Category: thriller

Fiction, literary fiction, Mystery, romance, thriller

Book Review: All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

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“When it comes to marriage, love is merely a visitor over a lifetime. Respect and kindness, they are the true foundations.”

It’s 1975 in Monta Clare, a small town in Missouri, and girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted and is saved by a local, partially blind boy – Patch, the lives of everyone associated with him will never be the same. Patch and those who love him, discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. Everyone’s search for answers will lead them to years of sadness and unexpected paths.

“At ten years old he realized that people were born whole, and that the bad things peeled layers from the person you once were, thinning compassion and empathy and the ability to construct a future. At thirteen he knew those layers could sometimes be rebuilt when people loved you. When you loved.”

This book was published last year, and the hype was insane. I actually requested this book from my library countless times and just never took the plunge to read it. I kept sending it back and requesting it again and again because there was something about the blurb that told me I would not enjoy it and that thing was absolutely right. This book finally checked out to me while I was away on holiday, and I finally took the plunge. It did not live up to the hype for me at all. All the characters did not feel like real people, they felt like literary characters that can only exist in a book. I don’t expect to relate to characters; I just want the author to convince me that that character exists somewhere on earth and Whitaker failed on that account for me.

“God is a first call and a last resort, from christening to death bed. In between is where faith is tested. The mundanity. Anyone can drop to their knees when they’re facing crisis, but doing it when everything is steady…”

Let me first say that this book is extremely well written. I can quote you a million lines that show you that Chris Whitaker is a damn good writer. I also think you would like this book better if you know what to expect. So, I’m going to tell you what to expect – this book is a sloooooowwwwww character driven drama. Yes, it is a mystery but it’s not a traditional mystery. This is a book about what happens after you’re saved from what could have been a terrible tragedy. Whitaker takes the scenic view to get you to the end. Which would be everything you hoped it would be, except the journey there is so circuitous and meandering that you just want it to end.

“The shrink they make me see, she taps her pencil and frowns at me. And she talks about how we construct our ideals out of our own past mistakes. And I wonder what exactly a mistake is. A thing we should not have done, right? But if learning is built on trial and error there can be no mistakes, only rungs on a ladder to someplace better.”

I never understood Saint’s motivations to do what she did. I think her whole life was dedicated to Patch and I never understood it. It felt like Saint was absolutely in love with Patch while Patch did not feel an inkling of romantic love for her. Every decision Saint took was to the service of Patch and I understand doing that when you’re young and he’s your only friend. But when Patch comes back and Saint remains utterly devoted to him, I just did not understand her motivation. Patch never did a single thing to deserve all that and it’s like the author realizes that at the end and just decides to have Patch make a stupid decision and then claim it was for Saint.

“Saint knew that for some it was written in the stars that no matter how hard they fought their road did not lead somewhere good.”

This book was 597 pages. It did not need to be this long. I gave it 3 stars purely because of the writing and its satisfying ending.

Have you heard of this one? Have you read it? What did you think of it?

Leggy

Fiction, Mystery, thriller

Book Review: The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

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Millie, a recent parolee, who is homeless and jobless is desperate to find a job to stay within the conditions of her parole. Desperate, she interviews for a maid position at the Winchesters and is shocked when she gets the job. She wonders how her time in prison and why she was in prison didn’t come up when they ran her background check but nevertheless she is so happy to finally have a job and a place to stay. As she becomes enscounsed into the life of the Winchesters especially the wife, Nina, she wonders how such a perfect man ended up with such a crazy wife. As Nina constantly gaslights and scares Millie, she realizes that all might not be as it looks.

I had this book on my to-be-read list for 2 years before I finally read it on a flight to Arizona. I started it at the airport waiting for my flight and finished it as the plane touched down in Phoenix. This was a very compelling book and easy to read. I knew where it was going because certain characters were just too good to be true. But, even though I knew what the author was going to do at the end, it did not reduce my enjoyment of this book. I really enjoyed the interactions between Nina and Millie. I found the PTA portions of the book to be so well written and fascinating. The first 85% of this book were quite intriguing but once you hit the last 30 pages, then you have to utterly suspend all logic and just enjoy ride.

It’s really hard to review a mystery book without giving away the twist but I think you should pick this one up if you’re looking for a book that would definitely hold your interest and that you can read in one sitting. There’s a second book in the series but I’m hesitant about picking it up since I now know the formula and the author continues with the same protagonist, Millie.

I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads. Let me know if you’ve read this one.

Leggy

Fiction, Mystery, romance, thriller

Book Review: First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston

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“There’s an old saying: The first lie wins. It’s not referring to the little white kind that tumble out with no thought; it refers to the big one. The one that changes the game. The one that is deliberate. The lie that sets the stage for everything that comes after it. And once the lie is told, it’s what most people believe to be true. The first lie has to be the strongest. The most important. The one that has to be told.”

Evie Porter has the perfect life – a fantastic boyfriend, a big house in a charming small town, new work as a gallerist’s assistant but there’s a problem: Evie does not exist. She is a made up, perfectly crafted character given to her by a mysterious voice on the phone. She has no idea who her employer is even though she has worked for him for over 8 years. Before every job, she gets a delivery that contains what her identity, future location and her mark will be.

Evie takes the time every job to research her new character and location, she is great at her job, that’s why she’s paid the big bucks but why is this particular character of Evie so unnerving for her. Evie is falling in love with her mark, Ryan, and doesn’t understand what this current job is about. She’s spent months building this relationship while waiting for instructions that never come until someone with her original identity, one that she has been protecting for years and hoping to get back to, waltzes into town.

This was my January Book of the Month pick. I really wanted to read a thriller and I think this delivered. The main character is not a stereotypically good character but you find yourself rooting for her as she exists in a morally grey area. This book won’t blow your mind but it is a fun, quick read which is what I was looking for. As we delve more into Evie and Ryan’s relationship, we wonder more and more if Ryan is more than a mark, why has she been placed in his life for several months without further instructions? Why is he always in East Texas on Thursdays everyday unfailingly? Is anyone who you think they are?

This book starts slow but picks up rapidly around the 100 page mark and doesn’t slow down till the end. I guessed both the twist and the fake out from the start. I saw what the end game was going to be so I wasn’t taken in by the fake out but I can see how people wouldn’t see it coming. I’m not the type of reader who can relax and just experience the book, I’m always wondering what the big twist is going to be and I guessed the real identity of the employer pretty early but the fake out almost made me doubt myself. I had already tweeted about figuring it out so when the fake out came, I was like wow, am I going to have to go back to Tayne with my tail between my legs?!

Anyway, if you’re looking for a fun thriller to read, this is the book for you. It reads like a movie. I gave this 3 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

Fiction, literary fiction, Mystery, thriller

Book Review: The Spare Room by Andrea Bartz

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Kelly packed up her life and moved from Chicago to Philadelphia because her fiance lost his job and found one in Philadelphia. Now there is a pandemic and he has just told Kelly they need to pump the brakes on wedding planning. Kelly doesn’t know a lot of people but has recently rekindled a friendship with her high school friend, Sabrina who is a popular author with a seemingly great life. Her and her husband, Nathan invite her to come stay with them. They have a spare room in their massive house and they could use the company.

Kelly hops on an Amtrak for a fresh start and along the way, she finds herself falling for the couple. They become a throuple until Kelly finds out their last girlfriend is missing and she is not getting good enough answers from her partners. So begins the thriller, as Kelly tries to figure out what is happening while living this new life that she is hiding from her friends and family.

I have never read a book by Bartz but I hear she and her sister are popular in this genre. It’s hard to find a good thriller these days and I didn’t think this was exceptional, it was just mid. I found Kelly to be a little juvenile. I am not sure if that is the right word. She seemed very easily manipulated and probably because she never seemed to have a stance on what she wanted. I mean Nathan and Sabrina had so many red flags and she dug her head in the sand so deep it was unbelievable.

Also, for a book that seemed so adult, I am not sure why the love scenes seemed to be sanitized. I don’t know if this is how it always is in Bartz’s books but why have a character who writes erotic books and have the scenes in the book be vague? The last quarter of the book that could be seen as the culmination of the thriller felt like a rush and in some parts, it came off disjointed. At some point, I just decided to go with it even though I had questions. I might have laughed out loud when the “whodunnit?” was revealed.

I will say that the writing style wasn’t bad at all, and it helped hold my interest in the story. More of the problem lay in the plot and how there were a lot of “raise eyebrow” moments. I think my standards are high when it comes to thrillers, and I haven’t read a good one since Gone Girl (I’m taking recs if you have one!). Not sure I would recommend this one but if you have read it, let me know what you think!

Taynement

Book Related Topics, Fiction, literary fiction, thriller, women's fiction

Book Review: The Whispers by Ashley Audrain

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The Loverlys’ young son is in a coma after falling from his bedroom window and his mother Whitney waits by his bedside without a word to anyone. Back in their neighborhood, their neighbors and friends are shocked and reeling from their different roles in this. As the author takes us back to the weeks before the accident and the intricate ways the different families are connected, a domestic drama plays out right in front of us.

I loved Audrain’s debut novel – The Push. I gave it 5 stars. It was so well written and I was so intrigued. Her second book does not live up to her debut novel. I know the publishers are selling this as a domestic thriller but I refused to call it that in my blurb above, this is a domestic drama at best. There is no thriller. From the 20% mark you already know exactly what is happening and what secrets the author is stretching out to reveal at the 90% mark and it is not worth your reading 300 pages to get to.

Audrain is a fantastic writer. I’ll give her that. Every sentence is well crafted but my problem with this book is that this is not a story worth telling. This book is told from different points of views of the women living in the neighborhood. There are too many points of views and one in particular is so unnecessary and the editor should have cut it – Mara. Mara is an elderly portuguese woman who is the last of her kind in a neighborhood that has been utterly gentrified by the rich. She sits on her porch and observes her neighbors. I think she added nothing to the story. Her backstory did nothing to move the plot forward. You could skip all her chapters except one and you’d still not have missed a thing.

This book explores the quiet sacrifices of motherhood. We see Blair, a mother who has given up everything to be a stay at home mother to her one child. In contrast to Whitney who puts her career over the needs of her children. Then finally, Rebecca, a woman who has had 5 miscarriages and is desperate to become a mother. While Audrain has a lot of astute observations about motherhood, it ultimately amounts to nothing. There is no lesson to be learnt here. Nobody wins.

Audrain writes these long paragraphs about miscarriages that I had to skim through. The way she explicitly writes about the foetus leaving your body and describes each one of the 5 miscarriages in gruesome details made me feel like this is extremely unnecessary. But I also understand that maybe I’m not the target audience and people who have actually had miscarriages might relate to the very detailed passages about feeling the clumps drop down in the toilet as the contractions grip you?

As we get to know Rebecca, Whitney, Blair and Mara, the author explores the decisions every woman makes and the judgement and guilt that follows. She shows the lives we choose, the ones we’re thrust into and the different ways we punish ourselves for those decisions.

Ultimately, while I went around proclaiming the amazingness of The Push, I’m afraid I won’t be doing that for this one. Audrain is a fantastic writer but I wish she had sat with this one a little while longer. I gave this 2 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

Fiction, Historical, literary fiction, race, thriller

Book Review: The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb

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“Music’s the gift. Caring’s the gift. And you give it to others now. There are a lot of ways apart from a concert hall to make a difference in someone’s life.”

Ray is a young, black man who loves playing the violin and he is good at it. His family is not supportive, especially his mom who tried to get him to stop playing and instead get a job at Popeyes for a stable paycheck. He ignores her and continues to play with borrowed violins from school. One Thanksgiving, his grandmother – the only family member who believes in his talent, gives him her father’s violin and when he goes to clean it up he finds out that it is a Stradivarius, a priceless type of violin. This becomes a blessing and a curse as his family suddenly takes interest in it and want to sell it and split the proceeds.

Another family, descendants of the family that enslaved his great-grandfather, also come forward and claim it belongs to their family and sue Ray. On the blessings side, Ray’s profile rises and he starts booking gigs and qualifies for the Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music. A competition no American has ever won. Everything seems to be going great until the Stradivarius goes missing. Ray is suddenly under pressure to find his violin while also practice for the competition.

“Second, he learned that doing what you loved may not be enough, that all the passion and perseverance that roared like blood within you could be trumped by factors that you could never control—factors like the color of your skin, or the shape of your eyes, or the sound of your voice.”

I really enjoyed this one for many reasons but mainly because this book wasn’t just one thing. The book managed to be a family saga, a thriller, a book about following passions, overcoming the odds and also exploring the ugliness of our nation’s history. I liked how Slocumb built the story of Ray’s career as a violinist. We got to be there from the beginning and go through his obstacles and breaks and it felt realistic. As a black person, reading some of his obstacles pursuing a character that the world has stereotyped as “not black”, you understand because every black person has faced being put in a box and being told what you can or can’t do.

“And none of that mattered. No matter how nice the suit, no matter how educated his speech or how strong the handshake, no matter how much muscle he packed on, no matter how friendly or how smart he was, none of it mattered at all. He was just a Black person. That’s all they saw and that’s all he was.”

I will say though, at a point I thought Ray’s experience with racism was A LOT but then reading that Slocumb incorporated everything that he himself (a violinist as well) had experienced in real life and I had to snap myself back to the reality of being a black person in America and navigating a mostly white career world.The other part of the book is figuring out who could have stolen the violin. In a rare occurence, my guess on who it was, was actually correct.

I recommend this book. It engaged me and I wanted to find out what would happen next. I read this one but I have heard that the audio is quite good. On a random note, I am curious why there are two different covers for this book.

Taynement

Fiction, thriller

Book Review: The House In The Pines by Ana Reyes

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A viral video where a woman is seated across a man at a diner when she suddenly stares into space and drops dead makes its way all over the internet. Maya is one of the many people who views this video but she is triggered as she has seen this happen before. When she was a high school senior preparing to go off to college, she watched her best friend, Aubrey die in the exact same way. That’s not the only similarity, they both died in the presence of the same man, Frank.

Now years later, Maya is in a serious relationship while going through withdrawals from an addiction to Klonopin, a drug she has been on since Aubrey’s death. She is drinking way more alcohol than usual to deal with it, isn’t sleeping well and has lost a ton of weight. After an embarrassing dinner with her boyfriend’s family where she was drunk, she decides to go back to her hometown and find a way to prove that Frank is responsible for both murders.

I don’t think I have ever read a book recommended by Reese’s book club but I was determined to have a better reading life this year and was open to suggestions so when I came across this on IG I was like sure, why not? and I don’t know if it was a good or bad decision. The book started out captivating and I was intrigued and very eager to find out how or if Frank was connected to both deaths. I think Reyes did a good job of mapping out the past and we get a good sense of Aubrey and Maya’s friendship. But then, when the reveal happens, I was like huh?? I almost didn’t believe it. Dare I say, I felt insulted? It was just waaay too far fetched for me.

Maya has Guatamelan heritage and at some point we see her visit and meet her father’s family (her father died when he was young). Her father was a writer who had an unfinished book that was in her possession. Reyes writes this plot point into the story as if it would come in handy at some point and it does interweave during the reveal but it didn’t seem to add to the reveal at all, so I kept wondering why we were dragged into it in the first place.

There is a lot going on in this book and you can tell that it is a debut effort. I don’t know if I’d recommend this book because I don’t think the payoff was satisfying. I gave it 3 stars because it really did have my attention the first half of the book before it started falling apart.

Taynement

Fiction, literary fiction, Mystery, thriller, Uncategorized

Book Review: Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

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“Banter can hide the worst sins. Some people laugh to hide their shame, they laugh instead of saying I feel embarrassed and small.”

One late October, Jen is waiting up for her son, Todd, to come home after midnight when she witnesses a murder. As she watches from a window, Todd approaches but he’s not alone, he’s walking towards a man, armed. As Jen watches in horror, her son stabs the man fatally for no apparent reason and refuses to talk about why he did it. Todd is now in custody and the police won’t let his parents see him or talk to him plus he’s refusing a lawyer. Jen goes home and falls asleep in deep despair only to wake up in the morning and it’s the day before the murder. Jen keeps sleeping and waking up days before the murder with another chance to try and stop it. Somewhere in the past is the trigger for this murder and Jen has to spot it, catch it in time, to avoid her son’s future being ruined.

“How sinister it is to relive your life backward. To see things you hadn’t at the time. To realize the horrible significance of events you had no idea were playing out around you.”

I’m a fan of people being stuck in a time warp. Living your life backwards? Living an alternative reality? Sign me up. This book was very well written and the time warp very well plotted with the main character actually doing things that I would have done from the start. I enjoyed how fast she understood the predicament she was in and started acting fast. I knew from the start the main person she should be taking a look at so I wasn’t that surprised by the twists and turns the author came up with. But I enjoyed the ride even though I knew where the author was taking us. It did not at all diminish my enjoyment of this book.

This book makes you consider if you really know anything about the life you’re living. There’s something about reliving your life and looking at past scenes with a critical eye as you search your son for the period he became a murderer. Your sweet, funny, nerdy son who cried when his first girlfriend dumped him. What did you miss about his behavior lately? Who is this girl he’s seeing who he doesn’t really let you get to know fully?

At the 75% mark of this book, I became exhausted reading about Jen waking up further and further into the past. The constant past loop of her life made me so tired even though I kept trudging through it. If I was that tired reading Jen’s constant turmoil of spending so long in the past, I can’t even imagine what it was like for her to live it. Even when she thinks, “Okay, I’ve solved it, this is it”- there’s still yet another revelation and even further into the past the thread leads. After a while, I just wanted it to end. I was rooting for Jen all through to save her boy.

I totally recommend this book. If you’re looking for a thriller that makes sense and isn’t trying to be the next Gone Girl, pick up this book. I’ve tried to avoid spoilers in this review and I would recommend just skipping the blurb and diving in. It’s really good writing and she really does make the pay off worth your while. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads.

Have you read this one? Let me know in the comments what you thought of it. If you haven’t read it, will you be picking this one up? Let me know as well!

Leggy

Fiction, literary fiction, romance, thriller

Book Review: Verity by Colleen Hoover

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Lowen Ashleigh is going through an eventful time in her life. Her mom has just died from cancer and the first time she dares venture outside her apartment for a work meeting since her death, a man is hit by a bus in front of her. Lowen is a writer. A struggling writer. She likes her private life, doesn’t do promo and just hasn’t had a lot of opportunities. Her work meeting is an offer by Jeremy Crawford, husband to the best selling author, Verity Crawford.

Verity has written a successful series but is unable to continue as she has sustained injuries from a car accident. Lowen is offered the opportunity to finish out the series for a substantial amount of money. She is also offered the chance to live at the Crawford residence to go over Verity’s notes and outlines for the series which is good timing since she is about to be evicted.

Lowen accepts, moves in with Jeremy, Verity and their lone surviving son and uncovers a whole lot more about Jeremy and Verity’s relationship while also developing feelings for Jeremy. We also get to learn more about Lowen’s past.

I have mentioned before that I am a newbie to Colleen Hoover. This is only my second book of hers with the first being It Ends With Us. I was told that that was a departure from her usual writing style but this is apparently also a departure as well. Hoover wrote this book independently from her contract (which makes it free on Kindle Unlimited!)

All that to say that I really enjoyed this book. I have been in a reading slump but this kept me intrigued and turning the pages. There was soooo much going on in this book. So many stories but Hoover found a way to not make it complicated. It was very meta because we are reading a book about a writer writing a book that is reading notes on another book that was being written for a writer by another writer (clap for yourself if this made sense to you haha!)

To make things clearer, I’ll reveal that while going through the notes, Lowen discovers Verity’s autobiography which becomes part of the story that we read along with her. This is where we find out about the couple and somehow the book becomes a thriller and I started guessing what happened (I was wrong). I should also let you know that there are a lot of sex scenes in the book that I have to say was well done. Not too smarmy and not too childish/prudish.

I didn’t quite like the ending but honestly it was not so bad considering the many plot threads in the book. I didn’t quite buy the feasibility of Verity’s storyline 100% but you know…creative liberties. It didn’t affect my enjoyment of the book. I completely recommend this book and it was an easy and quick read.

Have you read this one? Which book of hers do you recommend I read next?

Taynement

Chick-Lit, Fiction, literary fiction, thriller

The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth

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“Sisterly relationships are so strange in this way. The way I can be mad at Rose but still want to please her. Be terrified of her and also want to run to her. Hate her and love her, both at the same time. Maybe when it comes to sisters, boundaries are always a little bit blurry. Blurred boundaries, I think, are what sisters do best.”

Rose and Fern are fraternal twin sisters. Fern is on the spectrum and Rose is very protective of Fern and is very involved in her life. Fern relies on her sister a lot and trusts her and would do anything for her. When Rose tells Fern that she has fertility issues and isn’t able to have a kid, Fern decides she needs to help Rose have a child and all she needs to do is find a man to impregnate her.

Fern lives a structured, routine life and keeps to a schedule. When she meets Wally at the library she works in, he brings a little disruption in her life – in a good way. We start to see the relationship between the sisters from two perspectives. Fern’s, in present day and Rose’s from when they were children via her journal entries till the stories collide and meet in the present day.

“Fern always seemed to have some sort of impenetrable boundary around her that made her immune to Mum’s reign of terror. I often wondered if that boundary was part and parcel of whatever was different about Fern.”

I don’t recall how or when this was on my TBR list but it was available and I dove into it and it was really a case of right time, right book. It basically is a story about family and how perspectives can be different even in the same environment. There were many things covered in this book – learning more about sensory processing disorder (which Fern suffers from) and being on the spectrum, mental illness, abuse, boundaries and more – but it was woven in seamlessly and did not feel overwhelming. Hepworth managed to place them in the right places with the right doses.

“The library, Janet used to say, is one of only a few places in the world that one doesn’t need to believe anything or buy anything to come inside … and it is the librarian’s job to look after all those who do.”

It might seem like a little thing, but as mentioned before Fern worked in a library and seeing how much she loved her job, was good at it and was a place of solace for her, seemed like a subtle nod to us book lovers. Hepworth did a good job of character building and the library seemed like one more character that wasn’t left out. I liked how she didn’t have Fern’s autism be her one defining characteristic even if it was a big part of her life. Instead, we get to know about Fern’s love of bright colors and how bold she was.

“One thing I’ve learned about facing fear,” he says, “is that sometimes, it’s just too scary.”

I am not sure how to categorize the book. It’s definitely fiction but it had a mix of romance, [very low key] thriller in that it’s all leading up to a big secret/twist which I think was quite easy to figure out. I enjoyed the pacing of the book and all in all found it a pleasurable read. Oh and Hepworth is Australian, so the book is set in Australia. I gave the book 4 stars because the ending kinda hinted at a sequel and I think the book should be a one and done. I recommend this one!

Taynement