Do No Harm by Robert Pobi

 

Meet Lucas Page:  devoted husband, father, professor, astrophysicist, ex-FBI agent, double amputee, and a genius when it comes to analyzing numbers and patterns, and spotting unexpected connections. Which is why he's the only one who notices the strangely high number of doctors either committing suicide in the city or suffering fatal accidents. The odds are mathematically impossible. Now he just has to convince the FBI they were all murdered. And then try to figure out why. And by whom.

My thoughts:  I could not put this book down. This psychological thriller is propulsive and perfectly plotted. And Lucas Page is the greatest character. He sees things others don't, and he has no tolerance for small talk or fools. I loved his snark and his smarts. Though it puts him and his wife (who's a doctor) both at risk. His investigation becomes a race to find the murderers before the killers come for him. This book is fast-paced, full of action, and so well written. I loved it. I can't wait to read Pobi's first two books about Lucas Page.

My rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Reading!

The Family Experiment by John Marrs

 

The plot:  Awakening Entertainment is about to launch their newest initiative: MetaChildren--children that exist entirely in the Metaverse. But first it's hosting a new competition reality show called The Family Experiment where four couples and one singleton get the chance to raise a virtual child from birth to age 18 over the next nine months. Millions of viewers will watch the livestream and vote for the winners. The prize? The right to keep their virtual child...or risk it all for the chance to have a real baby. 

My thoughts:  Set in the near-future, Marrs explores an unsettling and thought-provoking 'what if' scenario and all its unintended consequences. What if people could raise a virtual child as a replacement for having real children? 

I loved that he played out his scenario in the form of an immersive reality livestreaming show. The couples were all flawed and had some dark secrets in their pasts that led to some very unexpected twists and turns along the way. They weren't necessarily likable, but their stories were all compelling! This is one of those books that pulls you in from the first page and keeps you reading (and guessing) until the very end. I really appreciate the way Marrs writes. This book is set in the same world as his novel, The One, which I also enjoyed. I like that his novels are unique and always surprise me in some way. This one is definitely darker than The One--there's no real happy endings here--but it's very much a 4-star read!

Happy Reading!

Please Tell Me by Mike Omer

 

First lines:  Kathy limped alongside the road in the dark, hugging her doll to her chest. The doll was scared, because of the shadows, which was why Kathy clutched her so tightly. Sometimes, when you're scared, the only things that helps is a hug.

The plot:  Kathy is eight when she's abducted; when she shows up on the side of the road a year later she won't tell anyone where she's been. In fact, she won't speak at all. Child therapist, Dr. Robin Hart, is called in to help. She uses play therapy to help Kathy process her traumatic memories. "But as their work continues, Kathy's playtime takes a grim turn: a doll stabs another doll, a tiny figurine is chained to a plastic toy couch. In every session, another toy dies. But the most disturbing detail of all? Kathy seems to be playacting real unsolved murders." Which makes Robin turn to the police. Because if there is a serial killer out there, Kathy just might hold the secret to his or her identity. 

My thoughts:  The chapters in this quietly suspenseful psychological thriller flip between Robin, Kathy's mother, Claire, and Nathaniel King, the police detective working on the case, as well as a few chapters from the POV of the killer himself. My favorite part was Robin's work with Kathy; I found their play therapy interesting. I also really liked Nathaniel.  My least favorite character was Robin's selfish and narcissistic mother. What a piece of work! The mystery was well-paced. And the murders, though dark and based on horror movie murders, are never described in graphic or gory detail, which I appreciated. And I thought the ending was very gripping. All in all, I really liked this mystery. 

My rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Reading!

What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall

 

From the blurb:  

"Naomi Shaw used to believe in magic. Twenty-two years ago, she and her two best friends, Cassidy and Olivia, spent the summer roaming the woods, imagining a world of ceremony and wonder. They called it the Goddess Game. The summer ended suddenly when Naomi was attacked. Miraculously, she survived her seventeen stab wounds and lived to identify the man who had hurt her. The girls’ testimony put away a serial killer, wanted for murdering six women. They were heroes. They were liars. 

"Now, decades later, Olivia wants to tell the whole story. Then she goes missing, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods—no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be."

What this book has:   Suspense. Mystery. Atmosphere. Flawed yet likable characters. Lyrical prose. Taut plotting. 

My thoughts:  Can you tell I really liked this one? It's a very fun summer read! I appreciated Naomi's sass and attitude, and her grim determination to figure out the truth despite her inner fears and struggles. She's not a perfect character, but I was rooting for her. And I thought the twists and revelations along the way were so well-timed. Some of the secrets I guessed, others were unexpected. But they were all good. 

My rating:  ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Reading!

The Hollows by Mark Edwards

 

The plot:  Tom Anderson and his teenage daughter, Frankie, have come to Hollow Falls, a cabin resort nestled deep in the woods of Maine, for their summer vacation. Tom lives in England, so these ten days each summer is his only time with his daughter. But what they don't know is that twenty years ago this very week there was a double murder in the woods, and the murderer was never found. Rumor around the resort is that he's still hiding somewhere in the woods. But as eerie as those past murders were, there's something else going on at the resort...something that seems to be threatening Tom's daughter in particular. And Tom finds himself torn between leaving with Frankie before their week together is up, or staying and  trying to figure out the truth of those past murders in order to resuscitate his own writing career.

My thoughts:  Mark Edwards knows how to write a compelling pyschological thriller where "scary things happen to ordinary people". Between the resort's dark past and the creepy things happening to Frankie there's a nice build-up of suspense. It's also very atmospheric. And I liked the push and pull between Tom and Frankie, too, as Tom constantly struggles to deal with her teenage attitude and still be a good dad. Their relationship felt very real. And the mystery of what really happened in the past, and how it connects to the present, kept me guessing right up to the end. I didn't love the epilogue (and felt it was completely unnecessary!), but the rest of the book was great. 

Happy Reading!

The Quarry Girls by Jess Lourey

 "That summer, the summer of '77, everything had edges. Our laughter, the sideways glances we gave and got. Even the air was blade-sharp. I figured it was because we were growing up. The law might not recognize it, but fifteen's a girl and sixteen a woman, and you get no map from one land to the next. ... But it turns out the sharpness wasn't because we were growing up. Or it wasn't only that. I know, because three of us didn't get to grow up."

 The plot:  Heather, Brenda, and Maureen are best friends. They're even in a band together. But their friendship is beginning to fray because Maureen is keeping secrets. When Heather and Brenda chance upon one of them, it's so shocking they vow they'll never tell what they saw. Then Maureen disappears, the second girl in Pantown to disappear in a week. Only no one seems to be looking for either Maureen or Beth. And while Heather and Brenda didn't really know Beth, they're sure Maureen didn't run away. When Heather starts investigating on her own, she uncovers more secrets than she ever knew existed about the men in Pantown. Including the sheriff and her very own father. Even the boys she's known her whole life can no longer be trusted.  

My thoughts:  Wow! Talk about a riveting read. This novel is part coming-of-age, part psychological thriller, and I could not put it down. Lourey does an excellent job of capturing that 1970s setting, along with creating an undercurrent of danger directed at these young women. After a few mediocre books in a row, it was a relief to read something so well-written and well-plotted. I loved it! This is one of the best books I've read this year. And I will definitely be checking out more by this author. 

Happy Reading! 

Bookish horror...

 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ That's what I'd give this book. 

The Final Girl Support Group riffs off of the best slasher film franchises, from Halloween to Scream, while author Grady Hendrix manages to create his own unique non-stop thrill ride complete with a flawed, paranoid and unforgettable final girl in Lynette Tarkington. Like every good horror movie heroine, Lynette fights to survive, no matter how many plot twists arise. And, like in every horror movie I've ever seen, crazy plot twists abound. I liked Lynette and the other four final girls. And I liked how Hendrix has written an entertaining thriller, but one with an edge to it, too; one that questions why society delights so much in seeing women killed off in these kinds of horror movies...and all their sequels. Suspenseful and compelling, this book is as good as everyone says.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes to give you a taste of just how good a writer Grady Hendrix  is:

"Men don't have to pay attention the way we do. Men die because they make mistakes. Women? We die because we're female."

"If diamonds are a girl's best friend, then reliable handguns with stopping power are a final girls."

"Tell me how I chose this," I say. "I was minding my own business and a monster came through my door. Not because I ignored the Keep Out signs and snuck into the old asylum, not because I built my house on top of an Indian burial mound. I didn't 'ask for it', this was done to me."

"None of us have to be defined by the worst thing that ever happened to her. Unfortunately, those things have a bad habit of coming back and trying to kill us again. After awhile, you start to realize that your life isn't the thing that happens between the monsters, your life is the monsters."

"Dying isn't the important thing. It's nothing more than the punctuation mark on the end of your life. It's everything that came before that matters. Punctuation marks, most people skip right over them. They don't even have a sound."

Happy Reading!

Similar reads:

The Never List by Koethi Zan

Final Girls by Riley Sager

A Breath After Drowning...

 

Kate Wolfe is a child psychiatrist with a lot of baggage. When she was ten, her mother, Julia, was committed to a mental institution, and then later committed suicide. Then, when Kate was sixteen, her younger sister, Savannah, was abducted and murdered by Henry Blackstone. Even now, sixteen years later, Kate still blames herself for that. And she's also dealing with a recent patient's suicide, the upcoming execution of her sister's killer, and a new troubled teen named Maddie. But when Palmer Dyson, a retired police officer who investigated her sister's murder, shows up insisting that Blackstone is innocent and Savannah's real killer is still out there, Kate can't help but delve into the past. And what she finds puts her own life in danger and at times makes her question her own sanity.

This psychological thriller is the first book I've read by Alice Blanchard, and it's a good read. It's well-paced and held my interest all the way to the end. And Kate runs into some unexpected twists about her family along the way. I do have to say, I wasn't completely convinced when the real killer was revealed, probably because I was never given any reason to suspect him. I also questioned some of Kate's choices and decisions, but given her traumatic past I guess they were understandable. Despite her stubbornness, I liked her; I just wouldn't want her to be my psychiatrist. I did admire her toughness at the end, and I also liked her relationship with James, another psychiatrist at the hospital where she works. All in all, this ended up being a 3.5/5 star read for me.

Happy Reading!

Every Waking Hour by Joanna Schaffhausen

 

As a teenager, Ellery Hathaway was abducted by notorious serial killer Francis Coben. She barely survived. Now she's a detective in Boston, still slightly broken and fragile, and still on probation with the department. She's also sort of seeing Reed Markham, the FBI agent who found and rescued her all those years ago. Not that she's great at relationships. She and Reed are on a picnic with his seven-year-old daughter, Tula, when a twelve-year-old girl goes missing from that same Boston park. But was Chloe Lockhart abducted? Or did she run away on her own? The discovery that Chloe's older half-brother, Trevor, was murdered before she was ever born certainly complicates things. Is her disappearance somehow connected to his death? Reed joins Ellery's investigation as they hurry to hunt down the truth and find Chloe before it's too late.

This is the fourth book Joanna Schaffhausen has written about Ellery Hathaway and Reed Markham. And while her mysteries are always well-plotted and compelling, it's her characters that I love. This case is especially hard for Ellery because of her own traumatic past--a past that complicates every aspect of her life. Including her feelings for Reed. And loving Ellery definitely complicates Reed's life. But they make a great team when they're working together to solve a case.

I thought Every Waking Hour was an amazing psychological thriller! And with that ending, I hope Schaffhausen hurries up and writes the next book in this series ASAP. 

Happy Reading!

The other books in this series (which I also loved):

#1 - The Vanishing Season 

#2 - No Mercy

#3 - All the Best Lies

Find Me by Anne Frasier

 

"You couldn't expect a psychopath to play by the rules. Psychopaths made the rules, or at least that's what they thought."

"Reni still had mixed feelings about becoming involved in the case, but she didn't think she could sit home wondering what was going on and whether her father had or hadn't played a part in it. She needed answers. Answers probably wouldn't relieve her guilt and suffering, but being instrumental in giving victims' families closure would get her some points, at least in her own mind. Still, she was sure she would go to her grave feeling complicit. And that was okay. She was complicit."

Reni Fisher is the daughter of Benjamin Wayne Fisher, the Inland Empire Killer. When she was five, he used her to lure in the young women he killed. She hasn't seen or spoken to him since he was arrested over thirty years ago. Now he wants to see her again. In return, he's promised to tell the police where in the Mojave Desert he buried the bodies of his victims, something homicide detective Daniel Ellis wants more than anything else. Because his mother disappeared over thirty years ago, and he thinks she might have been one of Fisher's victims.

Reni's memories of those years with her father are a bit hazy, and she's not sure she wants to revisit the past that still haunts her. Then she and Daniel find a newly murdered body out in the Mojave, and she can't help but wonder if it's somehow connected to her father. And that question leads Daniel and Reni on a chilling search for the truth.

Find Me by Anne Frasier is a gripping psychological thriller. Reni is both fragile and strong. I liked how Frasier weaves her childhood memories in with their present investigation. Daniel has his own past memories to contend with. I liked him, and Reni, too. They're both interesting and well-developed characters. I hope Frasier writes more books about them. And the mystery? I liked the way it builds over the course of the book to a very suspenseful ending. And that last twist? It's a good one.

Happy Reading!

 

Chilling suspense...

 "This could be the work of a madman, Tana. A bizarre, ritualistic serial murderer working in remote locations and using wild animals to cover his work."

 In the Barrens, a remote wilderness area on the border of the Arctic Circle, two biology students are found dead, mauled by wolves. Or maybe by a bear. It's hard for Constable Tana Larsson, a rookie RCMP who just started working in Two Rivers, a small town in the Northwest Territories of Canada, to determine just what caused the grisly attacks. Especially when she learns there were two similar attacks four years earlier. But when she starts to investigate, no one in town seems very happy about it. Especially not Cameron "Crash" O'Halloran, a local bush pilot who she suspects of illegally flying in alcohol to Twin Rivers, among other things. For some reason Tana seems to bring out the worst in him. (Although when he finds out she's five months pregnant he suddenly gets very protective of her.) She can't trust him. She can't trust the diamond company mining diamonds in the area. And the locals keep telling her to leave it alone before she stirs up the ancient spirits that haunt the Barrens. But Tana can't let it go. No matter how dangerous it gets.

In the Barren Ground by Loreth Anne White is a chilling and suspenseful mystery. It's also a novel about imperfect and flawed characters who have made mistakes in the past and who are seeking a second chance in life. I liked both Tana and Crash. They're such a study in contrasts. Tana is young and earnest and struggling to prove herself; Crash is older, cynical, and he has his own secret agenda for being in Twin Rivers. I loved watching how their antagonistic relationship gradually changed to a partnership of cautious respect and deepening friendship. I also loved the remote setting and how it played such a significant role in this novel. And that ending! It's a good one. I'd give this book at least 4 stars.

Happy Reading!

Bookish suspense...

An innocent sleepover takes a horrifying turn when three 12-year-old girls sneak out of the house in the middle of the night in search of a dark and deadly urban legend. The investigation that follows will tear up the small town of Pitch, Iowa. What really happened that night? What part did the three girls play in it? And who is Joseph Withers?


My thoughts:  Before She Was Found by Heather Gudenkauf is a riveting psychological thriller that's hard to put down. It's told in several different voices and styles, which I actually liked. Cora's journal entries from before the sleepover were my favorite and really helped build the suspense. The other two girls, Jordyn and Violet, were seen more through the eyes of their parents and the police. And their online conversations. I really liked how Gudenkauf wove the separate narratives together. It's very compelling the way the bits and pieces of this mystery come together. The ending did feel a bit abrupt, but I'd still give this one 4 stars. I'll definitely be checking out Gudenkauf's other novels. If my library ever reopens.

Happy Reading!

Bookish suspense...

"You kill one guy, one time, and suddenly everyone thinks you need therapy, Ellery Hathaway thought as she stood in the biting wind of the subway T platform overlooking the icy Charles River. Doesn't matter if everyone is glad he's dead. She debated again whether to follow through on her shrink's orders to show up at the group meeting for survivors of violent crime. ... But Ellery knew all crimes were not created equal. There was getting mugged on the street, and then there was surviving an abduction by one of the world's most infamous serial killers."

Despite being on mandated leave from the police force, Ellery begins investigating two crimes involving two of the other violent crime victims in her group:  an arson that took place two decades ago, and a more recent rape. She calls on FBI agent, Reed Markham, for help, needing his profiling skills. And though it puts his promotion on the line, he flies to Boston when she calls because it's Ellery. Their complicated relationship began sixteen years ago, when Markham rescued a 14-year-old Ellery from a notorious serial killer. Her scars still run deep. And as much as Reed would like to keep her safe, her own impulsiveness keeps putting her in danger. Especially when she gets a little too close to the truth on one of her new 'cases'.

No Mercy is Joanna Schaffhausen's second book about Ellery Hathaway and Reed Markham. And it's just as good as The Vanishing Season (which you really need to read first). Besides Schaffhausen's compelling writing, I really like her characters. They're complex and flawed, with personality quirks and vulnerabilities that make them irresistible. I love Ellery's and Reed's tangled past and their uneasy yet growing friendship. I also love the moments Reed spends with his daughter, Tula; Ellery's basset hound, Speed Bump, is a favorite, too. And the mystery itself? It's suspenseful and clever and skillfully drawn out. And that ending! Whew. It's a good one. It makes me even more excited for Schaffhausen's next book.

Happy Reading!

More bookish suspense...

Mila Vasquez works in Limbo--the missing persons bureau at Federal Police Headquarters--where the walls are covered with photographs of the missing. So she's surprised when she gets summoned to the scene of a mass homicide. The apparent shooter? A man who went missing seventeen years earlier. Then another murder is committed; this time by a woman who went missing three years ago. It's a disturbing pattern. Why did these people decide to disappear all those years ago? Where have they been all this time? And why are they coming back to commit these murders now? As Nina puzzles over these questions, she comes across an even more disturbing clue. One that links these cases with another that took place twenty years earlier. A case that was never solved.

"The long night has begun. The army of shadows is already in the city. They are preparing for his coming, because he will soon be here. The Wizard, the Enchanter of Souls, the Goodnight Man: Kairus has more than a thousand names."

The Vanished Ones by Donato Carrisi is an intense and compelling psychological thriller that delves into the darkness that dwells in the souls of men, and how easily some people can by manipulated by evil. Carrisi's plots are impossible to predict; I love his many turns and twists, and how I never know what's coming next. And Mila is such a great character:  complicated, unconventional, impulsive, perceptive, and utterly devoid of empathy. She's also a fear junkie who's drawn to the darkness within her own soul. She's in Carrisi's previous novel, The Whisperer, (which I also loved and which you should really read first).  Carrisi is the master of psychological suspense and his books are unforgettable 5-star reads.

Happy Reading!

P.S.  Carrisi's The Lost Girls of Rome is also an amazing read.

Bookish suspense...

Winter in the Catskills.

A charming inn.

Ten guests.

One perfect weekend.

Until....

One of the ten is murdered.

And the rest get snowed in.

And their dream weekend turns into a nightmare.

In An Unwanted Guest, Shari Lapena has written a suspenseful mystery reminiscent of Agatha Christie. The fact that her characters are all snowed in by an ice storm made me like this book even more. The narrative switches between the twelve main characters, which should have been confusing, but somehow never was. What it did do was keep the story moving at a very fast pace. And I liked most of the characters. There's James, the inn's owner, and his son, Bradley; David, the criminal defense attorney (and my favorite), Gwen and her best friend, Riley, who's suffering from PTSD; Beverly and her cheating husband, Henry (who I didn't like); Matthew, who's rich, and his too-beautiful fiancee, Dana; Candace, the aloof writer; and dating couple Lauren and Ian. 

As for the mystery itself, while I didn't guess the murderer, I did enjoy the various turns and twists along the way. But what really made reading this book fun was sharing the suspense with Melody. This was our most recent 'buddy read'. She did a better job at guessing whodunnit, so be sure to check out her review of this entertaining mystery, as well as the questions she asked me about it when we were done.

Happy Reading!

Melody's questions (and my answers):

Q.  This story fits perfectly as a "locked room" mystery, given the setting and the events that happened. Do you think this 'claustrophobia' feeling will evoke a change in a person's mentality and drive him/her into doing something unbelievable?

A.   Absolutely. And you could see it in the way the characters started to get a little paranoid, and point fingers and accuse each other of these horrible crimes. Some even went farther, acting on thoughts that they never would have acted on if they hadn't been trapped in this stressful situation.

Q. Would you stay in a remote inn like Catskills and Mitchell's for a relaxing getaway during the winter? 

A.  I think it would be fun to be in such a quiet, peaceful setting with all that snow...just as long as no one got murdered.  😉

Q. And finally, who do you think you'd be friends with among the characters in the book?

A.  Truthfully, I'm not sure I'd be friends with any of them--certainly NOT Beverly or Henry, or even Matthew and Dana. I'd probably get along best with David, and maybe with Gwen. But I'm not sure we'd ever really be friends. We're just too different. But out of all the characters, I liked David best. 

Bookish suspense...

 "For us, there was no such thing as fate. Fate was a word you used when you had not prepared, when you were slack, when you stopped paying attention. Fate was a weak man's crutch."

Sarah and Jennifer created the Never List to protect themselves from any and every accident or mishap, sure that if they adhered to the rules of their list they would be safe. And for years it worked. Until they went away to college. Then one night, coming home from a party, they're taken by a man named Jack Derber, who locks them away in his cellar and holds them captive with two other girls for the next three years. Sarah survives, but she's not the same girl she once was. As for Jennifer? Sarah doesn't know what happened to her.

"We'd been naive. We hadn't believed other minds could be as calculating as ours. We hadn't counted on actual evil as our enemy rather than blind statistical possibility."

Thirteen years later, Jack Derber is up for parole. He's been taunting Sarah from prison with strange letters and clues. And Sarah knows she's going to have to face up to the nightmares of her past so she can finally find out what happened to her friend all those years ago.

I could not put this suspenseful mystery down! I'd tell myself I was only going to read one more chapter, but one chapter would turn into two, then three, then four... Sarah's story is so compelling, and Zan's writing so amazing, I was completely drawn in. Sarah's search for the truth takes her back into the darkness of her past. (And it is a very dark place.) And the other girls who survived seem to have good reasons to hate her. This is an intense thriller, but not an overly graphic or explicit one, for which I was grateful. And that twist at the end! It's a good one. I'd give this book 4/5 stars. 

Happy Reading!

The Winter Over

"Wintering over means when the final flight leaves today, it'll be the last plane the crew will see until mid-November, two hundred and seventy days from now. For most of that time, the South Pole is in complete darkness, outside temperatures can drop to as low as one hundred degrees below zero, and the base is, in effect, completely cut off from the rest of the planet."

Why I wanted to read this one:
The Antarctica setting! I've always been fascinated by extreme environments --those exotic and strange places that I will NEVER actually ever go see for myself-- and this book takes place in one of the most extreme spots on the planet. Matthew Iden really gives you a feel for the dark and the cold and the danger of winter in Antarctica. I loved every description and interesting detail. Especially the ice tunnels! That, along with his cast of slightly crazy characters, from the Polies to the Fingies, who are wintering over at the Shackleton South Pole Research Station make this a fascinating read.

What else I loved about this book:
The mystery and the menace! The death of a colleague two days before the last flight out puts mechanical engineer, Cass Jennings, on edge. Was her death an accident? Or something else? Then, when other things start to go wrong at the station, Cass begins to suspect there might be something more sinister going on. But is she right? Or is she just being paranoid? Because winter in Antarctica can play games with your mind. I loved the build up of tension and suspense in this novel. And the way it kept me guessing to the end. For me, this was a 4-star read.

Happy Reading!

Similar reads:

The Day is Dark by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

Frozen Solid by James M. Tabor

Subterranean by James Rollins

My Last Continent by Midge Raymond

Bookish suspense...

They'll do it again. And soon....they have no mercy but they do have a ritual and ritual doesn't exist in a vacuum. It serves a wider purpose and at the moment the perpetrators are the only ones who know what that is. Let's proceed on the assumption that another family's going to get massacred tonight.

When a family of six is murdered one snowy night in Liverpool, DCI Eve Clay is first on the scene. She becomes the lead detective on a case that grows more puzzling and complicated with each passing day. The killers seem to speak their own made up language. They pose the bodies in strange patterns. A shoe print at the scene suggests they might be children. But their motivation remains a complete mystery. Clay has one more problem:  Adrian White, a psychopathic serial killer living in isolation at Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital seems to know all about the murders. And he's prophesying that there will be more.

Blood Mist by Mark Roberts is one crazy ride! It's suspenseful from the first moments to the last without being overly graphic and violent in between. Every clue Clay and her team discover along the way only leads to more questions. It's layered and complicated, gripping and intense. I got caught up in this story and could not wait to find out what happens next. And how everything all ties together at the end left me shaking my head. Did I mention this psychological thriller is crazy good? For me, this was a 4-star read. And it's the first in a series of books about DCI Eve Clay, so hopefully there will be many more books to devour.

Happy Reading!

Bookish Suspense At Its Best...

Dr. Jenna Ramey sees colors when she talks to people; she has grapheme-color synesthesia.  "Where for most people, traits blended in, the colors that flashed in her mind at certain statements or mannerisms could make a quality stand out like a brunette in a sea of bald heads."  Purple for narcissism. Red for wrath or love or a very dominant type A personality. That's what color she sees when she talks with Isaac Keaton, a sociopathic serial killer.  He may be behind bars, but he has at least one partner still on the loose and a much larger game set in motion. It's up to Jenna to figure out what that deadly game is and who all the other players are before more innocent people die.

Color Blind by Colby Marshall turned out to be a 4-star read for me. It's compelling and unexpected and Jenna's synesthesia gives this psychological thriller an interesting and unique twist. Isaac Keaton is a very formidable opponent, but he's not Jenna's only problem; there's also her sociopathic mother, Claudia, who's in a mental hospital awaiting trial. (She only tried to kill Jenna's father and younger brother 17 years ago.) Then there's her ex, FBI agent Hank Ellis. He's also working the Keaton case. It gets a little complicated, but in a good way. I have to say, I liked all the layers in this book. It's fast-paced and suspenseful. And Jenna Ramey is a character I would gladly read about again. (Now if only I can convince my library to buy the next 2 books in this series!)

Happy Reading!

Final Girls...

Only Quincy remained.

All the others were dead.

She was the last one left alive.

Riley Sager's psychological thriller Final Girls is gripping, unsettling, and intense. It centers on Quincy Carpenter, the sole survivor of a brutal massacre at Pine Cottage ten years ago. By surviving this mass killing, she becomes a reluctant member of an exclusive club:  The Final Girls.  There are only two other members, Lisa and Samantha, who also survived horrific slaughters. Quincy has spent the last ten years proving that she's fine, that she's moved on. But she hasn't. Not really. And then Lisa dies. Murdered by someone who might be after Quincy next. And Samantha shows up on her doorstep, pushing Quincy to remember the past. And suddenly Quincy doesn't know who to trust; she's not even sure she can trust herself.

Well-plotted, full of suspense, and with some unexpected twists along the way, I'd characterize this book as a good read except for one thing. The characters. I wanted to like Quincy, but I found her passiveness in certain situations and her reckless self-destructiveness in others, especially when she's around Sam, completely frustrating. And I thought Sam was a lying bitch through most of the novel. Then the one character I liked from the start turned out to be someone completely different than I thought. Which made me not like this novel quite as much. I'd still classify it as a good read, and a compelling one, too; I just prefer novels with characters that I can like and root for all the way through, which is why I didn't love this one.

Happy Reading!

Similar reads (that I liked a little bit better):

     The Never List by Koethi Zan

     The Edge of Normal by Carla Norton