Tag: Mystery

Whispers

šŸ’€BOOK REVIEWšŸ’€

Stacey is the coolest aunt EVER hands-down!
When she organizes a trip for her two sisters and their kids to the happiest place on earth, none of them could have ever prepared for the nightmare that awaited them!

This debut thriller by Bonne Bartron is everything I never knew I needed! It was a perfect spooky season read, and although Iā€™m not a gal that is easily creeped out, as a mom, this one did me in.
If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE a strong female protagonist, and this book has three soooooo-I was sold on the first chapter.
This book deals with subject matter that is SO RELEVANT RIGHT NOW and that is one of the things I absolutely loved about it. I like a good twisty mystery that feels relevant, fresh, and scary all the while delivering those twisty blows I live for! This book is a slow burn that I devoured happily-with the lights on, and definitely not before bed.
Without giving too much away because I really want yā€™all to read this book, I will say this- step aside Slenderman & Momo, Mr. Tasty Treats is here, and heā€™s coming for your babies. šŸ’€

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If I Disappear +Review

Eliza Jane Brazier's debut novel If I Disappear is a campy, culty delight! 

I live for the creep factor, the who-done-it mystery, where the fingers seem to point in every direction and you just can't for the life of you seem to figure any of it out. 

Sera is a lonely woman, a divorcee who has recently lost her baby, her husband, and is on the verge of losing her job and even her home when her favorite podcast host seems to have gone missing. 
Rachel is the host of a true-crime podcast called "Murder, she spoke." When Rachel suddenly stops airing episodes, Sera takes it upon herself to travel to Rachel's hometown to solve this mystery. At first Sera is unsure if Rachel is even missing, I mean, after all, she doesn't even really know this person, does she? 
Once she arrives at Rachel's family's summer dude ranch, she finds it in disrepair, not at all the idyllic ranch Rachel painted for her podcast listeners, and she quickly realizes something is amiss. there is a mystery to be solved here, a missing woman, and EVERYONE is a suspect!

This book is a slow burn, an unraveling of small clues. Just when I would have an AHA moment,  thinking I had it all figured out, I would be left with 12 more questions, and honestly, i'm not mad about that aspect of the story at all! 
The protagonist's personality wasn't developed enough for me to connect with her, and her personality fell flat for me. I feel like she was trying to be portrayed as strong and fearless but she felt very one dimensional. 
I was hoping to have an explosive ending after such a slow unraveling, but it wasn't that for me at all. So many loose ends needed to be tied up, leaving the reader with an open ending and even more questions, What happened to Rachel? What did Sera do? How did it end? I had Sopranos flashbacks all over again. 

Overall, this was a solid debut, it was a good book, and I can't wait to see what they do with the TV series!

If I Disappear will be out on January 26, 2021 (which happens to be my birthday, BTW!) So set a reminder, youā€™re not going to want to miss this one!

Thank you Berkley Publishing & Netgalley for my gifted copy of this book!

A Good Girlā€™s Guide to Murder


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Pippa Fitz-Amobi is a BADASS! This is the strong, smart protagonist I have been craving and IšŸ‘AMšŸ‘HEREšŸ‘FORšŸ‘IT!
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Pippa is a true crime junkie with aspirations to be a first-rate journalist. When it comes time for her final year project, she chooses her small towns most notorious unsolved crime-the murder of Andie Bell.
What starts innocently enough, her project soon turns into an unraveling of secrets and lies that leaves Pippa questioning everything she thought she knew about this case- and some of the people closest to her!
With the help of the alleged killers brother, the two of them take on this project with fearless grit, and wonā€™t stop until they have found the REAL killer.

This is a brilliant debut that takes us straight into the investigation alongside Pippa and Ravi, unraveling clue after clue.

I felt like I was investigating right along with the main characters, each clue and new person of interest leaving me with more questions. I love a twisty mystery, and wasnā€™t at all expecting this one! I was with them until the very end. Each character is so well developed, and I found myself falling in love with fearless Pippa and her unwavering determination for justice. Honestly, I could talk all day about the things I loved about this cast of characters!
Holly Jackson knocked it our of the park with this debut novel, itā€™s a fantastic read for all ages whether you are 13, 30 or 100. Definitely my favorite read of 2020, and guys, there is a SEQUEL!šŸ˜³ Good Girl, bad blood came out in April of this year, and-drumroll please- book 3 is set to come out next year! It just keeps getting better, and I canā€™t wait to get my hands on these books! Get them, read them, and letā€™s talk about them!

The Drowning Kind

First of all I want to say THANK YOU to Simon & Schuster Scout Press & NetGalley for my advanced copy of The Drowning Kind by Jennifer Mc Mahon. Without the wonderful publishers and Netgalley I wouldnā€™t have the opportunity to review so many fantastic books. I love what I do, and I couldnā€™t do it without them!

So, letā€™s talk about this delicious morsel- Not only is this book beautiful, it is a modern day ghost story and that is something I can NOT miss!
Jennifer McMahon is the author of one of my favorite books, The Winter People, and from the sound of it, this book is going to be just as good.


DESCRIPTIONšŸ‘‡

Be careful what you wish for.
When social worker Jax receives nine missed calls from her older sister, Lexie, she assumes that itā€™s just another one of her sisterā€™s episodes. Manic and increasingly out of touch with reality, Lexie has pushed Jax away for over a year. But the next day, Lexie is dead: drowned in the pool at their grandmotherā€™s estate. When Jax arrives at the house to go through her sisterā€™s things, she learns that Lexie was researching the history of their family and the property. And as she dives deeper into the research herself, she discovers that the land holds a far darker past than she could have ever imagined.

In 1929, thirty-seven-year-old newlywed Ethel Monroe hopes desperately for a baby. In an effort to distract her, her husband whisks her away on a trip to Vermont, where a natural spring is showcased by the newest and most modern hotel in the Northeast. Once there, Ethel learns that the water is rumored to grant wishes, never suspecting that the spring takes in equal measure to what it gives.

Do you like ghost stories? Paranormal thrillers that will keep you up at night, guessing and checking every noise you hear? If that is your jam, Jennifer McMahon is your girl! I was never really into the paranormal stuff until I read The Winter People, and I was hooked. Not only does she write a kickass ghost story, but the mystery had me reeling! I love a good twisty book.

What is your favorite ghost story?

The Drowning Kind will be published on April 06, 2021, so keep an eye out for it!

Find Her

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Flora Dane is a victim. Flora Dane is a survivor. Flora Dane is reckless.
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Lisa Gardner has an exquisite way of storytelling that puts you directly into the mind of Florence Dane, kidnapping victim. Florence has been a survivor for 472 days. She was the girl who fed the foxes, loved the sunshine on her face, the girl who grew up playing on her mommaā€™s farm in Maine. Flora is the girl who was abducted from a Florida beach while on spring break from college. 472 days ago.


This is my first Lisa Gardner book, and I just have one question- where have these books been all my life? I have read a lot of mysteries and psychological thrillers and I tend to figure them out pretty early on. This book was anything but predictable, and even though I did figure out the culprit near the end of the book, it didnā€™t take away from the story for me at all. This book was a beautiful unraveling with so many symbolic references that complimented the story perfectly. If you like psychological thrillers, and a good, solid mystery you will love this book.
This is the 8th book in the Detective D.D. Warren series, who, by the way is a badass, strong female protagonist, which I canā€™t get enough of! Iā€™m still wondering how I missed the first 7 books, but now I have something to catch up on, because Iā€™m officially a Lisa Gardner fan girl, and Iā€™m not ashamed to admit it.
Get this book. Read this book- and letā€™s talk about this book! Itā€™s a fantastic story that is relevant and beautifully told.

The girl from Widow Hills

Book title: The girl from Widow Hills

Author: Megan Miranda

Pub Date: June 23, 2020

Genre: Mystery, Psychological Thriller

“I was the girl who survived. The girl who held on. The girl you prayed for, or at least pretended to pray for-thankful most of all that it wasn’t your own child lost down there, in the dark. And after: I was the miracle. The sensation. The story.”

The girl from Widow hills is a psychological thriller hold the thrill. For me, Arden’s story fell flat in so many ways that at several points during the book I had to almost talk myself into finishing it.
Arden was 6 years old when she was swept away by the flood waters while sleepwalking one night. They found her days later clinging to a storm drain, miraculously alive. Coming upon the 20 year reunion of her rescue she braces herself for the flood of media attention even though she has moved away and changed her name. As the 20 year reunion creeps closer she finds herself sleepwalking again, something that hasn’t happened since the incident all those years ago…Only this time when she is jarred awake by a ringing phone in the distance, she stumbles over a corpse. A mystery man….

I had high hopes for this book, but I felt that it was repetitive-how many times do you have to reiterate to the reader that she was sleepwalking and was swept away by the flood waters, how many times do we have to hear about the lone tiny shoe clinging to the storm drain, a clue that she must have been stuck in the drain system, how many times do we have to hear that her mother used the story of her survival for her own gain? I read these points more than several times throughout the book and was internally screaming each time I heard about them..AGAIN.
I did not connect to any of the characters in this book, they all felt void of personality to me, Arden was bland,kind of a shitty selfish friend, and the other characters in the book lacked back story and any kind of details that would emotionally connect the reader to them…none of them had any personality traits that stood out to me.
It’s been a few years since I have read a Megan Miranda book, which was why I was so excited to pick this one up. I enjoyed Miranda’s other books, and was hoping to enjoy this one just as much, but I didn’t.
HOWEVER, I will give it a solid 3 stars based on the fact that I did not predict the plot twist at the end AT ALL. I did not see that one coming. It happened so fast, within 4 pages the climax hit, missed, and was over.
If you are up for an atmospheric thriller with a good twist at the end, pick this one up, you wont see this twisty ending coming!

*Many thanks to Netgalley & publishers for my advanced copy of this book!*

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