Tag: suspense

Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

The Night Swim by Megan Goldin ~ Book Review

Morgan

The Night Swim book with cake

St. Martin’s Press
Genre: Thriller
Release Date: August 4, 2020
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

For some reason whenever pop-culture shows up in fiction I find it a little jarring. The Night Swim centers around Rachel Krall who runs a true crime podcast. Each season, she focuses on a different crime and the subsequent trial. The season in question takes place in a beachside town during a rape trial. Simultaneously, Rachel begins to get mysterious letters from a listener, begging her to look into the drowning of a young girl in the same town years before.

The book goes back and forth between both victims, Kelly and Jenny. Each of their experiences are heartbreaking and disturbing. Their accounts are interspersed with episodes of Rachel’s podcast. The format was very different from other thrillers I’ve read, but I didn’t love the podcast segments — they felt very cut and dry.

There was a twist in the story toward the end, which absolutely shocked me, but much of the violence (gang rape, physical abuse, etc.) was hard for me to get through. The story sheds a strong light on victim blaming, and reputation during rape trials and the mental and emotional tolls on both girls were heartbreaking. If you like true crime, and true crime podcasts in particular, I think you’d enjoy The Night Swim.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Buy The Night Swim at an indie bookstore near you
The Night Swim on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier ~ Book Review

Morgan

Jar of Hearts with blondies and daisies

Minotaur Books
Genre: Thriller
Release Date: June 12, 2018
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

Jar of Hearts was far more disturbing than I expected. The story hits the ground running as Geo is arrested for helping cover up the murder of her best friend, by her then boyfriend, Calvin, 14 years previously. The reader knows from the onset that the main character is guilty, which automatically made this stand out from other thrillers.

The storyline is broken into sections based on Geo’s life: before going to jail, during her time in jail, and after she gets out. There are also substantial flashbacks to when she first met Calvin, all leading up to the killing of her best friend, Angela. The story explores their abusive relationship and the lifelong impact it had on Geo. It was interesting to see the evolution of Geo’s character throughout these time frames.

I definitely didn’t see where this story was going until pretty late in the game. Looking back, there were hints along the way, but nothing I picked up on. The entire book, but the ending in particular was exceedingly twisted and horrific. The descriptions of Calvin’s violence, including rape, physical and verbal abuse, and murder, were detailed and disturbing. If these topics are especially triggering, this book should definitely be avoided. It was hard for me to get through certain scenes, but the ultimate cohesion of the story was impressive.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Buy Jar of Hearts at an indie bookstore near you
Jar of Hearts on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, Horror, Uncategorized

The Patient by Jasper DeWitt ~ Book Review

Morgan

The Patient with Brownies

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Thanks to the publisher and BookishFirst for my copy!)
Genre: Horror
Release Date: July 7, 2020
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

The Patient is one prolonged cliff-hanger. Written in the format of an online forum, each entry flies by and makes it easy to whip through in just a couple of sittings (it’s also only 224 pages). I loved the way this was written. It made for such a unique interpretation of the story and a really fun reading experience. The forums are written by Parker as he begins a job as a doctor at a mental hospital and volunteers to work with the most feared patient there: Joe. Joe has been there since he was a child, and no one knows what’s wrong with him. Furthermore, the orderlies and doctors who care for him can only seem to do so for a few weeks or months before experiencing psychotic breaks themselves. The terror that Joe inflicts is often graphic and disturbing, and is definitely where the horror aspects of this book come into play.

The reason this book isn’t rated higher for me is perhaps because of a misunderstanding of what genre it is. I was expecting some sort of science-based conclusion of Joe’s ailment, but what I got instead was a sudden supernatural twist that frustrated me. Although the concept ended up being innovative and interesting, it wasn’t what I anticipated, or wanted, from the conclusion of Joe’s story. If this had been marketed as including more aspects of science fiction, I likely would not have had such a big problem with how it turned out.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Buy The Patient at an indie bookstore near you
The Patient on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

The Guest List by Lucy Foley ~ Book Review

Morgan

The Guest List with Butterscotch Bars

William Morrow
Genre: Mystery
Release Date: March 19, 2020
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪

I have very mixed feelings about The Guest List. It was extremely spooky and atmospheric, with wonderful descriptions. I liked the remote island wedding premise — isolating a group of characters this way makes for an eerie setting perfect for a mystery. The story opens as a series of guests (as well as the bride and groom) are arriving on the island. Chapters are narrated by different characters: bride, wedding planner, best man, etc., and they each have a distinct voice and story to tell.

I don’t really know what happened for most of this book. It is over 300 pages (granted, I listened to the audiobook), but there wasn’t very much going on. The backstories of the characters filled in most of the actual meat of the story. As for action happening on the island, there was a lot of talk of the groomsmen’s time together at boarding school, and the group of them getting rowdy, drunk, and annoying. This seemed repetitive.

It took a really long time for the backstories of each character to start coming together and painting a picture of the ominous truths at large. Once this got going, they snowballed faster and faster and I was in awe of how each character’s past experiences coalesced around the same motive. I’d say the last quarter of the book had me completely hooked and unable to stop listening, but it took a really long time for me to get to that place. 

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Buy the audiobook on Libro.fm (Thanks to Libro.fm for my copy!)
Buy The Guest List at an indie bookstore near you
The Guest List on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

The Safe Place by Anna Downes ~ Book Review

Morgan

The Safe Place with Lemon Bars
Minotaur Books
Genre: Thriller
Release Date: July 14, 2020 (Thanks to BookishFirst for my ARC)
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

I love an atmospheric thriller. When the setting takes on a life of its own, I am all about it (which I think I’ve reiterated in many reviews). The Safe Place absolutely has this characteristic. Emily, our down on her luck, broke, jobless protagonist jets off to a sprawling estate in France to be a housekeeper for a virtual stranger. Emily falls into a very overused thriller character mold, but I was mostly able to look past that as the story ramped up. Her ditziness and inability to take control of her life made me believe that her character would accept a job abroad when the handsome, charming CEO of the company she used to work for, Scott, offers it up suddenly. His special treatment makes her weak at the knees, and I could perfectly see how Scott’s charisma would have someone like Emily dangerously spellbound.

One aspect of the writing that really stood out to me is Downes’s ability to write incredibly unique characters. In sharp contrast to Emily’s airheadedness, was Scott with his shocking yet subtle self-injury practices. The constant state of pain he forces himself into allows the reader to see that he is deeply unsettled, and made me want to know why. Once Emily arrives at Querencia, the French estate, she meets Scott’s wife Nina and daughter Aurelia. Nina seems glamorous at first, but her compulsions about her daughters safety and mysterious illnesses indicate that all is not what it seems.

Emily is cut off from the outside world little by little, and believes she is forging a close connection with both Nina and Aurelia. The more she observes about their lives and their mysterious family house, which she is not supposed to enter, the more Emily begins to question what is really going on in their little slice of paradise. The contrast between the description of the beautiful setting and Nina and the house’s sinister qualities and occasional eerie scent of rot and decay, had shivers running up and down my spine.

The twists in this book strayed away from those common to other thrillers. I couldn’t guess all how the clues and secrets fit together and I was pleasantly shocked as the story unfolded. 
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
Buy The Safe Place at an indie bookstore near you
The Safe Place on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

Final Girls by Riley Sager ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

Dutton
Genre: Thriller
Release Date: June 11, 2017
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5

I’ll take a good thriller any day, but the premise of this one was DARK. I’d be tempted to classify it as ‘thriller leaning strongly toward horror.’ Quincy, our narrator, Lisa, and Sam all share one thing in common. They are the lone survivors of massacres: the Final Girls. Quincy’s trauma occurred in college, when she and a group of friends took a trip to Pine Cottage for a sex and alcohol filled getaway. By the end of their final night, Quincy is the only one alive, haunted by the killer she calls Him. She is entirely unable to recall the night. The majority of the book takes place when Quincy is grown, living in Manhattan with her boyfriend and putting on a front of having completely moved on from her past. 

I did not trust anyone while reading this thriller. Sager, as always, does an incredible job of making a reader (or at least me) suspicious in a way that doesn’t seem forced. The hints along the way had me building up my personal case only to be entirely thrown for a loop by the ending. As Sam shows up unexpectedly at Quincy’s doorstep and they begin to spend time together, their relationship is definitely questionable and toxic. Quincy’s insane naivety frustrated me incredibly, especially after having lived through such trauma.

The last few chapters of this story were a wild ride, with flashbacks to the night at Pine Cottage as Quincy’s memories slowly come back into focus. I had no idea where the story was going, but it didn’t seem so far-fetched that I was annoyed by it. There was a weird sort of sub-storyline near the end (it’s hard to explain without giving anything away) that I thought could have been clarified further, but overall, I was enthralled by this book. I read this as a buddy read, and after having our discussion, it definitely made me rethink the writing somewhat, especially the problematic representation of mental health. As far as Riley Sager’s books go, this one is lower on my list, but it was a solid thriller.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Final Girls on Goodreads
Buy Final Girls at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

Sister Dear by Hannah Mary McKinnon ~ Book Review

Morgan

Sister Dear with Babka

MIRA Books
Genre: Thriller
Release Date: May 26, 2020 (Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin for the ARC!)
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪

I spent the first half of Sister Dear wondering why it was classified as a thriller. Don’t get me wrong, I was fully invested in the story, just a little confused. There’s an underlying creepy factor for sure as Eleanor Hardwicke discovers that the man she grew up calling Dad is not, in fact, her biological father, and begins a quest to get to know her biological family. She tries to confront her ‘real’ dad first, and upon his rejection, instead decides to try to get to know her biological sister, Victoria, without telling her how they’re related.

I loved the complexities of Eleanor. In a genre overwhelmed with seemingly perfect women (read: wealthy, gorgeous, married to Prince Charming), I liked that the protagonist in Sister Dear did not fill that role. Eleanor’s struggles with binge-eating, growing her own business, and trying not to let her terrible relationship with her mom get to her, made her seem real. She tries to dye her own hair and it goes wrong, she runs into a cute guy while she’s holding her polka-dot underwear in the laundry room: she has a definite relatable factor.

As Eleanor finds herself suddenly devastated by the death of the man she always thought was her father, combined with the indisputable rejection from her biological father, she begins unhealthily obsessing over Victoria. The two of them fall into a cautious friendship, under the guise of Eleanor helping Victoria with building a website, and Eleanor begins to believe she has found the inseparable sister-slash-best-friend she never had in her non-biological sister, Amy.

I was really hoping there would be a shocker of a twist in this book, and I was not disappointed. The deeper Eleanor becomes enmeshed in Victoria’s life, the faster I found myself reading, anticipating that things were not quite as Eleanor saw them. The levels of deceit and darkness that played into the ending of this story were incredibly unexpected. In the end, Sister Dear absolutely lives up to its thriller categorization. 

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
Buy Sister Dear at an indie bookstore near you
Sister Dear on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

The Girl Before by JP Delaney ~ Book Review

Morgan

The Girl Before and cookies

Ballantine Books
Genre: Thriller
Release Date: January 24, 2017
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

I got major Riley Sager vibes from this book (although it definitely came out before any of the Sager books I’ve read). I love the premise of a creepy residence with a life of its own. ‘Settings that almost become characters in and of themselves’ seems to be its own subset of the thriller genre, and I’m not mad about it. One Folgate Street is just such a setting. A futuristic fortress designed entirely to teach its inhabitants to be more minimalistic and alter their morals, it is also steeped in tragedy. Initially designed to be the home of the architect, Edward Monkford, and his family, it was instead put up for rent after Edward’s wife and child were killed in an on-site construction accident.

The book is split between Emma and Jane’s narrations, fifteen years apart. Both women apply to stay at One Folgate Street, a process which includes an extensive and intrusive questionnaire as the first step. Each one is reeling from a personal tragedy, and sees the strange residence as an opportunity for a fresh start despite the strange rules and regulations that they agree to upon signing the lease.

Before moving in, both Emma and Jane meet Edward Monkford, the alluring architect of the home. Both women find themselves instantly attracted to him and the feeling appears mutual. Packed full of desolation, lies, mistrust, instability, and sex, this book was a rollercoaster from start to finish. I will say that there were times when it felt like there was too much trying to be crammed in (the sudden introduction of an eating disorder and excessive compulsive lying caught me off guard), but nonetheless, the parallel stories of Emma and Jane kept me utterly enthralled and on the edge of my seat to know what would happen next.

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
The Girl Before on Goodreads
Buy The Girl Before at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

The Twin by Natasha Preston ~ Book Review

Morgan

The Twin with Muffin

Delacorte Press
Genre: YA Thriller
Release Date: March 3, 2020
My Rating: 🍪🍪

I want to preface my review by saying that I’m not the target audience for this book, and I think that had a lot to do with me not loving it. This is a YA thriller, and as such, focuses a lot on high school drama, but doesn’t get super crazy messed up. (Okay, maybe kind of toward the very, very end, but not overwhelmingly so). I actually haven’t read any thrillers with the good twin/bad twin thing going on that I can recall, but it’s a trope we’re all familiar with.

Ivy and Iris are twins who were separated when their parents divorced, but after their mother’s sudden death, Iris comes to live with Ivy and their dad. From the get-go, Iris doesn’t have any discernible grief about her mother’s death, and what seems like clinginess in an attempt to have her sister to lean on, soon becomes something more sinister. Preston illustrates ways that Iris seems to be trying to overhaul Ivy’s life entirely, but the action unfolds very slowly. A lot of the book is used to define Ivy’s relationships with her friends, boyfriend, dad, and therapist, which I thought was great world building, but was a bit slow.

I think what I really needed more of here were character motivations. It wasn’t clear to me what Iris’s agenda was, and I didn’t get why Ivy’s friends and teachers would be so quick to turn against here. Everyone in her life seemed to be freaking out about how much she changed, but it wasn’t made super clear to the reader. I do think if I was in the YA target age range, this may have been something I wouldn’t care so much about, so I would encourage younger readers to give this one a try.

My Rating: 🍪🍪
Buy The Twin at an indie bookstore near you
Buy The Twin on Amazon
The Twin on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller, Uncategorized

Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier ~ Book Review

Morgan

Little Secrets with coffee and cookies
Minotaur Books
Genre: Thriller
Release Date: April 21, 2020
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5

Thank you to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for an ARC of Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier (out April 21!).

The depths of this book were seriously impressive. The premise of a thriller based on the a disappeared child was different than many of the domestic thrillers I read and I was interested to see how the pacing of the plot played out. Man, did it pack a punch. Hillier fit so much into this book! Luckily, it was pretty lengthy, so it never seemed like too much was happening at once to the point of disbelief.

Marin struggles to live with herself each day after her son is kidnapped from her side at a busy market. Some days she is more successful than others. Hillier paints a rounded picture of Marin’s work life, her grief group, and her relationship with her husband and her best friend Sal, and how each is impacted and influenced by her loss. Marin has also hired her own private investigator, employed after the police have long given up actively searching for her boy, Sebastian. Marin keeps the investigator secret from her husband, but she soon learns that she is not the only one in their marriage keeping secrets.

As Marin focuses in on the deceit in her relationship, the other parts of her life seem to distort around her. Reading this book was like watching a carefully constructed life fall apart piece by piece. It highlighted the darkest corners of the human psyche, and the truly twisted ways different people react and lash out when they are hurting. 

I never could have guessed how each thread of this story was interconnected, and what elements of Marin’s past were informing her present. I’m not sure how, as a thriller-lover, I am just now discovering Jennifer Hillier, but I can say with confidence that I’ll be seeking out more of her work!

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪.5
Buy Little Secrets at an Indie Bookstore near you
Buy Little Secrets on Amazon
Little Secrets on Goodreads