Tag: mystery books

Book Review: The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn

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Rating: ★★★☆
Audience: Contemporary Mystery + Romance
Length: 320 pages
Author: Kate Clayborn
Publisher: Kensington
Release Date: March 26th, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

From the acclaimed author of Georgie, All Along and Love Lettering, a pitch-perfect, radiantly transporting love story about an unexpected road trip, true crime obsessions, and hard won vulnerability…

Hairstylist Jess Greene has spent the last decade raising her younger half-sister, Tegan—and keeping a shocking secret. Ever since their reckless mother ran off with a boyfriend she’d known only a few months, Jess has been aware that he’s the same accomplished con man who was the subject of a wildly popular podcast, The Last Con of Lynton Baltimore.

Now thirty-one, Jess didn’t bargain on Tegan eventually piecing together the connection for herself. But Tegan plans to do exactly what Jess has always feared—leave their safe, stable home to search for their mother—and she’ll be accompanied by the prying podcast host and her watchful, handsome producer, Adam Hawkins. Unwilling to let the sister she’s spent so much of her life protecting go it alone, Jess reluctantly joins them.

Together, the four make their way across the country, unraveling the mystery of where the couple disappeared to and why. But soon Jess is discovering other things too. Like a renewed sense of vulnerability and curiosity, and a willingness to expand beyond the walls she’s so carefully built. And in Adam, she finds an unexpected connection she didn’t even know was missing, if only she can let go and let him in . . .

NOT A BAD LISTEN.

I enjoyed this one but also don’t feel wholly connected to it? It was an interesting premise and I liked the characters well enough.

The romance had a lot of subtle and sweet moments. There was some good chemistry between Jess and Adam. I do think it leaned into the physicality of their relationship more than it needed (or made sense) for this kind of story line. The third act made me cranky, but I did like the couple in the end.

I wasn’t all that surprised by where the missing mother ended up and those scenes. It was much more on the predictable side. I do think the audio production was well done and that made for a good listen.

Overall audience notes:

  • Contemporary Mystery + Romance
  • Language: moderate
  • Romance: 3+ open door
  • Violence: low
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: parental abandonment

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Book Review: No One Can Know by Kate Alice Marshall

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Rating: ★★★☆
Audience: Mystery/Thriller
Length: 336 pages
Author: Kate Alice Marshall
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Release Date: January 23rd, 2024
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

The author of What Lies in the Woods returns with a novel about three sisters, two murders, and too many secrets to count.

Emma hasn’t told her husband much about her past. He knows her parents are dead and she hasn’t spoken to her sisters in years. Then they lose their apartment, her husband gets laid off, and Emma discovers she’s pregnant―right as the bank account slips into the red.

That’s when Emma confesses that she has one more asset: her parents’ house, which she owns jointly with her estranged sisters. They can’t sell it, but they can live in it. But returning home means that Emma is forced to reveal her secrets to her husband: that the house is not a run-down farmhouse but a stately mansion, and that her parents died there.

Were murdered.

And that some people say Emma did it.

Emma and her sisters have never spoken about what really happened that night. Now, her return to the house may lure her sisters back, but it will also crack open family and small-town secrets lots of people don’t want revealed. As Emma struggles to reconnect with her old family and hold together her new one, she begins to realize that the things they have left unspoken all these years have put them in danger again.

I FIGURED IT OUT.

I might not be a thriller gal, no matter how hard I try. This go around, I figured out what happened in the first few chapters and was only surprised by one twist. I didn’t really care for any of the characters either. Another situation where basically everyone had done something bad so I didn’t feel attached to anyone.

The audiobook narration was great, no issues there.

And also I felt like nothing felt new? The points of the plot were what you would expect and I was hoping for something fresh or to really hold my attention.

Overall audiobook notes:

  • Thriller/Mystery
  • Language: moderate
  • Violence: high
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: multiple murders, child abuse, gun violence

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Book Review: Curses and Other Buried Things by Caroline George

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Rating: ★★★
Audience: Contemporary/Historical Mystery
Length: 384 pages
Author: Caroline George
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Release Date: October 10th, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Blood holds all kinds of curses. Seven generations of women in Susana Prather’s family have been lost to the Georgia swamp behind her house. The morning after her eighteenth birthday, she awakens soaked with water, with no memory of sleepwalking. No matter how she tries to stop it, she’s pulled from her safe bed night after night, haunted by her own family history and legacy. Now, the truth feels it’s only a matter of time before she loses her mind and the swamp becomes her grave. Unless she can figure out how to break the curse. When she isn’t sleepwalking, she’s dreaming of her great-great-great-great-grandmother, Suzanna Yawn, who set the curse in motion in 1855. Her ancestor’s life bears such similarity to her own that it might hold the key she seeks. Or it might only foretell tragedy. As Susana seeks solutions in the past and the present, family members hold secrets tighter to their chests, friends grow distant, and old flames threaten to sputter and die. But Susana has something no one else has been able to the unflagging belief that all curses can be broken and that love can help a new future begin. Based on her own family history, award-winning novelist Caroline George’s latest novel is a staggeringly beautiful work of hope.

OH SO SLOW.

The themes in this book were really good. I liked the commentary surrounding trauma, grief and breaking generational barriers and cycles that are harming those present. When there was finally some communication, those conversations were great.

My issues are with the pacing. Good heavens I felt like this book never went anywhere. Every little bit was some progression but otherwise it was like I was reading this day in the life that I wasn’t all that interested in.

I don’t really have much else to say. This one just wasn’t for me and I’m not going to spend anymore time on it.

Overall audience notes:

  • Mystery
  • Language: a little
  • Romance: kisses; low innuendo
  • Violence: high
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: lynching, loss of loved ones, racism, mental health struggles, mentions of teen pregnancy and rape

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Book Review: Lake of Glass (Archives of the Warden #1) by V.K. Dixon

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Rating: ★★★
Audience: Mystery
Length: 346 pages
Author: V.K. Dixon
Publisher: Xenia House Press
Release Date: October 18th, 2023
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

An inheritance they never expected will change their lives, reveal long-held secrets, & expose a world they didn’t know existed….

Brothers and co-authors, Peter and Spencer Collins, are living the life of the struggling artist. When their estranged Great-Aunt leaves her house and extensive inheritance to them in her will, it seems their dreams can come true. Picking up their whole lives, the brothers move to the tiny town of DeVerre, WA, to become full-time authors. But as strange occurrences and a string of animal attacks arise in the town, the brothers begin to feel as though they’ve stepped into one of their own mysteries.
Questioning their choice to uproot their entire lives, Peter and Spencer find themselves thrown into danger they never expected as secrets and conspiracies are uncovered in DeVerre — along with a link to the supernatural.
The brothers must decide if the success of their career and the truth behind these life-changing secrets are worth potentially risking their lives as they are drawn into a mystery filled with the ghosts, phantoms, and beasts of the spirit world.

NOT WHAT I EXPECTED.

The cover of this book gave me some haunted gothic mansion vibes. And while that was there a little bit, ultimately this book wasn’t what I thought and didn’t keep me interested enough to want to read book two.

What this mostly consisted of were two brothers getting to know this tiny town that had “secrets.” And all of the townspeople kept repeating the same phrases of just get to know us and I’m sitting here thinking I still don’t know them. There were some convoluted family lines and bad blood scenarios and Spencer and Preston naively walked in thinking they could fix it all???

Not to mention the whole shadow plane + religious aspects didn’t pan out either. I was fine with the combination but the execution was lacking. I thought some thoughts didn’t quite work and pulled me out of the story.

This wasn’t a hate read by any means, just a not for me book that saddens me because I have been looking forward to picking this up for the fall.

Overall audience notes:

  • Mystery
  • Language: a little
  • Romance: flirting
  • Violence: low
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: murder, near death experiences, ghost encounters

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