The Weekend Retreat by Tara Laskowski

The Weekend Retreat by Tara Laskowski

Published by Graydon House ISBN 9781525811456

Trade paperback, $18.99, 352 pages

Tara Laskowski's newest novel, The Weekend Retreat, appealed to me because of the setting of a family winery in the Finger Lakes region. (I grew up in the Finger Lakes region and I love a good winery.)

The novel takes place during the wealthy Van Ness family's annual birthday celebration for Richard and his twin sister Harper, along with their spouses and younger brother Zach who is bringing along his new girlfriend whom no one has yet met.

The recent death of the Van Ness matriarch looms large over the gathering. She was tough-bordering-on-emotionally abusive on all her children, especially her daughter Harper. Richard's wife Elle has taken over the reigns planning the perfect birthday weekend retreat, one that would please her mother-in-law.

Things turn ugly as everyone turns on each other and someone on the outside of this heavily secured fortress has designs on getting revenge on the family- but why? Everyone has secrets they are hiding, secrets that can destroy the family. When a torrential rainstorm plunges the estate in darkness something deadly this way comes.

The Weekend Retreat has a real Succession vibe as the characters are generally unlikeable rich people with a parent who treated them cruelly at times. (The rich- they're like us. Not really.) There are lots of twists, some you'll see coming, some that will take you by surprise. The book has been called "Succession meets Agatha Christie" and that is an apt description. It's a good book to read on a rainy weekend curled up under a blanket with a cold glass of Riesling.

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on their Fall 2023 Blog Tour. 

In A Quiet Town by Amber Garza

In A Quiet Town by Amber Garza

Published by MIRA ISBN 9780778334255

Trade paperback, $18.99, 336 pages

In Amber Garza's new suspense novel In A Quiet Town, Tatum is a pastor's wife who has begun to question her direction in life.

Her pastor husband is consumed with his job and her every move in their small Californian town is monitored closely the members of his congregation. Their adult daughter Adrienne is estranged from them, something that troubles Tatum. Adrienne struggled under the overly strict rules of her father and moved out.

Tatum has begun to secretly visit Adrienne's place of work, a bar just outside town. She goes every Wednesday when Adrienne is working, and it appears that her efforts are being rewarded. At first wary of her mother, lately Adrienne has been friendlier to her mother, and even agrred to an appointment for a mother-daughter mani-pedi day.

When Adrienne fails to show up for work and misses her appointment with her mother, Tatum becomes worried. She goes to Adrienne's empty apartment, and her texts are unanswered. Convinced that something bad happened to Adrienne, she goes to the police who, after a cursory look around, decide that Adrienne probably just went away with a boyfriend.

Tatum's concerns grow when she notices a man following her. She confronts the man who says that he is  Adrienne's fiance Seth, and he too is worried that something happened to Adrienne. They were to go away for a weekend trip and she didn't show up. They team up to find her.

What happened to Adrienne? And why doesn't anyone know about Seth, Adrienne's coworkers or her best friend Mara? 

In A Quiet Town is a twisty suspense story, told from the viewpoints of Tatum, Adrienne, and her fiance. There is a a big twist at the end, and while I found parts of the ending a little too unbelievable, you can't deny that a mother will find the strength do anything for her child.

Tatum suffers from a medical issue that her husband seems to have no patience or understanding for, and I think many people will be able to relate to that. Readers of John Searles' recent pyschological suspense novel, Her Last Affair, and fans of Dateline and 20/20 will want to put In a Quiet Town on their list to read.

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on their 2023 Summer Blog Tours.

My review of Amber Garza's Where I Left Her is here.

My review of Amber Garza's When I Was You is here.

It's One of Us by J.T. Ellison

It's One of Us by J.T. Ellison

Published by MIRA ISBN 9780778311768

Hardcover, $27.99, 400 pages

I've read two novels recently that had unique premises- the first was Kylie Scott's romance End of Story (my review here) and the second is J.T. Ellison 's twisty suspense novel It's One of Us. 

Interior designer to the wealthy Olivia and her husband Park have been trying for a long time to have a baby. Their IVF treatments have led to pregnancies, but Olivia has miscarried several times. On the day of her most recent miscarriage, the police come to their door saying that Park's DNA has been found on the body of a local woman who was found murdered at the bottom of a lake.

The police tell Park and Olivia that they believe Park is the father of the person who killed the woman. Since she and Park have no children, Olivia believes there has been a mistake. Park then tells Olivia that while in college he donated to a sperm bank, which shocks and upsets Olivia.

Although Park was told his sperm would be only used ten times, there is a Facebook group of 28 young people who have all used an ancestry website to discover that Park is their father. One of these people could be the killer. As the police investigate, a man harasses Olivia at one of her job sites. Will she be the killer's next victim?

There are a lot of secrets being kept from everyone in this twisty story. Olivia is keeping a secret about Park's twin brother from Park. When the police discover that Park's college girlfriend was found dead at the bottom of a lake years ago, the press become relentless, staking out Park and Olivia's home.

A careful reader might be able to guess at the identity of the killer, but there are many red herrings in the novel that take the reader in different directions. The few twists at the end seem to come out of left field, and the final twist I found too unbelievable. 

It's One of Us has a fascinating premise, and people who enjoy shows like Dateline and suspense movies on Lifetime will definitely want to read this one.

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on their Winter 2023 Mystery/Thriller Blog Tours.

The Girl From Guernica by Karen Robards

The Girl From Guernica by Karen Robards

Published by MIRA ISBN 9780778309963

Hardcover, $27.99, 464 pages

Karen Robards’ riveting new historical novel, The Girl From Guernica, takes the reader inside the horror of the Spanish civil war in April 1937 when the residents of the small town of Guernica in Spain are terrorized by an air raid that drops bombs on the city setting it ablaze. Residents who try to flee are shot dead in the streets.

Sixteen year old Sibi wakes up trapped under the rubble of a building and is rescued by  Griff, an American military attaché . Sibi tells Griff that the planes were German planes, a fact she knows because her German father helped design them.  When Sibi tells a reporter the same thing, that the planes were German not Spanish as thought, that leads to trouble for Sibi.

Sibi’s father comes to Spain to take her and her sisters back to their home in Berlin where he continues his work on rockets. When the Nazi leaders read the reporter’s account of German planes bombing Guernica, suspicion falls on Sibi as the person who spoke to the reporter.

In order to save her family, Sibi lies and becomes a tool of propaganda for the Nazis. She is forced to speak to reporters and make filmed statements stating that it was Spanish planes who reigned terror on their own countrymen. 

When Griff reconnects with Sibi, she offers to spy on her father and his colleagues for the Allies. Griff reluctantly agrees, knowing that Sibi will be putting her life in danger, but as Sibi says, her life is already in danger.

The Girl From Guernica is a riveting, thrilling novel. Robards doesn’t let up on the tension from the horror of the bombing of Guernica to Sibi’s meetings with Nazi leaders to her attempts to get information to Griff to the suspenseful conclusion, and my heart was in my throat the entire time. 

As someone who knew little about Guernica outside of the famous Pablo Picasso painting of the same name, I found the premise of the story fascinating. Sibi and her family are characters that work their way into your heart as you root for them to survive “by whatever means necessary.” Fans of WWII historical fiction like The Nightingale and All The World You Cannot See  will want to put The Girl From Guernica on their TBR list.

Thanks to Harlequin Books for putting me on their Fall 2022 Historical Fiction Blog Tour.

The Lying Club by Annie Ward

The Lying Club by Annie Ward

Published by Park Row Books ISBN 9780778389408

Trade paperback, $16.99, 432 pages

Annie Ward's new novel The Lying Club opens with Natalie waking up from a blacked-out state clutching a man's necktie and seeing a dead body lying in a puddle of blood on the school gym floor. What did she do now? What did she do now- how can you resist reading on to find out? (And what did she do before?)

Natalie is a young woman working as an adminstrative assistant at a tony private school in Colorado. She helps to care for her brother who is recovering from an injury, and spends her free time selling her art on Etsy and showing up at open houses for homes she can't afford to check out the expensive art in them.

Asha is the realtor at the open houses, and her teenage daughter Mia and younger son Oliver attend the private school where Natalie works. Mia is a talented lacrosse player, and is often pitted against Sloane, another excellent lacrosse player. Sloane's mother Brooke is one of those moms who believes her daughter is headed to a Division 1 lacrosse scholarship and will make sure nothing or no one gets in the way of that.

Popular and charismatic lacrosse coach Nick McIntyre has connections with college coaches and he believes he can help both girls get into the best schools, but that will require dedication and hours of private coaching that cost lots of money. Brooke is totally onboard, Asha wants that if Mia truly wants it. Mia's father does not believe Mia wants to do it.

The book moves back and forth between a police interrogation and the events leading up to the dead body on the gym floor. The reader will recognize the character types in this propulsive story- the young woman who wants what she sees the wealthy women have, the moms with too much free time on their hands, too much money and are too invested in their children's identities as a reflection of themselves, the coach who lords his power over a community who value sports too highly.

Parents of teenagers will cringe at some of the dangerous things these teenagers do, unable to realize the consequences of their actions. The rivalry between parents is also something many people may recognize, perhaps unfortunately in themselves. 

 Reading The Lying Club will appeal to people who enjoy putting together the pieces of a puzzle. Annie Ward turns up the tension with each turn of the page until the explosive conclusion. Fans of Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies have found themselves a new author.

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on their Winter Reads 2022 Blog Tours.

The Night She Went Missing by Kristen Bird

The Night She Went Missing by Kristen Bird

Published by MIRA ISBN 9780778332101

Trade paperback, $16.99, 352 pages

In the prologue to Kristen Bird's intense suspense novel The Night She Went Missing, Emily is found face up in the water of the harbor. Who is she and how did she get there?

Emily is the teenage daughter of Carter and Catherine, who recently moved from their home in Oregon to Carter's hometown, the island of Galveston, Texas. The family moved because Catherine did something scandalous and it was thought best to make a fresh start.

Carter's imperious mother Rosalyn is the grand dame of Galveston. She pretty much owns the island, no one, not even the sheriff, does anything without her permission. Rosalyn is thrilled to have her son back home, and she attempts to bring Catherine into Galveston society whether she wants it or not.

Emily is angry she had to leave all her friends and school behind because of her mother. Many of the students at her new school resent her, including Anna, the reigning Queen Bee at school. Anna's former boyfriend Alex, the star athlete, is attracted to Emily and they become friends. 

Alex was accused a few years ago of sexually assaulting a female student, something he vehemently denied, and while he was cleared of the charges, there is still a cloud of suspicion surrounding him. When Emily disappears after a gathering where Alex was with her, once again people believe he was involved- even his mother Morgan has her doubts about him.

Much of the book takes place during the ten weeks that Emily was missing. Carter and Catherine are beside themselves, Emily's twin little sisters are distraught, and Rosalyn is determined to turn over every stone to find her granddaughter.

Emily's car was found by the gulf, with her keys and cell phone inside, but no sign of her. After an exhaustive search, the pervailing belief was that Emily drowned, but Catherine will not give up hope that Emily is alive.

We meet the people of this insular community- Anna's mother Leslie, who is Rosalyn's right-hand woman, always there to organize school functions and push her daughter to be number one. Alex's mother Morgan is divorced and her doubts about her son eat away at her. Robert Steele is the handsome, hardworking doctor who supports his widowed sister-in-law Leslie after his brother died, and he dates Morgan.

After Emily is found, the next step is to discover where she was all this time. Anyone who is a careful reader of suspense novels will probably be able to guess who is responsible for Emily's disappearance even though the author throws in some red herrings, but you may have to suspend disbelief for some of the other plot revelations. 

 I found Catherine's scandal back home an interesting twist, it's unusual to have such a big character flaw in a protagonist. Emily's ability to hold her faith as well as her belief in science shows a mature intellectual capability which is refreshing. The island community of Gavelston was also a unique setting, I can't remember reading a novel set there. Fans of J.T. Ellison will enjoy this one.

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on Kristen Bird's tour.

Woman Last Seen by Adele Parks

Woman Last Seen by Adele Parks

Published by MIRA, ISBN 9780778312048

Trade paperback, $16.99, 384 pages

Much like her last novel, Just My Luck, Adele Parks latest novel, Woman Last Seen, has twists and turns that the reader may not see coming, even if she is an experienced domestic suspense novel reader.

Leigh is a young woman who sees a handsome man with his young sons at a park. When the younger son falls off a slide, Leigh rushes to his aid when it appears the father is unable to render help. Leigh accompanies the family to the hospital and soon she and Mark, the father, begin dating.

Flash forward, Leigh and Mark have been married for years, and Leigh is a loving stepmum to the two boys. She works out of town three days a week, returning for four days to care for her family. They have a comfortable, happy family life until the older son, Oli, has become surly and angry with Leigh. Is it just typical teenage behavior or something more?

After Mark and Leigh have a fight, she heads off out of town for work. When she doesn't return on Thursday, and the family can't reach her by phone, they call the police. DCI Clements and her eager partner come to investigate, but get nowhere.

Soon another man, a wealthy Dutch businessman living in London, calls the police to say that his wife Kai has disappeared. DCI Clements handles this case as well, and begins to believe that there may be a connection with Leigh's disappearance, although her boss thinks both women just ran away from their lives, and tells Clements not to waste any more time.

The reader is drawn into this mystery of the two missing women- is there a connection?  Both women have secrets they are keeping from the their husbands- is that the connection? The police usually suspect the husband, did either of these men have anything to do with their missing wives either separately or together?

As the story unfolds, there are several red herrings, and the reader will try and put the pieces together even after a big twist in the middle of the story, and a surprise ending that some may find jarring. If you're a fan of the shows on the ID Channel, or a dedicated Dateline watcher, Woman Last Seen is a page-turner of a novel that you will find irresistable. (Note- contains graphic sex scenes and explicit language.)

Thanks to Harlequin Books for putting me on their Winter 2022 Winter Reads  Blog Tour.

The Better Sister by Alafair Burke

The Better Sister by Alafair Burke
Published by Harper Books, ISBN 9780062853370
Hardcover, $26.99, 320 pages

The Better Sister is the third book from Alafair Burke that is related thematically, although the characters are different in each book. The Ex deals with a lawyer called upon to defend her ex-boyfriend from a murder charge. The Wife features a woman whose high-profile professor/author husband is accused of preying sexually on young women. And in her latest, The Better Sister, a high-powered magazine editor finds her husband murdered in their  East Hampton vacation home.

Chloe worked her way up in publishing to become the editor-in-chief of the last successful feminist magazine standing. She married Adam, a former prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, now a lawyer in a white shoe firm. Adam was previously married to Chloe's older sister Nicky, who was always the wild-child bad sister to Chloe's rules-following, hard-working good sister.

One day Adam found Nicky floating facedown in their pool, with their toddler Ethan next to her. She had been drunk or on drugs (not unusual), and Adam divorced her and took Ethan to live in New York, where Chloe began to spend all her free time with them.

Adam and Chloe married, and Chloe became Ethan's defacto mom. Nicky was out of the picture, staying back home in Cleveland to care for their parents.

When Chloe finds Adam stabbed to death in their East Hampton home, she knows that the police will look hard at the spouse, they always do. She also has to contend with the fact that she is not legally Ethan's mother and has to contact Nicky, who soon shows up.

Chloe and Nicky revert back to their sibling relationship- Chloe is the responsible one, Nicky is the screw-up. But when the police turn their attention to Ethan as a probable suspect, Chloe and Nicky must make amends and decide to work together to prove Ethan innocent.

The Better Sister is a twisty, timely suspense story. Chloe is a women who is a prominent media person, and with that comes the trolls who send her hateful, even threatening, messages on social media. Chloe believes that perhaps one of them could be the killer.

Burke throws in a lot of red herrings, and she excels in letting the reader believe they may have solved the mystery, only to be surprised at the big reveal. Being a former prosecutor, she brings a sense of reality and tension to the courtroom scenes.

As the mother of two young men, I really felt such empathy for Chloe as a mother, trying to protect her son. I had a pit in my stomach during many scenes.

One thing you learn from The Better Sister is that secrets can destroy people, and I can only think that if they communicated better, some of their big problems could be avoided.

I read The Better Sister in one sitting, furiously turning the pages to find out who dunnit and why. I highly recommend it for anyone who likes a great suspense story.

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
Published by Doubleday ISBN 9780385542418
Hardcover, $26.95, 368 pages

One of the things I like best about author Chris Bohjalian is that every book he writes is so different from his last. He has written about a Vermont midwife accused of a terrible crime (Midwives), a young woman attacked while riding her bike (The Double Bind), an Italian family trapped in their villa in WWII (The Lights in the Ruins), a young American nurse who is witness to the Armenian genocide in 1915 (The Sandcastle Girls), and a man whose life intersects with a young woman caught up in sex trafficking when he hosts a bachelor party for his brother-in-law (The Guest Room), among many others.

His latest novel, The Flight Attendant, maybe his most topical yet. Cassie Bowden is a flight attendant who spends her time-off  getting blackout drunk and waking up in the bed of an unfamiliar man. She doesn't see this as a problem, she likes to drink and have fun.

Until the morning she wakes up in Dubai, in the bed of Alex Sokolov, a handsome hedge fund manager who grew up in Virginia and now lives in New York City. They struck up a conversation as she worked first class on the plane, and then met for dinner and went back to his hotel room, where they drank a lot of vodka and had sex.

She was nauseous and hungover and when she turned to look at Alex, his throat was slit from one end to the other. After monmentarily panicking, Cassie carefully showered the blood off herself, and wondered if she had killed Alex. She had done dumb things while drunk, but she was never violent.

She wiped her fingerprints off anything she touched and hightailed it back to her hotel, dressed and headed to the airport for her flight back to the United States. If needed, she'd call a lawyer from the US, but after what happened to Amanda Knox in Italy, calling the police in Dubai did not seem wise.

Cassie remembered that a woman, Miranda, a work acquaintance of Alex's, stopped by his hotel room and they all drank vodka while they talked business. Did she have anything to do with Alex's murder?

But Miranda is not her name. Her name is Elena and she is a Russian assassin tasked with killing Alex because he stole money from his investors, Russian oligarchs, which was not a good idea.

The Flight Attendant is a cat-and-mouse game as Cassie tries to figure out who killed Alex while evading the police investigation into his death and Elena is monitoring the investigation and Cassie, hoping she doesn't have to kill Cassie too.

As a big fan of FX television's The Americans, which is sadly winding up this spring (noooo!), I found The Flight Attendant a great companion to that. And with Russian meddling in our elections all over the news, it is the right time for this fast-paced novel with a surprise ending that will have you shaking your head in disbelief as Bohjalian pulls one over on the reader. I had to go back twice to say "What just happened????"

It is a crazy, suspenseful ride, and one well worth taking. Chris Bohjalian does it again.

Best Friends Forever by Margot Hunt

Best Friends Forever by Margot Hunt
Published by Mira ISBN 9780778331131
Hardcover, $26.99, 384 pages

Sometimes you pair the perfect book with the perfect place to read that book. Last month I was lucky enough to have a few hours to sit on a warm Florida beach and soak up the sun, so I brought along a new book to read- Margot Hunt's Best Friends Forever. Three hours later, I finally looked up and took a breath, having finished the book. (Thank goodness I used plenty of sunscreen.)

Alice Campbell is making breakfast, getting her son and daughter ready for school, when two policemen ring her doorbell. They have questions for Alice about the death of her friend Kat's husband, Howard.

Howard had fallen to his death from the balcony of his and Kat's mansion. Everyone assumed it was a drunken accident, until the police came knocking. They asked Alice to come down to the station to talk about Kat and Howard.

Kat came from a wealthy family, and owned an art gallery on Worth Avenue, a fancy shopping district in West Palm Beach, Florida. Alice met Kat at JFK airport where she was waiting out a delayed flight to their new home in Jupiter. Kat bought Alice a martini and they bonded.

They became fast friends, even though their economic circumstances weren't exactly compatible. Alice and her husband Todd disliked Howard upon first meeting him. He was obnoxious, and  condescending and rude to his wife in front them. 

The story jumps back and forth in time, from the present, with Kat refusing to answer any of Alice's texts or phone calls, to three years before when the ladies meet and begin spending all their free time together, even taking girls' weekend vacations together on Kat's dime.

Todd and Alice run into financial troubles and Kat helps them out. Then Kat confides in Alice that Howard is physically abusive to her, in addition to the emotional abuse that Alice has witnessed.

As the police investigation proceeds, it is clear that Alice doesn't know everything about her best friend Kat. The suspense builds quickly as the police decide that Alice knows more than she has told them, and she has to use her wits to figure what happened before it's too late for her.

Best Friends Forever is a terrific suspense novel, one that fans of Liane Moriarty's Big Little Lies will really enjoy. Like Moriarty, Hunt punctuates the day-to-day domestic life with a puzzle of a mystery to be solved. Also like Moriarty, Hunt sprinkles in a few clues that clever readers may be able to pick up on that help solve the mystery, and even though I thought I knew where it was going, the ending still caused me to gasp out loud. Suspense lovers should put Best Friends Forever on their TBR list, maybe for a long airplane trip. It will make the time fly by. (Just be careful who you talk to at the airport.)

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

Review Tour for BEST FRIENDS FOREVER:

Monday, January 22nd: Girls in Books blog and Instagram

Monday, January 22nd: Patricia’s Wisdom

Tuesday, January 23rd: The Literary Llama on Instagram

Wednesday, January 24th: Katy’s Library blog and Instagram

Thursday, January 25th: Clues and Reviews

Friday, January 26th: From the TBR Pile

Monday, January 29th: The Book Diva’s Reads

Tuesday, January 30th: LiteraryJo Reviews blog and Instagram

Wednesday, January 31st: Bibliotica

Thursday, February 1st: Books and Bindings

Friday, February 2nd: Chick Lit Central

Monday, February 5th: Caryn, The Book Whisperer

Tuesday, February 6th: Palmer’s Page Turners

Wednesday, February 7th: Girl Who Reads

Thursday, February 8th: A Holland Reads

Friday, February 9th: Thoughts from a Highly Caffeinated Mind and Instagram

Monday, February 12th: Novel Gossip blog and Instagram

Monday, February 12th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Wednesday, February 14th: A Chick Who Reads

Thursday, February 15th: Bookchickdi

Friday, February 16th: Thoughts on This ‘n That

The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel
Published by Crown ISBN 9781101906668
Hardcover, $25, 274 pages

It's interesting that I read two books set in Kansas back-to-back. One, To The Stars Through Difficulties by Romalyn Tilghman, (review to follow) is about a wonderful group of small-town Kansans who band together to help each other and their community in the aftermath of a tornado in a neighboring town.

The second book, Amy Engel's The Roanoke Girls, is also set in a small town in Kansas, but with a much darker tone. Teenage Lane Roanoke moves from New York City to her grandparents' farm in Kansas following the suicide of her mother.

Lane's mother was a very sad, disturbed woman and Lane is unsure about moving from the bustle of New York to a desolate town where she knows no one. Her concerns are eased immediately when her loving, charismatic, handsome grandfather Yates Roanoke warmly welcomes Lane, telling her how happy he is that she is coming to live with them.

Lane meets her cousin Allegra, who alternates between being thrilled to have another young person living in the home with her to anger and distrust of Lane. The farm is rounded out by their grandmother Lillian, who disappears after dinner to drink, Sharon, the housekeeper/cook who is fiercely loyal to Lillian, and Charlie, the farmhand who is always lurking about at the edges.

One of the first things Lane sees is a photograph of all the Roanoke women- Yates' sisters, and his daughters, all beautiful women who all either died young or ran away. Allegra's photo is there, with a space next to her for Lane's photo.

Lane and Allegra are teenage girls and they become involved with two boys from town, something that their grandparents actively discourage. Something is off about the Roanoke farm, but Lane can't quite put her finger on it.

Years pass, and Lane returns home because Allegra has disappeared. Lane is determined to find out what happened to her and to finally confront the secrets of why all of Roanoke women either left or died.

The Roanoke Girls has a very creepy Southern Gothic feel to it, even though it is set in Kansas. People who grew up on V.C. Andrews novels and TV's Law & Order:SVU will most likely be drawn to The Roanoke Girls. The story reminded me of Laura McHugh's powerful novel The Weight of Blood, and I was not surprised to see that she blurbed the back of the book.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Amy Engels' tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Amy Engel’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, March 6th: A Chick Who Reads

Tuesday, March 7th: Booksie’s Blog

Wednesday, March 8th: Bookchickdi

Thursday, March 9th: All Roads Lead to the Kitchen

Thursday, March 9th: Buried Under Books

Friday, March 10th: Not in Jersey

Monday, March 13th: Laura’s Reviews

Tuesday, March 14th: Sweet Southern Home

Wednesday, March 15th: Thoughts on This ‘n That

Thursday, March 16th: Books and Bindings

Friday, March 17th: Rebel Mommy Book Blog

Monday, March 20th: Fuelled by Fiction

Tuesday, March 21st: Kritter’s Ramblings

Tuesday, March 21st: SJ2B House of Books

Wednesday, March 22nd: Write Read Life

Thursday, March 23rd: Luxury Reading

Monday, March 27th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Tuesday, March 28th: A Fantastical Librarian

Wednesday, March 29th: Snowdrop Dreams of Books

Wednesday, March 29th: Patricia’s Wisdom

New in Paperback- The Passenger by Lisa Lutz

The Passenger by Lisa Lutz
Published by Simon & Schuster ISBN 978145686647
Trade paperback, 320 pages, $15.99

Lisa Lutz’s “Spellman Files” series is a comic look at a family of private investigators. Those light-hearted books are a world away from her latest, “The Passenger,” which begins with a woman on the run after her husband dies falling down the stairs. 

It is not the first time Tanya has been on the run. The story of her background slowly unfolds and she has to deal with someone from her past who wants to kill her. But why?

Tanya meets another mysterious woman named Blue, who also appears to be on the run, she claims from an abusive husband. The two reluctantly team up — but is one of them using the other to cover up another crime?

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“Tanya” ends up on the run again, taking different identities along the way. She moves from place to place, shedding her identity like a snake sheds its skin. She has to decide who she can trust, and just when Tanya decides she has had enough of life on the run, she returns home to face her past — and Blue is there, too.

“The Passenger” is a twisty, can’t-stop-turning-the-page thriller that will have the reader trying to figure out exactly what happened to start Tanya on this path and what kind of person she truly is. You have to ask yourself, “Would I go as far she did to save myself?”

The Perfect Girl by Gilly MacMillan

The Perfect Girl by Gilly Macmillan
Published by William Morrow Paperbacks ISBN 9780062476760
Trade paperback, $15.99, 464 pages

Author Gilly Macmillan follows up her 2015 gripping debut novel What She Knew, about a mom whose eight-year-old son vanishes, with another tense and topical suspense thriller, The Perfect Girl.

The Perfect Girl opens with 17-year-old Zoe Maisey and her stepbrother Lucas ready to perform a piano recital. Zoe's mom Maria and Lucas' dad Chris sit proudly in the front row, ready to hear their talented children play. Zoe then tells us that six hours later her mother will be dead.

Now that the author has your attention, we shift narrators to Sam, a solicitor whom we find is having an affair with Zoe's Aunt Tessa. Sam and Tessa met a few years prior, when Sam was Zoe's lawyer. When Zoe was 14 years-old, she was involved in a car accident that took the lives of three of her classmates, and Sam relates that part of the story to us.

We also get Tessa's point of view. Tessa loves her niece Zoe and sister Maria fiercely. She is having trouble in her marriage; she and her husband have been trying for years to conceive a child, and her husband has slid into alcoholism and depression.

The timeline shifts back and forth, but it is never confusing. The title refers to not only Zoe- who is trying her best to be the perfect girl her mother wants, but to Tessa, who has always been the perfect girl in her family, and Maria, a former wild child who, after Zoe's accident, has worked hard to be the perfect wife to Chris.

But what is the cost of trying for perfection? When Zoe was fourteen, she went to a party, had what she thought was one drink, hoping to get the attention of Jack, the guy every girl wanted. She thought she was using good judgement, but in trying to impress Jack a terrible tragedy occurs.

Maria changed her life when she married Chris. Her marriage to Zoe's husband broke up after Zoe's accident, and Maria rebuilt her life with Chris and his son Lucas. She designed the perfect life for her husband- they had the perfect house, she had a beautiful kitchen where she created wonderful meals for her husband. The cost of attempting perfection, especially for women, can be too much to pay.

So how did Maria end up dead? That is the ultimate mystery here, and you'll fly through the pages to find out the answer.

Reading The Perfect Girl put me in mind of HBO's series, The Night Of. A seemingly good kid makes a few bad decisions that leads to more trouble. There's also a lawyer's point of view, as in the HBO series. Fans of The Night Of will want to follow-up with The Perfect Girl. 

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

Tour Stops

Tuesday, September 6th: Mama Reads Hazel Sleeps

Wednesday, September 7th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Thursday, September 8th: bookchickdi

Friday, September 9th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Monday, September 12th: Tina Says…

Tuesday, September 13th: Kahakai Kitchen

Wednesday, September 14th: Peeking Between the Pages

Thursday, September 15th: West Metro Mommy

Monday, September 19th: she treads softly

Tuesday, September 20th: A Bookworm’s World

Wednesday, September 21st: Comfy Reading

Thursday, September 22nd: Book Hooked Blog

Monday, September 26th: I Brought a Book

Tuesday, September 27th: Bibliotica

Wednesday, September 28th: Vox Libris

Thursday, September 29th: What Will She Read Next

The Evening Spider by Emily Arsenault

The Evening Spider by Emily Arsenault
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062379306
Trade paperback, $15.99, 400 pages

A few years ago, I read Emily Arsenault's novel What Strange Creatures and loved the brother/sister sibling relationship at its core. Her latest novel, The Evening Spider, has a sibling relationship in it as well, although that is not the central issue of the story as it was in What Strange Creatures.

The inspiration for this story came from the author hearing what she thought was human voice over her daughter's baby monitor shushing the baby. She combined this with an interest in the true story of the murder of a woman in the 1800s, a woman she believed to be an ancestor.

The Evening Spider introduces us to Abby, married to Chad, and new mom to baby Lucy, who has moved into an old house in the small town of Haverton, Massachusetts. Abby hears a voice over Lucy's baby monitor that sounds like someone is shushing her baby.

This unnerves Abby, and she does a little research about the previous owners of the house. She discovers that there is a diary from Frances Barnett, who once owned the house with her husband, Matthew, a lawyer.

Abby reads the diary and becomes fascinated with Frances, especially the letters Frances wrote to her brother Harry from a lunatic asylum Frances had been sent to by her husband. Frances was a new mom too, like Abby, and she became obsessed with a murder trial that her brother had a connection to.

As Frances' story unfolds through her letters, Abby tries to learn why Frances was committed to a hospital. She turns to the head of the local historical society for more information and a local medium to see if her home is haunted by Frances or someone else.

The story took awhile to get going, but once it does, it intrigues the reader. I found so many layers to this psychological suspense, including an incident that happened to Abby in college that may color her actions in the present.

Frances is a captivating character. She loves science, and her interest in how arsenic works gets her into trouble. She wasn't a traditional housewife with traditional interests in cooking and sewing, and that made people suspect of her.

I also found it surprising that in 1885 forensic science played such a big role in the murder trial. I would have thought that a recent phenomenon, but the lawyers used detailed forensic information from respected scientists to help prove their cases. (I hope this doesn't mean we'll see a new CSI:1885 series.)

The Evening Spider is a novel about obsessions- Frances for the murder trial and Abby's obsession with Frances. It features interesting, well-developed characters (just like in Arsenault's previous book), and the ending of the story is a surprise to the reader.

Fans of John Searles' Help For The Haunted will enjoy The Evening Spider. They both involve mediums, a haunted house and taut psychological suspense. And although I was a new mom over twenty years ago, Arsenault brings back those memories and fears of new motherhood vividly in this story.

I highly recommend The Evening Spider. It's a creepy, taut, suspenseful story that will keep you up at night reading to the end.

My review of What Strange Creatures is here.
My review of John Searles' Help For The Haunted is here.

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

Tuesday, January 26th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Wednesday, January 27th: The Reader’s Hollow

Wednesday, January 27th: Kahakai Kitchen

Thursday, January 28th: A Bookworm’s World

Friday, January 29th: JulzReads

Monday, February 1st: A Literary Vacation

Tuesday, February 2nd: FictionZeal

Thursday, February 4th: Jenn’s Bookshelves

Friday, February 5th: Kritters Ramblings

Monday, February 8th: bookchickdi

Wednesday, February 10th: From the TBR Pile

Thursday, February 11th: Book Hooked Blog

Friday, February 12th: Peeking Between the Pages

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

 Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
Published by Simon & Schuster ISBN 9781476789637
Hardcover, $25, 338 pages

The one blurb that publishers want on their novel is "Better than Gone Girl!", which is getting a little ubiquitous lately. I'm not a big suspense fan, and Gone Girl wasn't my favorite book, but I have read other books compared to it, like The Girl On The Train.

Jessica Knoll's suspenseful novel Luckiest Girl Alive even has 'girl' in the title. It begins with Ani FaNelli shopping for items to put on her bridal registry. She picks up a Wustof knife and wonders how it would feel if she slid into her fiance's stomach.

Something is off about Ani. She has a fabulous job at a woman's magazine (think Cosmo), and is engaged to a great catch, a man with a great job and who is socially connected. But there is something in Ani's past, something that happened when she was in high school.

Ani grew up on the wrong side of the tracks outside Philadelphia. Her mother wanted Ani to meet the right people and so sent her daughter to Bradley, a private high school for blue bloods. Ani didn't fit in at first, she sat at the misfits' table at lunch.

Until one day, she caught the eye of one of the popular guys at school. Soon she was eating lunch with the cool kids and even attending their parties where, of course, everyone was drinking.

Something bad happened at Bradley, and the reader is not told what. A documentary crew wants to interview Ani about the incident, but Ani's fiance doesn't want her to do the interview. What exactly happened?

The reader is given clues, but when we finally find out what happened, about halfway through the book, the story really takes off. I have to admit that up until that revelation, I was not really taken with the story. But once we get to the incident, Knoll's writing is so tight and tense, I felt like I didn't take a breath for the entire chapter.

I have to admit, I guessed wrong as to what really happened, and so the surprise was shocking, even though as we got closer to the reveal, there are clues given if you want to pick them up.

Knoll's characters are well developed, and anyone who went to high school (which is most of us) felt many of the things Ani did- isolated, fearful of not fitting in, and hoping to make friends. Knoll taps into those feelings so well.

Ani has problems, and in the early chapters when she talks about her sexual desires, I admit to thinking that maybe this book just isn't for me. But I'm glad I continued on, because I was rewarded with a nail-biting story. Ani has to look inside herself to discover who she really wants to be, and her journey to get there is fascinating.

I liked Luckiest Girl Alive better than Gone Girl and better than The Girl On The Train, because Jessica Knoll does a great job of creating suspense and empathy for a troubled character. And even after reading it awhile ago, just thinking about now it is giving me heart palpitations and a dry mouth.