Tag: thriller reader

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

Everyone is Lying to You by Jo Piazza ~ Book Review

Morgan

Genre: Thriller
My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪

I don’t usually like pop-culture references in books, but Everyone is Lying to You, which centers around a bunch of influencers, showed me that it really depends on how they’re included. Lizzie hasn’t heard from her college bestie Bex since she was ghosted by her years ago. That is, until one day Bex contacts her out of the blue asking if she’d like to have an exclusive interview with her. Lizzie, a magazine writer, jumps at the chance to get an inside look at Bex’s tradwife-style influencer life.

I listened to the audio version of this and it was so well done. It had multiple narrators and it made the story fly by. Much of the book takes place at an influencer event and the humor around influencing was such a delight. It was unexpectedly funny, particularly how seriously all the characters took things. 

The twist was darker than I expected and I was happy to be surprised by it. It was a good juxtaposition to the perfection all the influencers were trying to sell on their platforms.

This wasn’t anything groundbreaking, but it was a really fast popcorn thriller that I read in about a day.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy Everyone is Lying to You at an indie bookstore near you
Everyone is Lying to You on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Thriller

I’m sorry, but just as there are too many podcasts out there, there are also too many books about podcasts out there. It is less and less interesting each time I come across a similar premise. In Listen for the Lie, podcast host Ben Owens is investigating the years-old murder of Savvy, Lucy’s best friend.

Lucy has long been suspected of having a hand in Savvy’s death, particularly since she claims to not be able to remember anything from that night. Now, back home at the same time as the murder is being revisited, Lucy is back in the spotlight.

I listened to this one on audio and it went by very quickly. I did enjoy the way the podcast was included as excerpts within the story. It broke things up and kept them moving.

Lucy’s romantic relationships were kind of a random choice to include. She had multiple romantic encounters throughout the book that just kind of made me think she was less intelligent.

I was very intrigued to figure out who was behind the murder, but it didn’t feel like there was any pressure to figure it out. Things just sort of plodded along and, in my opinion, there was no big reveal.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy Listen for the Lie at an indie bookstore near you
Listen for the Lie on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Thriller

Jessica, Norah, and Alicia are our three narrators who receive a call one day pulling them into the investigation of human remains that were found under a home they were all fostered in as children. We get flashbacks from each of them recalling their time in foster care with Miss Fairchild and the darkness that underscored their time there.

I liked that each of the main women was very different from one another and we got to see how that played out both when they were children in foster care, and as adults. I didn’t find their adult lives terribly compelling and it kept me from feeling fully invested in their stories.

The central mystery was intriguing and I was on the edge of my seat waiting to figure out what had happened. It wasn’t necessarily a jaw dropping plot-twist kind of story, but there were enough questions swirling around to keep me engaged and the ultimate conclusion made sense and was not where I anticipated the story going.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Darling Girls on Goodreads
Buy Darling Girls at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Mystery

When Nora’s father, Liam, dies unexpectedly, she is thrown into grief anew, having recently lost her mother as well. Then her stepbrother Sam shows up unexpectedly, eager to dig into their father’s death more. Together, he and Nora begin to investigate whether the fatal accidental fall was really an accident.

This story explores not only the mystery laid out, but also Nora’s relationships and Liam’s relationships, shown to us through narration that happens in the past. The sections in the past didn’t ever really click for me. They seemed much less fleshed out than the present and it made it hard for me to connect with or care about the characters.

I appreciated the atmospheric nature of the family home and the cat and mouse game Nora and Sam seem to be on as they chase down clues. That said, much of the story was on the slow side and wasn’t especially gripping.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
The Night We Lost Him on Goodreads
Buy The Night We Lost Him at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

The Fury by Alex Michaelides ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Thriller

The Fury is narrated by Elliot Chase who is very pointedly telling us a story. It’s the story of his time on an island with movie star Lana Farrar, her husband and son and her friend Kate, and an ensuing murder. The island is sooo moody and atmospheric and as a lover of a locked-room mystery I was hooked

I loved the way this was narrated. You are aware from the beginning that you’re getting Elliot’s perspective and it’s filtered through his relationships with the other characters. I won’t say much more about that, but it added a lot to the layers of the story as the tale went on.

I’ve seen a lot of reviews talking about how slow this book is and, as a thriller, it is on the slow side, but I didn’t have a problem with that. We get a lot of backstory on the characters, which isn’t always the case with this kind of mystery and I really appreciated getting to know the nuances of their lives. With so few characters in the book, there’s plenty of time to delve into each of their pasts.

This is a twisty thriller with a lot of drama (in the sense that they’re all actors, so they’re dramatic) and I was intrigued from start to finish.

*Thank you to Celadon for a free copy of this book in exchange for my opinion.
Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
The Fury on Goodreads
Buy The Fury at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Thriller

The Midnight Feast gave big White Lotus energy, focusing on an exclusive new resort and four people in its orbit: the founder, her husband, a guest, and someone who worked there. The four perspectives wove together the history of the resort and the land it was built on and the mysteries surrounding the area. Specifically, it touched on everyone’s experience with ‘The Birds,’ a mysterious group of people dressed as birds who seemed to wreak havoc on the area.

We know from early on that the resort has been burned down and at least one person has died. As the detectives in this future narrative piece together what happened, we learn the context from various perspectives. The parts of the story set in the past, many of which were communicated through journal entries, were really compelling and showed a lot about characters’ personalities and childhood experiences that informed who they became.

The whole “birds” thing seemed really random to me and honestly I never really understood it. I’m not sure why it was a necessary element in the story at all and the parts of the book talking about it didn’t move the story along for me. I would have liked it more if the book stuck to focusing on the intricate inter-character dynamics which I really enjoyed. Everyone was hiding something and it was intriguing to see everything come to light.

The setting was so well written and I could perfectly visualize the resort and the surroundings and came to understand the history behind the land. It was moody and atmospheric and made for such an unsettling backdrop for everything unfolding.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
The Midnight Feast on Goodreads
Buy The Midnight Feast at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

Middle of the Night by Riley Sager ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Thriller

When Ethan was ten, he had a sleepover in a tent on his lawn with his best friend Billy. In the morning, Billy was gone and all that was left behind was a gash in the tent. Now, Ethan has returned to his hometown as an adult and finds himself haunted by the feeling that Billy is still there. He begins to reconnect with his neighbors in an effort to dig back into the past.

This story flashes back to the past and we come to realize that there was more to Billy and Ethan’s friendship at the time of Billy’s disappearance. That combined with a mysterious institute in the woods nearby point more and more to something sinister.

We get a lot of different perspectives and points of view in this book and it was very hard to keep track of all the characters. Most of them had pretty watery descriptions so there was nothing to help keep them straight. This alone made me less invested in the story than many of Sager’s other books.

I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the story with the spooky institute in the woods and the return to a childhood neighborhood that seems somewhat trapped in time (granted, I found it unbelievable that so many of Ethan’s childhood friends moved back there).

My biggest issue with this book was why someone would cut a gash in the tent instead of just unzipping it lol. For some reason that premise that the whole mystery was based on really threw me off.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Middle of the Night on Goodreads
Buy Middle of the Night at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, thriller

The Next Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪
Genre: Romance

The Last Mrs. Parrish is one of the first books that got me into thrillers and I will never hesitate to recommend it.

I wishhh the same could be said for the sequel, but it was a struggle to get through The Next Mrs. Parrish. This book picks up with Amber, Daphne, and incarcerated Jackson while also introducing Daisy Ann. Each character has their own motivations, but for me they didn’t seem like logical follow ups to the original story. It felt like an attempt to redo much of what book one did, which just seemed forced.

Daisy Ann was a random addition to the story and I didn’t know enough about her to really care what she was doing and how she was involved. As a result, I wasn’t really invested in her parts of the book and found them a bit hard to follow.

Much of my respect for the ways Amber and Daphne tried to out-manipulate one another in the first book was lost as they seemed to lose their exciting cattiness.

This book was so drawn out and completely fell flat for me.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
The Next Mrs. Parrish on Goodreads
Buy The Next Mrs. Parrish at an indie bookstore near you

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

The Heiress By Rachel Hawkins ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪🍪
Genre: Thriller
Read if you liked: Daisy Darker

When Ruby McTavish died, she left her entire fortune and her estate, Ashby House, to her adopted son Camden, who turned down his inheritance and chose to lay low with his wife, Jules. Upon his uncle’s death though, the couple is summoned to Ashby house where the whole family is waiting to discuss the fortune and next steps.

The narration is split into three perspectives, that of Camden, Jules, and the late Ruby. Each voice is so distinct and their points of view and motivations completely different. Weaving them together made for such a layered story. Camden questions his adoption and Ruby’s motivation while Jules feels cautiously optimistic that her luck could change given Camden’s family wealth. Ruby’s voice was probably my favorite. She was sarcastic and witty and her story was startling and surprising at every turn.

There were so many twists in this book but each one made sense and added an exciting element to the story. I loved never knowing who the characters truly were and what was driving their motivations. The story goes as far back as Ruby’s childhood, when she was briefly kidnapped as a girl, and builds from their creating a rich backstory to the present action.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy The Heiress at an indie bookstore near you
The Heiress on Goodreads

Book Review, Fiction, thriller

First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston ~ Book Review

Morgan

My Rating: 🍪🍪🍪.5
Genre: Thriller

Ooh this was a twisty one! Evie Porter is living an idyllic American life with her handsome successful boyfriend Ryan, or is she? We quickly come to learn that ‘Evie’ is a fake identity assumed for her job working for the mysterious Mr. Smith. Evie has completed a number of questionable jobs for her employer, but is starting to question how much she can trust him. She’s also starting to quite like her life with Ryan.

This story splits the narrative between past and present, introducing many of the different identities Evie has adopted over the years and the jobs they have been associated with. Not gonna lie, I could not keep track of them all. I think including so many was supposed to paint a clear picture of how her relationship with Mr. Smith evolved over time, but it each vignette seemed so separate that it was hard for me to tie everything together chronologically and cohesively in my mind.

I did enjoy getting to see the true relationships that Evie made throughout the years and how she was able to either get help from them in the future as her cover is threatened, or to manipulate them based on past knowledge and experience. She was smart and crafty and made for a fun protagonist.

Evie is primarily trying to figure out what Mr. Smith’s intent is throughout the book, particularly when she finds herself being set up for a crime that happened in her vicinity during a past job. While she digs into these issues, she also has to figure out what to tell Ryan and how to keep their relationship in tact. There was a lot going on, which made this book go fast.

I definitely didn’t see the ending coming, and it made me rethink much of what I’d been told throughout the book, which I love from a thriller. It was a really satisfying wrap-up to Evie’s character and made her like her even more.

Check out my bookstagram: @Treat.your.shelf
Buy First Lie Wins at an indie bookstore near you
First Lie Wins on Goodreads