Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

Even Lucy doesn't know if she can trust Lucy.

For September's book, the Rusty Book Club chose Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera. I should have waited. At least until September 1st. I had things to do today.

None of them got done. Instead, I picked it up and apparently decided that laundry, housework, errands, and anything else remotely productive could wait until I figured out whether Lucy Chase murdered her best friend.

Here's the scoop:

Years ago, Lucy was found wandering along a Texas road, covered in her best friend Savvy's blood, with absolutely no memory of what happened. Savvy was dead. Lucy couldn't explain why. There wasn't enough evidence to charge her, but that didn't stop pretty much everyone in town from deciding she was guilty.

And really. Amnesia? How ... convenient.

The problem is that Lucy doesn't know whether she did it either. She's reluctantly back in her hometown for her grandmother's birthday party, where a popular true-crime podcaster has decided to investigate Savvy's murder. Yeah. Grandma set her up.

As he starts interviewing the people who were there, old stories begin to shift, secrets start crawling out of the woodwork, and Lucy has to confront the possibility that somewhere inside her missing memories is the answer to what happened that night.

I loved Lucy. Absolutely loved her. This woman majors in snark and speaks sarcasm as a second language. She's been accused of murdering her best friend, nearly everyone in town thinks she did it, and even she can't say with absolute certainty that they're wrong. Rather than turn her into a weepy, helpless protagonist, Tintera gives Lucy a wonderfully dark sense of humor and a sharp tongue.

My kind of gal.

The podcast structure works beautifully alongside Lucy's narration. As the podcaster interviews people connected to Savvy and the night she died, we're hearing their versions of events while Lucy is trying to piece together her own. It adds another layer to the mystery because nobody's account can simply be accepted as fact—including Lucy's. She isn't deliberately hiding the truth from us. She genuinely doesn't know what the truth is.

Neither did I. I had theories, though. Isn't it always the boyfriend or husband? And when said man is apparently willing to screw anything that moves, surely we've found ourselves a prime candidate.

Think again. I was completely blindsided. 

That's exactly what I want from a thriller. Give me characters I want to follow, make me suspicious of everybody, let me confidently construct my little theories ... and then prove me completely wrong. And if you can make me abandon everything I planned to accomplish that day because I absolutely have to know what happened?

Five stars.

The dust bunnies will still be there tomorrow.

Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas

Sorry Hercules. We need to see other people. 

Blood of Hercules by Jasmine Mas was August’s pick for the Rusty Book Club, and I made it to page 152 of 460 before admitting defeat.

I was bored to tears.

And here's the frustrating part: I don't think the problem was the premise. Alexis is determined to be Spartan through a blood test of sorts, and there’s fighting, danger, insults, mythology, and plenty of things that should have made this interesting. The world-building wasn't particularly difficult to follow, and I didn't actively dislike Alexis.

I just didn't care.

By page 152, I should have been invested in something. Instead, people fought. People insulted each other. Things happened. Yada, yada, yada. I kept waiting for the moment when the story would grab me, and it never did.

The writing didn't help. The prose felt surprisingly juvenile to me, almost like something written at a sixth-grade reading level, except with cussing thrown in. There is nothing inherently wrong with simple prose, and profanity usually doesn't bother me, but here it sometimes felt as though the author had just discovered cuss words and was determined to try them all out.

The humor didn't land for me, either. At all. In fact, I was surprised to find out it was supposed to be funny. What was apparently intended as funny or edgy banter mostly made me wonder how many pages I had left.

Way too many, as it turned out.

I hadn't even reached the romance portion of the story yet, which I know is a significant part of the book. Maybe that's where everything changes. Maybe another hundred pages would have completely won me over. But I have a personal rule about reading: a book has to give me a reason to keep turning the pages. I had already given Blood of Hercules 152 of them, and I still wasn't curious about what happened next.

That's my signal to stop.

This clearly has an audience, particularly readers who enjoy dark romantasy, mythology-inspired stories, irreverent humor, lots of banter, and plenty of profanity. I am simply not that audience.

On a positive note, I thought the cover was nice.

This Jury is Guilty by Laurie Blake

Forget reasonable doubt. I had reasonable doubt about everyone in the room.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for inviting me to read an advance copy of This Jury Is Guilty by Laurie Blake through NetGalley. Being personally invited to read this one was a lovely surprise, and I’m very happy to say it turned out to be a five-star read.

Superstar Danny Scott is on trial for hiring someone to kill his equally famous wife, Hope Harrison. Hope survives the attack, killing her would-be murderer while defending herself, but what really happened between this Hollywood power couple is far from clear. Hope says Danny is violent and wanted her dead. Danny’s side paints a very different picture, suggesting Hope has a personality disorder and may actually be responsible for the violence in their marriage.

So who is telling the truth?

There’s just one little complication: Danny and Hope are both actors. Convincing people to believe them is literally what they do for a living.

But This Jury Is Guilty isn’t just a question of whether Danny or Hope is telling the truth. It’s a question of whether you can trust anybody in the room.

The story is told through multiple jurors' points of view, and almost no one is quite who they first appear to be. Dee has done her homework on her fellow jurors. Franny seems like a harmless little old lady, but she has secrets of her own. Michelle will do anything to be foreperson. Sofia is keeping things from her wife. And then there’s Rick, who thinks pranking people is hilarious. I hated Rick. There. I said it.

And apparently those twelve strangers have enough skeletons to open their own cemetery.

That was probably my favorite part of the book. The trial itself is fascinating, but the people sitting in judgment of Danny are every bit as interesting as Danny and Hope. Everyone brings something into that jury box, their secrets, biases, motivations, and histories. The more I learned about them, the less certain I became about anyone. I may never look at a jury quite the same way again. I’m going to be giving them all the side-eye.

The beginning felt a little slow to me, and that was the one thing that initially had me wavering between four and five stars. But by the time I finished, I understood why. Blake wasn’t wasting pages; she was putting pieces on the board. With this many characters, secrets, motivations, and points of view, the groundwork mattered. I honestly can’t think of much information that was included without eventually serving a purpose.

And the payoff worked. I figured out a piece or two along the way, but certainly not everything. I was surprised by the verdict, and Blake kept me questioning what I believed - and whom I believed - right up to the end.

That ultimately settled my rating. A slightly slow beginning that turns out to be necessary setup isn’t enough to take away a star when the rest of the book is this cleverly constructed. This book is definitely five stars.

I’d recommend This Jury Is Guilty to readers who enjoy twisty courtroom and locked-room thrillers, multiple POVs, deeply unreliable characters, celebrity scandals, and stories where everyone seems to have something to hide. If you like trying to decide who is lying while gradually realizing that the better question might be who isn’t?, this one is for you.

Just don’t assume the people sitting in the jury box are any more trustworthy than the people on trial.

Content warnings: domestic abuse, violence against women, murder.

 

Long Shadows by David Baldacci (Amos Decker #7)

I had theories. Decker had theories. Only one of us should be solving murders.

As usual, David Baldacci’s audiobook refused to stay in the car. Kudos to Hachette Audio for keeping it entertaining and enjoyable!

Long Shadows brings Amos Decker back for another complicated investigation, and at this point, I really like this guy. The more time I spend with Decker, the more human he becomes. He’s still blunt, socially awkward, and capable of seeing connections nobody else sees, but he has changed considerably from the man we first met in Memory Man. There’s more humanity underneath all that Decker-ness now, and I’ve really enjoyed watching his character develop.

This time, Decker also has a new partner: Frederica “Freddie” White. I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about somebody replacing Alex Jamison, but I needn’t have worried. White is terrific. She’s smart, capable, and takes absolutely no crap from Decker. Better yet, she isn’t Jamison 2.0. She has her own personality and her own way of dealing with him, and watching the two of them figure each other out was one of my favorite parts of the book. Especially since she has two black belts and threatened to take him out if he didn’t behave.

I like her already.

The story begins with a suicide and quickly moves to the murders of a federal judge and her bodyguard, killed in the same house at nearly the same time. Naturally, things aren’t quite as straightforward as they appear.

Decker has a theory. I had a response to his theory.

Oh please ... What are the chances?

Apparently, the chances were pretty darn good.

That’s Baldacci, though. He takes something that sounds just improbable enough to make me skeptical and then starts fitting the pieces together. Meanwhile, what initially looks like one investigation becomes something much bigger and considerably more complicated.

And I never figured it out.

He’s gooood.

That’s probably why this audiobook escaped the car. Again. I would finish my drive, turn off the engine, go inside ... and turn the audiobook right back on. Baldacci kept me curious about how the murders fit together, whether Decker’s seemingly unlikely theory was actually right, and just how many more secrets were waiting underneath the ones we already knew about.

Five stars from me. Long Shadows gave me a complicated mystery I couldn’t solve, continued the wonderful evolution of Amos Decker, and introduced a new partner I’m already looking forward to spending more time with.

Apparently, my car no longer has exclusive listening rights to David Baldacci.

My Husband's Family by Kristina Kamen

Somewhere on this floating soap opera, somebody may or may not have been murdered.

This family puts the “fun” in dysfunction, and I loved every messy minute of it. Buy this book. Now. Or at least as soon as it becomes available.

Rebecca has just married Preston Wexley, heir to a billion-dollar family empire, and is looking forward to her honeymoon. Unfortunately, her new mother-in-law, Savannah, has other ideas. Before Rebecca knows it, the honeymoon has become a family cruise (!) aboard a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean. Seriously. Who does that?

And what a family. We have Savannah, the overbearing matriarch who will do absolutely anything for her sons; her ex-husband Roger and his very young, very pregnant new wife; Preston’s brother Brad and his social-media-influencer girlfriend, who films things she probably shouldn’t; Preston’s former fiancée; Savannah’s wedding-bartender-turned-boy-toy; and a few more people with some very complicated connections to Rebecca’s past.

Honestly, there are so many juicy secrets aboard this yacht, these people practically don't need to eat.

And then someone goes overboard.

Was it an accident? Or was someone assisted into the sea? Who fell? What happened? And if they were assisted, why? Kamen lets us know just enough to keep us guessing while steadily revealing the secrets everyone brought aboard with their luggage. And their “baggage.”

The story moves among four timelines: before the fall, the night of the fall, the day after the fall, and eventually two weeks after the fall, as well as multiple points of view. Normally, that much jumping around has the potential to make me crazy, but it never did. Every chapter is clearly labeled with both the timeline and the character whose point of view we're following. This is an incredibly well-constructed book. I always knew where I was and whose story I was reading, while Kamen controlled exactly how much information I had at any given moment.

The characters were just as much fun as the mystery. I took turns liking and disliking nearly everyone depending on what they were doing and what new secret had just surfaced. Except for Savannah. I never liked her. She made me want to toss her overboard myself. Overbearing doesn't begin to cover it. She's fiercely devoted to her sons, but that devotion comes with enough seriously morally gray choices to require her own paint swatch. She's also exactly the kind of character who makes a book like this so much fun to read.

Best of all, I did not figure everything out. Not even close. Kamen kept me on my toes right through the end, and when the pieces came together, I could appreciate just how carefully everything had been constructed. The devil really is in the details.

I loved this book. It's twisty, funny, suspenseful, wonderfully complicated without ever becoming confusing, and packed with the kind of family secrets that make you very grateful for your own relatives. Readers who enjoy closed-circle mysteries, wealthy dysfunctional families, multiple suspects, shifting loyalties, and trying to figure out who is lying about what should have an absolute blast with this one.

Five stars, and I'd give it more if NetGalley would let me.

Content warnings include death/possible murder, infidelity and sexual relationships, references to sex work, pregnancy, and manipulative/dysfunctional family relationships.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing me with an advance copy. All opinions are my own.

 

The Icehouse by J.J. Richards (DCI Walker #1)

 Murder and Mayhem in Lancashire

There is nothing quite like a murder investigation that suddenly gets personal.

The Icehouse by J.J. Richards follows DCI Walker as he investigates a series of murders around Lancashire. The killer has a distinctive signature, and unfortunately for Walker, it looks a lot like the one left behind when his sister was murdered years earlier. Her case was never solved, so the similarities bring the past crashing straight into his current investigation.

This was a good, solid police thriller that kept me interested from beginning to end. Walker's personal connection to the case added an extra layer of tension without taking over the investigation, and I definitely wanted to know whether the new murders would finally lead to answers about his sister.

I listened to this one, and while it didn't completely refuse to stay in the car, it occasionally escaped the car, which is always a very good sign.

Four stars. A strong, engaging mystery with enough personal stakes to keep me listening and enough unanswered questions to make me curious about DCI Walker's next case.

Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez (Part of Your World #2)

Fake dating, handwritten letters, and no dead bodies. Somehow, I was still up until 3 a.m.

I picked up Yours Truly because I needed a break from murder and mayhem. I wanted something light, cute, and cuddly that didn't require me to keep track of bodies, suspects, motives, or who had buried whom in the backyard. I did not expect fake dating, good old-fashioned handwritten letters, and two ridiculously likable people to keep me reading until 3 a.m. Apparently, romance can be dangerous to my sleep schedule, too.

Jacob Maddox is an ER doctor with severe anxiety. Interestingly enough, the emergency room is one of the places where he is most comfortable. Give the man a medical crisis and he's fine. Give him an awkward social interaction and things can go spectacularly sideways.

Enter Briana Ortiz, an ER nurse and well-loved team leader who is up for a promotion. Briana is smart, confident, fiercely protective of her people, and possesses an almost sixth sense for figuring out what someone needs. Unfortunately, that sixth sense fails her completely when it comes to Jacob.

Briana decides Jacob is one of those doctors: the arrogant, I'm-better-than-you variety. She's not particularly shy about letting him know she doesn't care for him. Then she accidentally breaks his phone after crashing into him in the hallway, and Jacob's anxiety makes explaining what happened approximately 4,000 times messier than it needed to be.

So he writes her a letter. An actual letter. On paper. With a pen. In an envelope.

Be still my old-school heart.

That first letter changes everything. Briana realizes she has completely misjudged Jacob, and the two begin exchanging handwritten letters. In a world of texts, DMs, dating apps, and messages consisting entirely of emojis, there was something ridiculously charming about watching two people sit down and actually write to each other. More importantly, the letters give Jacob a way to communicate without the immediate pressures created by his anxiety, and they give Briana the opportunity to see the thoughtful, funny, compassionate man she couldn't see through his awkwardness.

Of course, this is a romance novel, so we need complications. Jacob needs a date to his brother's wedding. His brother, incidentally, is marrying Jacob's ex-girlfriend.

Oh, sure. Why not? Even in cute, cuddly romance novels, some people can be really weaselly.

Briana agrees to be his fake girlfriend, and the more time they spend together, the less fake their relationship starts to feel. Unfortunately, the original arrangement gives both of them a perfectly reasonable excuse to doubt everything happening between them. Is that touch real or part of the act? Did that moment mean something, or are they just putting on a convincing show?

Normally, this is about where I'd start yelling, “Communication, people!” But Jimenez gives both characters legitimate reasons for their uncertainty.

Briana is still dealing with the emotional fallout from an ugly divorce and an ex-husband who left some pretty deep scars behind. Trust doesn't come easily anymore. Meanwhile, her younger brother Benny desperately needs a kidney transplant, and Jacob becomes his donor. That creates another question Briana can't quite silence: Does Jacob really want to be with her, or does he feel obligated to stay because he gave Benny a kidney and became connected to their family?

Jacob has his own doubts, and his anxiety makes emotional risk particularly difficult. Does Briana really want to stay with him, or does she feel like she owes him because he gave her brother a kidney?

What I loved about Jacob, though, is that Jimenez never presents Briana as the magical woman who “fixes” him. Jacob has sought therapy and treatment. He understands his anxiety, knows his boundaries, and has built a successful life while learning how to manage it. He doesn't need Briana to cure him. He just needs someone willing to understand him.

And Briana does.

That's ultimately what made these two work so well for me. Briana instinctively understands what other people need, while Jacob has worked hard to understand what he needs. Both are caregivers. Both are compassionate. Both carry some emotional baggage. And underneath all the fake dating and romantic confusion, they genuinely like each other.

Yes, there are a couple of steamy scenes. Anyone who has read my reviews for more than five minutes knows those aren't my thing, so I exercised my highly developed page-skipping skills and carried on. I can't really fault a romance novel for containing romance-novel things.

I went into Yours Truly looking for a palate cleanser, something sweet and entertaining before I returned to my regularly scheduled murder and mayhem. Instead, I became completely invested in Jacob, Briana, Benny, those wonderful handwritten letters, and whether two very good people could finally convince themselves that the other one really did love them.

Using my own rating system, there's no question about this one.

★★★★★ — Five stars. I was still reading at 3 a.m. Bedtime never stood a chance.

Well played, Abby Jimenez. Apparently you don't need a dead body to keep me turning pages. And by the way, I'm absolutely stealing the glitter payback idea. That was genius. 

Malice by Jonathan Kellerman (Alex Delaware #42)

 Four bodies. One connection. Zero eye rolls. Five stars.

Four victims. One very specific method of murder. And absolutely no obvious reason why any of them should be connected. Jonathan Kellerman had me hooked.

Malice begins with the discovery of a young man who has been shot precisely in the brainstem, stabbed postmortem, and dumped in a secluded area on a college campus. And there are absolutely no clues. Then another body turns up. And another. By the time there are four victims, the method is clearly a connection, but finding anything else that ties them together is another matter. Even more puzzling, the fourth victim is the brother of the first.

Enter LAPD detective Milo Sturgis and psychologist Alex Delaware, who make one heck of an investigative team.

I particularly enjoyed Milo. He's smart, methodical, and has a wonderfully dry, sometimes macabre sense of humor that made me laugh at some very unexpected moments. Alex complements him perfectly. He doesn't spend the entire book trying to psychoanalyze everyone in sight. He observes, listens, thinks things through, and occasionally sees something from an angle Milo hasn't considered. Their different strengths work together naturally, and I thoroughly enjoyed following the investigation with them.

Kellerman's writing is also wonderfully visual. I could see this story as I read it: the locations, the crime scenes, the environments where Milo and Alex were working. He gives enough detail to put me firmly into the scene without slowing the story down with description just for description's sake.

But the real hook for me was that murder method. It was so distinctive that it seemed impossible for these deaths not to be connected, yet there was seemingly nothing tying the victims together. And, of course, Kellerman kept me guessing. I never figured out where he was taking me, which made watching everything finally come together even more satisfying. No spoilers here, but I finished this one with a very big smile.

I honestly don't have a meaningful criticism. I didn't get bored. I didn't get frustrated. I didn't roll my eyes even once. The plotting was smart, the mystery kept me guessing, the characters kept me entertained, and the ending absolutely landed. This was exactly the kind of crime novel I love.

Readers should be aware of descriptions of murder, violent death, and crime scenes, including postmortem violence and discussion of human remains.

Fans of intelligent police procedurals and psychological crime fiction, especially readers who enjoy trying to solve seemingly unrelated murders alongside the investigators, should have a great time with this one. Malice was my kind of murder and mayhem from beginning to end.

 

Walk the Wire by David Baldacci (Amos Decker #6)

Come for the murder. Stay for the toxic waste, terrorism, and  government secrets. I mean, why not?

This is yet another David Baldacci audiobook that refused to stay in the car. At this point, I should probably stop pretending these are strictly for my commute. I'm not kidding anyone but myself.

Walk the Wire is the sixth book in Baldacci’s Amos Decker series, and the more time I spend with Amos Decker and Alex Jamison, the more I like them. Especially Amos. His character development throughout this series has been fantastic. The man we met in Memory Man is still very much there: brilliant, blunt, socially awkward, and equipped with a brain that works unlike anyone else’s. With every book, though, he becomes just a little more human.

This time, Decker and Jamison are sent to investigate the murder of a young woman in a small North Dakota town. On the surface, it looks like a fairly straightforward murder investigation.

Oh, bless your heart, you sweet summer child. Have you not met David Baldacci?

Because before long, we've got secrets, more murder, toxic waste, terrorism, government interests, and enough people hiding things to make you wonder whether anyone in town has ever told the truth about anything.

This is one of the things Baldacci does so well. He starts with a crime that seems relatively contained, then begins pulling threads. Every person seems to know something they're not saying, and the only thing that is obvious is that nothing is obvious.

The narration made this another easy audiobook to get lost in. Or, in my case, one that was supposed to live in the car and mysteriously followed me into the house. Funny how that keeps happening with Baldacci and Hachette Audio.

Five out of five stars. No hesitation.

If you've been reading the Amos Decker series from the beginning, Walk the Wire gives you everything you've come to expect: a complicated investigation, twists piled on top of twists, plenty of danger, and Amos using that extraordinary brain of his to notice the things everyone else misses. But it also gives us another chapter in Amos's slow, fascinating evolution.

And apparently all it takes to help Amos Decker become more human is a little friendship, a lot of murder, some toxic waste, and the occasional terrorist threat.

No judgment here, Amos. You do you! I'm just going to stand back and watch the magic happen.

Shadow Game by Nick Petrie (Peter Ash #10)

 Peter Ash has apparently never once heard the phrase “not my circus, not my monkeys.”

The story begins with Peter Ash walking off his white static on the Appalachian Trail. And because Peter is a trouble magnet, it isn't long before he crosses paths with an armed and decidedly unfriendly old man somewhere in Tennessee. Peter continues on his way, but two days later he encounters the man again, this time being accosted by two professional killers. Peter steps in to help because, well, Peter just doesn't know when to quit. Before long, he's helping an old man who has more secrets than a government file marked CLASSIFIED, being framed for murder in three different states, and running from professional killers while still trying to figure out exactly what he's gotten himself into.

And I loved every minute of it.

Shadow Game is another outstanding entry in Nick Petrie's Peter Ash series. Petrie does his usual excellent job of creating secrets that have secrets, layering in twists and surprises, and making sure almost nobody is quite who they appear to be. I would have happily read this book in one sitting if I'd had the opportunity.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was the way Petrie connected current political events and events surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall to the story. I remember that period, and the combination of those historical elements with today's political drama gave the story an additional sense of authenticity. Rather than feeling tacked onto the thriller, the past becomes an important part of understanding what's happening in the present.

Peter remains one of my absolute favorite fictional characters. His instinct to help someone in trouble regardless of the danger to himself is simultaneously one of his best qualities and the reason he keeps ending up in situations like this. And then there's Lewis. Resourceful, loyal, adaptable Lewis, who would apparently rather hunt bad guys with Peter than help his sweetheart take her kids on a college tour. Their friendship continues to be one of my favorite parts of the series. When Peter needs him, Lewis shows up, no matter the risk. Everyone should have a Lewis.

I really don't have a meaningful criticism of this one. The old man's determination to keep his secrets could easily have become frustrating, but Petrie reveals enough at exactly the right moments that his silence makes sense before it becomes annoying. The pacing stays tight, the mystery keeps unfolding, and the twists keep coming.

Shadow Game can stand alone, but readers will get much more out of Peter, Lewis, and their history if they've spent some time with them before. At the very least, I'd recommend starting with The Drifter. You'll want to meet Peter and shake his hand before inviting him to dinner.

Five stars, hands down. This is exactly what I want from a Peter Ash novel: danger, mystery, loyalty, history, plenty of surprises, and Peter Ash being constitutionally incapable of walking away from trouble.

Content warnings include murder, violence, gun violence, PTSD/trauma, and references to war and political violence.

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. 

 

I will miss you, my friend.

I first met Teri in 2012, when I joined Mensa and decided to attend a board meeting as my first “event.” (I guess my idea of fun isn’t the same as everyone else’s.) She instantly recognized me, even though we had never met before. She said, “You must be Michael’s sister!” and I sat beside her for the meeting. We didn’t really become close until after her stroke. That was when I discovered that we had some things in common … and some very different ideas about music. I discovered that she was a fan of soft rock, whereas I am an AC/DC and Metallica fan - the louder, the better.

One day, her sisters Marian and Shirley and I were all sitting around her hospital bed talking about music, and Shirley began playing Jim Croce or Dan Fogelberg, something in that genre. Teri said, “Shirley, why don’t you put on something that Serena would enjoy?” I tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted. Well, no good deed goes unpunished! Her sister Marian and I sang along loudly with “Highway to Hell.” Teri listened to us as non-judgmentally as anyone could, and about half-way through the song, said, “Shirley, what else do you have?” We laughed until our bellies hurt.

I will always remember that day and the laughter that came with it. She was so sweet, had an incredibly bone-dry sense of humor, and gave me some wonderful memories. I will miss her.

 

https://www.legacy.com/person/teri-diana-prentiss-(marie)-62124702

All the Little Houses by May Cobb

I get enough mean-girl drama teaching middle school. I don't need to read about it recreationally. 

All the Little Houses was the pick for the ManiScripts Book Club for August. I tried to be open-minded because this is not the type of book I normally read. Apparently there is a good reason for that.

I struggled a little with my rating. At first, I was wavering between two and three stars because the book isn't badly written. In fact, I think Cobb accomplished exactly what she set out to do. Unfortunately, what she set out to do involved a whole lot of mean-girl drama, and I get enough of that teaching middle school. I don't need to read about it recreationally.

The story is told from multiple points of view, and that part worked very well. I never had trouble keeping track of the characters or figuring out whose story I was following.

First, we have Nellie, a spoiled, wealthy mean girl who isn't particularly nice to anyone, including her own parents. Her mother, Charleigh, isn't much better. She's wealthy, judgmental, manipulative, and apparently thinks paying people to spend time with her daughter is preferable to teaching Nellie how to be a decent human being.

Then there's Jane, whose family is the complete opposite. They live off the land and don't have much money, but Jane prides herself on her ability to make people like her. She even calls it her superpower. Her parents, Ethan and Abigail, have their own highly questionable ways of making money, involving sex and manipulation.

Jackson, Charleigh's best friend, was actually the one character I liked. He's gay but isn't out to anyone except Charleigh, and even he is getting tired of her behavior. I could have done without the graphic sex scene, but that's just me. Other players include Blair, who befriends Jane despite Nellie's objections, and Luke, Jane's secret boyfriend, neither of whom is particularly likable.

So when things start going very wrong, part of my brain was saying, Well, what did you expect?

Blair has an accident that leaves her in a coma. Charleigh is murdered. Her body inconveniently refuses to sink. Luke is set up to take the fall for the murder.

And then...

The End.

I turned a few more pages because I honestly thought there had to be more. There was, but it was a preview of the next book. I don't mind a cliffhanger when I'm invested enough in a story to immediately think, Give me the next book! Unfortunately, my reaction here was more along the lines of, Wait. That's IT?

Part of the problem was that I simply didn't care enough about these characters. I didn't particularly care what happened to Blair. I knew who killed Charleigh and who was responsible for setting up Luke. With the exception of Jackson, I didn't like anyone enough to become invested in what happened to them next.

And that's ultimately what pushed this down to two stars for me.

Cobb did a good job with the multiple POVs, and the characters were distinct and easy to follow. She also wrote the toxic friendships, manipulation, jealousy, wealth, and mean-girl behavior convincingly. If you love books about wealthy people behaving badly and interpersonal drama where nearly everyone has an agenda, you may have a completely different reaction to this one.

For me, though, it was too much drama, too few people I cared about, and not nearly enough payoff at the end. A cliffhanger should leave me desperate for the next book.

This one left me checking to make sure I hadn't accidentally skipped a chapter.

Ward D by Freida McFadden

The scariest thing in Ward D was how badly I wanted Amy to stop whining.

I usually have a pretty good track record with Freida McFadden, but Ward D is the first of her books that just didn't work for me. Which is particularly disappointing because the premise is fantastic.

Amy is a medical student assigned to spend a night shift in Ward D, the locked psychiatric unit of a hospital. As if that isn't uncomfortable enough, her ex-boyfriend Cameron, another medical student, is working the same shift. The hospital's internet system is down for maintenance, there's no cell reception, and then one of the patients urinates on an electrical connection, causing a temporary power outage that resets the codes on the locked doors, including the seclusion rooms.

Oh, and Amy's childhood best friend Jade is a patient on the ward. Jade believes Amy wronged her years ago, and she's been holding one heck of a grudge.

On the surface, this had everything I should have loved. Locked ward. No communication with the outside world. Power problems. Doors that may or may not stay locked. Someone inside who has a very personal reason to hate Amy. Then people started disappearing.

Unfortunately, the tension never matched the premise.

My biggest problem was Amy herself. For heaven's sake, this woman was whiny. She repeatedly complains that Cameron dumped her for a test, conveniently glossing over the fact that the "test" was his board exam and he wanted to devote his time to studying for it. I also spent a good portion of the book wanting to shake her. She was in Ward D to observe and learn. Why she couldn't keep her head down and do what she was asked to do was beyond me.

The psychiatric ward itself should have been wonderfully creepy, but it never quite got there. The patients were mostly quirky rather than frightening. There's SpiderDan, who believes he's Spider-Man and eventually creates a web out of dental floss. Mary spends her time knitting a seemingly never-ending scarf. Miguel believes he's the son of God. Jade was really the only patient who felt genuinely dangerous because she was absolutely convinced Amy had wronged her, and nothing was going to change her mind.

Then there were the coincidences. The internet is down. There's no cell reception. An electrical problem causes a power outage. The door codes reset. And apparently this locked psychiatric ward in a hospital doesn't have an adequate backup plan for any of this.

OSHA would have had a field day.

There are twists toward the end, and I didn't see all of them coming. Unfortunately, by that point I wasn't invested enough for them to have much impact. The tension was so lacking that I seriously considered DNFing the book halfway through. Then the truth comes out rather quickly, everything gets wrapped up, and...that's that.

The audiobook narration was good, but even a strong narrator couldn't make Amy less irritating or manufacture the suspense I kept waiting for.

Ward D had a five-star premise trapped inside a two-star thriller. I wanted claustrophobic. I wanted creepy. I wanted to be checking the locks on my doors while I listened.

Instead, I mostly wanted Amy to stop whining and follow instructions.

I'm Not Here to Hunt Rabbits by Josh Kendall

There was a reed. There were hyenas. There was blood on a tray table. There was also me, completely lost.

I really wanted to like I'm Not Here to Hunt Rabbits. The premise sounded intriguing, and the synopsis promised an atmospheric, intricate thriller. Unfortunately, this was one of those books where I kept waiting for everything to click into place. It never did.

Lachlan Smith is a former soldier who served in Afghanistan. Things went badly, and his lover and trainer, Helen, was killed. Still grieving her loss, Smith is sent to Ethiopia to protect a wealthy family engaged in criminal activities. From there, the story eventually takes him into a world involving an Ethiopian man, a reed, hyenas, and a whole lot of mystery. And this is where I got completely lost.

Actually, I was lost from the start.

Smith's relationship with Helen and his grief over her death are woven throughout the novel, but I never really understood what she had been training him for or how all the pieces of that history connected to what was happening in Ethiopia. There were also recurring references to blood on the tray table during his flight. I kept waiting for that detail to become meaningful, but by the end, I still wasn't sure what I was supposed to take from it.

I also couldn't connect with any of the characters. I didn't particularly love or care about any of them, and that made it even harder for me to stay emotionally invested in the story. I wanted to understand Smith and what was driving him, especially given everything he had experienced, but I never felt like I really got there.

The one thing I can say in the book's favor is that it is atmospheric. I can see why the synopsis describes it as intricate, and I can see how readers who enjoy literary thrillers filled with ambiguity, symbolism, and unanswered questions might appreciate what Josh Kendall is doing here. There is clearly a lot going on beneath the surface.

Unfortunately, I spent most of my time trying to figure out what was happening on the surface.

Instead of feeling suspense or excitement, I felt confused. Then I felt frustrated because I was still confused. I kept thinking, Okay, surely this is where it all comes together. And it never did. The atmosphere that may work beautifully for some readers left me feeling like I was wandering around in the dark without a flashlight.

I finished the book because quitting felt like losing. That's pretty much my definition of a two-star read: I finished it, but only because I had already invested the time and wasn't ready to admit defeat. I kept hoping the final pieces would fall into place and that I would finally understand what I had been reading. They didn't.

This may simply be a case of the book not being the right fit for me. If you enjoy atmospheric, complex thrillers where you are expected to piece together symbolism and meaning and sit comfortably with ambiguity, I'm Not Here to Hunt Rabbits may work much better for you than it did for me. If you're looking for a thriller that keeps you turning pages because you need to know what happens next, however, this one may be a tougher sell.

Content warnings include war violence and death, along with some disturbing material involving hyenas.

For me, I'm Not Here to Hunt Rabbits was ultimately more confusing than thrilling. And that's not something I say often about a book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

 

Thoughts and Prayers by Robert Miner

How else could the story end but with a bullet? 

Wow. This is one of those books that is going to stay with me for a long time.

I received an advance copy of Thoughts and Prayers from NetGalley and Simon & Schuster. This is Robert Miner's debut novel, but you would never know it from the writing. In my opinion, he writes with the confidence and skill of someone who has been doing this for years. The subject is one that Americans have very strong opinions about: our obsession with guns.

On one side is Monica, a billionaire who buys a gun manufacturer, takes care of the employees, and then shuts the company down. Bye-bye. On the other is Brittany, the ruthless owner of a gun manufacturing company who is determined to become president of the United States and is willing to do whatever it takes to get there. Caught between them is Clyde, whose middle-school daughter was murdered in a school shooting with a gun manufactured by Brittany's company.

What makes this story so compelling is that these aren't just fictional issues. We all have opinions about guns, gun ownership, gun violence, and what should be done about them. Miner takes those very real divisions and brings them to a head through three very different characters.

I liked Monica. She isn't perfect, and she makes mistakes, but she's trying to use her considerable power and resources to make a difference. I also felt tremendously sorry for Clyde. As a parent, there is something almost unbearable about the idea of losing your child, and Miner doesn't shy away from that grief.

Brittany, on the other hand, was a character I loved to hate. She seemed to have very little empathy for anyone who stood between her and her goal, and her hunger for power was deeply disturbing. Patrick didn't fare much better with me. He was less frightening than Brittany and more frustrating. He knew he didn't agree with what she was doing, but continually went along with it anyway.

The characters are exceptionally well written. Miner doesn't give us easy heroes or villains, and he doesn't provide a neat solution to the problem. Instead, he explores what happens when everyone is convinced they are right and nobody is willing to compromise. And perhaps that's the point. How do we solve a problem when we're unwilling to listen to anyone on the other side?

Even the title is perfect. Thoughts and prayers has become a familiar response after someone is killed by gun violence. But what good are thoughts and prayers if nothing changes afterward? The title carries a lot of weight by the time you reach the end of the book.

I also appreciated the pacing. The chapters are relatively short, the story moves quickly, and although the narrative shifts between several points of view, there aren't so many characters that it becomes confusing.

My only real criticism is that Monica's sexual relationship with her attorney didn't feel necessary to the story. Their lifelong friendship already established how close they were, and I didn't think the relationship added much beyond that.

This is a difficult subject, and Thoughts and Prayers doesn't pretend there are easy answers. Instead, Robert Miner forces us to look at the issue from multiple perspectives and think about what our inability, or even our unwillingness, to compromise is costing us.

I loved this book. More importantly, I'm still thinking about it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. I look forward to seeing more by Robert Miner in the future! 

 

The Pilot's Daughter by Audrey Cole

When the pilots die after a hijacking, the only person left with flying experience is the woman who's terrified of flying.

The Pilot's Daughter grabbed me with its premise. I needed something for my commute, and it fit the bill perfectly.

Cora is traveling to Samoa to honor the work of her late husband, a pilot who was killed in a helicopter crash. Since his death, she's developed a fear of flying. Unfortunately for her, this particular flight is hijacked.

As if that isn't bad enough, Cora and the homicide detective sitting beside her, Kyle, manage to stop the hijackers, but not before both the pilot and co-pilot are killed. Suddenly, the passengers' survival depends on the one person who never wanted to be on a plane again.

That's an excellent setup, and Audrey Cole keeps the tension high from beginning to end. Between the hijacking, the aircraft riddled with bullet holes, and the race to get everyone safely on the ground, there wasn't much downtime. It made for a very entertaining audiobook.

My biggest complaint was Cora herself. I completely understood her fear. Losing her husband in an aviation accident gives her every reason to panic. But there were several moments when her  crying, pleading, and insisting she couldn't do anything without Kyle became frustrating. I wanted her to get a backbone, for heaven's sake. Fear is believable; helplessness gets old fast.

Kyle was a solid counterpart. As a homicide detective, he brought a calm, steady presence that balanced Cora's panic, and the romantic element didn't overshadow the life-or-death situation unfolding around them.

Overall, this was an entertaining romantic suspense novel with a unique premise, plenty of action, and enough tension to keep me invested. While Cora occasionally tested my patience, the story itself kept me listening all the way to the end.

Obsession by Debra Webb (Faces of Evil #1)

A profiler haunted by one mistake. A killer who hasn't forgotten. Sleep? Optional.

Obsession falls into the "I dare you to put it down" category. I lost that dare. I finished it in the wee hours of the morning, and that pretty much tells you what you need to know.

Special Agent Jess Harris was once one of the FBI's top profilers, but one devastating mistake derailed her career. Back in her Alabama hometown, she's helping investigate a string of missing girls while trying to figure out what comes next for her professionally. As if that isn't enough, the serial killer connected to her career-ending failure hasn't forgotten her, now stalking Jess from the shadows. And that, folks, is really creepy.

The mystery hooked me almost immediately, but it was Jess who kept me invested. She's intelligent and highly skilled, knowledgeable and stubborn, yet she's constantly questioning herself because of her past. Instead of feeling like the all-knowing profiler who always has the answers, she feels human. Every decision carries the weight of wondering if she'll make another mistake, and that vulnerability made her easy to root for.

Then there's Police Chief Dan Burnett.

Jess and Dan have a romantic history, making this a romantic suspense novel, but thankfully the romance never overshadows the investigation. Dan was actually my favorite character. He's protective without becoming controlling, supportive without trying to sideline Jess, and Debra Webb strikes that balance beautifully. Their relationship adds another layer of tension without slowing down the story or turning it into something overly sentimental or sweaty. And we all know how I feel about those sweaty scenes.

The suspense never lets up. Between the missing girls investigation and the ever-present threat of the serial killer watching Jess, I kept telling myself, "Just one more chapter." Clearly, that strategy failed.

My only complaint was the ending. It ends on a cliffhanger that left me equal parts frustrated and eager to start the next book. Fortunately, the main investigation reaches a satisfying conclusion, but the larger story is just getting started. If you're someone who dislikes cliffhangers, you'll definitely want to have the next book ready.

Content Warnings include violence against women, kidnapping, murder, and disturbing scenes involving a corpse.

If you enjoy fast-paced romantic suspense with a flawed but capable heroine, a respectful romantic lead, and enough twists to keep you reading long past your bedtime, Obsession is an easy recommendation.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go see if my library has Impulse.

A Beautiful Couple by Leslie Wolfe

Never underestimate a woman who's finally had enough.

Amanda wants one thing: a divorce. Her controlling, misogynistic husband, Paul, has made it clear he has no intention of letting her go or of losing custody of their son. After a business event ends with Paul insisting on driving home drunk, a tragic accident changes everything. Instead of finally finding her freedom, Amanda becomes even more entangled in Paul's web of manipulation, forcing her to make impossible choices as the walls begin to close in.

Leslie Wolfe does an excellent job building tension from the very beginning. While the hit-and-run sets the plot in motion, the real suspense comes from Amanda's marriage. Paul is the kind of villain you love to hate. He treats Amanda with contempt, believes he should always get his way, and uses manipulation and control to keep Amanda trapped. I spent most of the book hoping she would finally find a way to escape...or that her father would do Paul in. I read a lot of murder thrillers, after all.

I'll admit Amanda frustrated me at first. I questioned some of her decisions and found myself wondering why she didn't simply do what I thought was the obvious, right thing. As the story unfolded, though, I began to understand just how trapped she really was. By the end, I wasn't questioning her anymore.

Amanda's father was one of my favorite supporting characters. I actually wished he had a larger role because I enjoyed every scene he appeared in. Looking back, though, I think Wolfe used him exactly as much as the story needed, making every appearance count.

The pacing kept me engaged throughout, even if it never reached the point where I couldn't stop reading. And then came the ending. I never saw it coming. It completely blindsided me. Some women are very smart...be afraid. Be very afraid.

This lands squarely in my four-star category: a solid thriller that kept me invested from beginning to end, even if it didn't completely steal my sleep. If you enjoy psychological suspense, toxic relationship dynamics, and endings that leave you staring at the last page for a minute, this is well worth picking up. Fans of Freida McFadden, in particular, should add this one to their TBR. I'm already recommending it to my friends.

Content warnings: domestic abuse, emotional abuse and coercive control, violence against women, sexual assault, murder, drunk driving, and a fatal hit-and-run.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for providing me with an advance review copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Redemption by David Baldacci (Amos Decker #5)

Note to self: Never start a David Baldacci audiobook unless your schedule is completely clear.

Some audiobooks are content to keep me company on my commute. Others apparently decide I have no plans for the rest of my day. Redemption by David Baldacci firmly belongs in the second category. I fully intended to listen only while driving and/or walking, but before long I found myself listening while making dinner, doing chores, and any old mindless task that allowed me to follow the story.

This is the fifth book in the Amos Decker series, and somehow Baldacci keeps making both the mysteries and the characters better. Amos is still brilliant, with his perfect memory and uncanny ability to spot details everyone else misses. But what I enjoyed most in this installment had nothing to do with solving crimes. It was watching Amos continue to become more human.

His brain injury changed every aspect of his life, including making physical contact with other people practically unbearable. In Redemption, he realizes he can finally tolerate someone touching him and even accept a hug. It sounds like such a small thing, but after following his journey through the series, it felt like a huge moment.

The mystery begins when Amos returns to his hometown in Ohio to visit the graves of his wife, daughter, and brother-in-law. While there, he's confronted by a man Amos convicted of murder years ago. The man insists he was innocent all along, but before Amos can learn the truth, he's murdered. As more bodies begin piling up, Amos is forced to revisit the very first homicide investigation of his career and ask a question no detective ever wants to face: Did I convict the wrong person?

The investigation is clever, full of twists, and kept me guessing until the end. Baldacci does an excellent job of building suspense without relying on cheap tricks or impossible coincidences.

As much as I enjoyed the mystery, it is Amos himself who keeps me invested. He's no longer just the fascinating detective with a remarkable brain. He's learning how to reconnect with people and carry the weight of his past without letting it define his future. That growth has become just as compelling as the investigations.

Five books in, the Amos Decker series continues to impress me. If you're looking for a smart crime thriller with an unforgettable lead character, this series absolutely deserves a place on your reading list. I am already downloading #6.