphne is using Laurel's name. We also get journal entries written by Laurel that give us a surprising new perspective on Laurel's life. No one and nothing is as it seems in this spooky novel.

The Other Mother reminds me of those trippy 1970's made-for-television movies that would star Linda Blair or Kim Darby as a woman in jeopardy. A woman would be made to believe that she was going crazy by people around her to hide a sinister plot. It definitely has that 1970's vibe for me, and if you spent your Friday nights watching those movies, The Other Mother is for you.

I have to admit that I found the ending a little contrived, I'm not sure I buy the way it all tied together. But the women's stories of their postpartum issues were very real and emotional, and I think any mother will feel for Daphne and Laurel and their struggles.

Carol Goodman's website can be found here.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Carol Goodman's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Tour Stops

Tuesday, March 27th: Into the Hall of Books

Wednesday, March 28th: Write – Read – Life

Thursday, March 29th: The Book Diva’s Reads

Friday, March 30th: bookchickdi

Monday, April 2nd: Jessicamap Reviews

Tuesday, April 3rd: 5 Minutes For Books

Wednesday, April 4th: A Splendid Messy Life

Thursday, April 5th: Doing Dewey

Monday, April 9th: Caryn, The Book Whisperer

Tuesday, April 10th: Tina Says…

Tuesday, April 10th: Novel Gossip

Thursday, April 12th: A Bookish Way of Life

The Woman In the Window by A.J. Finn

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062678416

Hardcover, $26.99, 448 pages

In A.J. Finn's spine-tingling debut psychological thriller The Women in The Window, Anna Fox sits in the window of her Harlem townhouse watching her neighbors. We learn that she is an agoraphobic and hasn't left her home in ten months. Her husband Ed and eight-year-old daughter Olivia no longer live with her after an incident that has been hinted at, but Anna remains in contact with them.

She rents out the basement of her home to David, a young man who helps around the house in exchange for reduced rent, and Anna gets her groceries delivered by Fresh Direct, and her many medications delivered by the pharmacy. As long as they keep bringing her meds and cases of Merlot, Anna can make it through the day (usually drunk).

She plays chess online (and usually wins) and dispenses advice on an agoraphobic message board. For entertainment, Anna watches old black and white movies, heavy on the Hitchcock thrillers. 

Anna has little physical contact with the outside world until the day a new family moves into the neighborhood- a husband, wife and teenage son. Anna can see inside their home and becomes fascinated by them, even more so when the son and mother stop by separately to see her.

Like Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock's "Rear Window", Anna witnesses something amiss at the new neighbors and is drawn into a situation she is unequipped to handle.

The Woman in the Window is a pulse-pounding, heart-stopper of a book. Like blockbusters Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, our protagonist is unreliable. Anna is drunk much of the time, and so what she tells the reader cannot be trusted. The addition of her agoraphobia heightens the tension of the story, and Finn does such a great job making the reader feel the anxiety of her illness.

Finn also unspools important information about Anna a little bit at a time, so that reading The Woman in the Window is like putting together pieces of a puzzle. We learn how Anna got to be where she is, and although the reader may guess a few of the mysteries, the last few chapters of this fast-paced story surprised me, and at one point I actually gasped aloud.

The Woman in the Window is sure to be a bestseller, and fans of both Alfred Hitchcock movies and Agatha Christie novels will be love it.  I liked it better than Gone Girl and The Girl On The Train. I heard all about this book last spring at the Book Expo, and you'll be hearing a lot about it in 2018. It definitely lives up to the hype, and I read it in one sitting, unwilling to put it down.

What Strange Creatures by Emily Arsenault

What Strange Creatures by Emily Arsenault
Published by William Morrow ISBN 978-0-06-228324-5
Trade paperbacks, $14.99, 368 pages

What drew me to Emily Arsenault's book was that it revolved around an adult brother-sister relationship. That's not something you see all that frequently; there are many books with sisters' stories- Lisa See's Shanghai Girls, John Searles' Help For The Haunted and Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women to name a few- but stories featuring brother-sister relationships are not as numerous.

Arsenault's book pulled me in from it's opening line: "What are you supposed to do on the second night your brother is in jail on a murder charge?" Like Searles' brilliant novel, What Strange Creatures successfully combines a murder mystery with a family character study that makes your heart ache for the people involved.

Theresa Battles is a thirty-something divorced woman who has been working for seven long years on her doctoral thesis about Margery Kempe, who is credited with writing the first autobiography in the English language. Kempe was a religious pilgrim, who had visions and believed that Jesus spoke to her. She was not a popular woman in her community, as her wailing and crying disturbed the neighbors.

Theresa's brother Jeff is one year older than her and he's "supposed to be some kind of genius." Theresa believes that "while Jeff has many enviable skills- creativity, origami skill, loyalty, and superfast metabolism", she has never thought him a genius.

Jeff drove a school bus for awhile, and then an ice cream truck. Now he was unemployed and spent his days drinking and his nights at Theresa's, hoping she has leftover takeout in her fridge. He finally has a girlfriend, Kim, who leaves home to visit her sister one weekend and never returns.

Kim's body is found in a wooded area. A screwdriver with her blood on it is found in Jeff's car trunk and he is arrested for her murder. Theresa doesn't believe her brother is capable of killing Kim, and sets out to find the real murderer.

Jeff seems to to think there is nothing he can do to help his situation. He lets things happen to him, instead of making things happen for him. Their last name "Battles" is ironic here; Jeff does nothing to fight for himself. He just wallows in his defeatist attitude about his life.

Theresa says of their family dynamic:

"Driving home, I considered the concept of enabler. It was something I'd been thinking about a lot lately. I never meant to be one, you see. I've noticed there is little sympathy out there for enablers. Not that there should be a great deal, but this is something I wish people understood: It's a role that sneaks up on you."

and

"If we were a family that talked directly about feelings or worries or troubling behaviors or anything at all, really, this would perhaps have been when we talked about it. But we don't, so we didn't. That's how it sneaks up on you, see?"

When Jeff is arrested, Theresa says "We're used to disappointment." They believe their family motto should be "We're Battles. What chance did we have?" Their propensity to believe that bad things will happen to them is maddening and sad. We never discover where exactly this attitude comes from, and I was pleased not to find some deep, dark secret behind it. They are the way they are, and though their divorced parents can be difficult to deal with, they are no more difficult than anybody else's parents.

They mystery of who killed Kim is satisfying and a careful reader may pick up on clues to the conclusion, although there is no shortage of suspects. Theresa gets herself into some tight spots trying to save her brother, and the sense of dread and panic builds as the story goes along.

 The title What Strange Creatures comes from a Jane Austen quote in Mansfield Park- "What strange creatures brothers are!" This is an astute, sharp psychological mystery that captured me from the opening line and didn't let go until the very end. The brother-sister dynamic is so heartfelt and realistic, I felt like I probably knew Jeff and Theresa Battles somewhere along the way.

rating 5 of 5

Emily Arsenault's website is here.
My review of John Searles' Help For The Haunted is here.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Emily Arsenault's tour. The rest of Emily's stops are here.

Emily’s Tour Stops

Tuesday, July 22nd: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Wednesday, July 23rd: Booksie’s Blog

Thursday, July 24th: Kritters Ramblings

Monday, July 28th: From the TBR Pile

Tuesday, July 29th: BoundbyWords

Wednesday, July 30th: Book-alicious Mama

Thursday, July 31st: Vox Libris

Monday, August 4th: bookchickdi

Wednesday, August 6th: Sara’s Organized Chaos

Thursday, August 7th: Book of Secrets