Category: suspense

LAST GIRL GHOSTED by LISA UNGER

Last Girl Ghosted: The latest gripping psychological thriller from international bestseller Lisa Unger!

Always a wild, dark ride with Ms. Unger. The Blurb:

Secrets, obsession and vengeance converge in this riveting thriller about an online dating match turned deadly cat-and-mouse game, from the New York Times bestselling author of Confessions on the 7:45.

Think twice before you swipe.

Dating Apps. The new thing in hunting victims. Pressured into at least trying one, Wren, decides to at least meet the guy. He’s a mysterious guy who is into the same things she is. Or so he says. The date goes so well she is excited about seeing him again. There is just this connection there. Or so she thought. Now, he’s just gone.

Did she scare him off? Was she too forward? The things we all think when we are being ignored.

Wren isn’t one to let things go so she starts digging. And she isn’t the only one who fell for his lines. But these girls are missing. And her digging is making people uncomfortable. But she has her own secrets and now he knows at least one. And that could be very bad for Wren.

Dark, Disturbing, and Believable! What could be more terrifying than knowing this is happening every day? Well Done!

NetGalley/ October 5th, 2021 Harlequin Park Row

The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward

The Last House on Needless Street
The Last House on Needless Street
This is the story of a serial killer. A stolen child. Revenge. Death. And an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street.

All these things are true. And yet they are all lies…

You think you know what’s inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you’ve read this story before. That’s where you’re wrong.

In the dark forest at the end of Needless Street, lies something buried. But it’s not what you think..

This one shook me. It is a story of a serial killer and all of the above blurb. But it’s also the story of a girl who lost her little sister, a boy who was horribly abused, a parent who is a sociopath, a cat who reads the Bible and watches television and a lot of lies.

I really don’t want to say anymore than that. There was nothing nice about this story. It was horrific and chilling and all of the dark things no one talks about. There was no attempt to dress it up as a nice fairy tale. It was true darkness at it’s best. 

I had at least 3 different ideas about what was happening and boy was I wrong! If this is the new dark Gothic, please bring it on!

Horrifyingly good!

NetGalley/September 28th, 2021 by Tor Nightfire

HER PERFECT LIFE by HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN

Her Perfect Life

Meet Lily Atwood. Famous television reporter with everything going for her. Money, awards, a producer who does her every bidding and a seven-year-old daughter who is adorable! Her life is perfect. Maybe. But secrets have a way of coming out at the most inconvenient of times. And Lily is keeping some big ones.

Lily now has an anonymous source feeding her stories. The stories pan out but the source becomes questionable when he begins feeding Lily information about herself. Who is this person and what do they know about her?

It becomes clear that someone is playing with her life. Does it have anything to do with the disappearance of her sister years ago? Or maybe her child’s father come to haunt her? With literally no one to trust she will have to trust her gut and maybe one other person. Maybe.

This was a twisty one. A total mind screw. With Ryan, it’s always a thrill ride as you try and untangle the knots of intrigue!

NetGalley/September 14th, 2021 by Forge Books



THE SOUTHERN BOOK CLUB’S GUIDE TO SLAYING VAMPIRES by GRADY HENDRIX

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the ’90s about a women’s book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Well the blurb sounds like an interesting mash up. And it is.

It’s the 90’s and our narrator, Patricia Campbell, has always wanted something more out of life. She gave up her nursing career after marrying a doctor and becoming a mother. But somehow, she isn’t living her best life. The days drag on and her kids are seriously ingrates! Her husband is never home and she just can’t seem to get it together.

Her only lifeline is her book club. A group of other Charleston moms joined by their love of true-crime and suspense.

Slick, Kitty, Maryellen, and the newest, Mrs. Green. I was equal parts frustrated with these ladies and cheering for them. They all have unique personalities and hidden talents.

When Patricia’s elderly neighbor losing her mind and attacks her, biting off an ear, she gets to meet a new man. Doing the good Southern thing, bringing food to the bereaved, she meets James Harris. Sensitive, interesting and new. He makes her feel things.The husbands love him.

Then local children start to go missing and she knows he is involved. No one is listening to her and the husbands are standing with James, who is supposedly making them money on an investment.

Is he a vampire or a serial killer?

Patricia won’t let it go. She digs and digs until she has what she needs, but it may come at an awful cost. She and her book club will face a monster and nothing will be the same again.

I loved these ladies. Seriously, you do not want to mess with a Southern women who has a feeling. And with friends like these, what happens in the South stays in the South.

My mother is born and bred Charleston. This would so be her and her friends. Passing books around and solving crime!

A must-read. A really good Horror book.

THE NOISE by JAMES PATTERSON AND J.D.BARKER

The Noise

IF YOU HEAR IT IT’S TOO LATE!

Close to Mount Hood a group of people are living off -grid and doing just fine. They are self-sufficient and doing well.

Until the day that sixteen-year-old Tennant is checking rabbit traps in the woods with her eight-year-old sister Sophie and they feel a powerful and strange vibration coming out of the forest. Like a tornado. When their father suddenly appears and tosses them into the nearest cellar. But the sound doesn’t stop. It’s horrible and Sophie is bleeding from her ears and rocking back and forth.

And then the army comes in and takes them to the nearest base. Sophie is uncontrollable and seems possessed, mumbling a name over and over. Her temperature is way above normal and she is super strong.

Patterson and Barker writing together is genius. They both know how to crank up the tension and keep you turning the page long after you should be asleep! And of course ,there are lots of puzzles to figure out and theories to test and plenty of people getting killed in the goriest of ways.

Always a pleasure!

NetGalley/ August 16th, 2021, by Little, Brown and Company

The Guilt Trip by SANDIE JONES

The Guilt Trip

I read this straight through in one sitting. I had no idea who did what until the end. This was like a ride at a theme park. I was constantly asking Who? What? No!!!

The story begins with Jack and Rachel. Married with one son at Uni. Getting ready to fly off to Portugal for Jacks brother, Will’s wedding to Ali.

Also on the trip, although no one is sure why, are Noah and Paige. Noah and Rachel have been best friends since University days. And twenty years later they are still friends but happily married to other people.

Ali is travelling with them as well. She seems to be a flighty, well put together, damsel in distress. Always looking to be alone with Jack, which is suspicious. They have all judged her through Jack’s lens since she worked for him for a short time.

When they arrive things just get weirder. Everyone is tense. Most are lying. Rachel finds out something about Ali that changes everything and the lies get crazier. You can feel the tension ratcheting up to an ending that I did not see! And as friends become enemies, there is a big screen finale!

A definite winner!

NetGalley/August 3rd, 2021 by Minotaur Books



CHEVY STEVENS DARK ROADS

Dark Roads

From the author who gave us Still Missing comes a new and terrifying new tale!

What’s it about?

Everyone is aware of the disappearances of young women on a dark and lonely stretch of highway in Cold Creek. Cars break down, girls hitchhike, and they either never turn up or they do in an awful and disturbing way. We are talking dark here. Dark road, dark town, dark and sketchy people.

When Hailey McBride can’t take her overbearing and very suspicious acting Uncle Vaughn (also the Police) a minute longer. She was raised in these woods and her father taught her well. For her disappearing will be easy. Surviving will not.

When she finds the girl she loves dead on the side of the road, she runs.

A year later and Amber’s sister Beth is in town looking for answers but no one wants to talk and she has no one to trust. No one wants her poking her nose into all of these deaths, especially Uncle Vaughn.

This was a dark and emotionally charged read. Hailey is a great character and I admired her tenacity and strength. With a beginning and an ending told by a dead girl,this was right up my alley.

Excellent Writing!

NetGalley/ August 3rd, 2021 by St. Martin’s Press

WHERE THE TRUTH LIES by ANNA BAILEY

Where the Truth Lies

Teenagers, isolated small town, and lots of dirty little secrets make for a dynamite combination in this suspense novel.

The town of Whistling Ridge is off. There is just something not right about the people who live there. They have a lot of secrets to keep and they are about to blow up in a big way for some folks.

Emma and her bestie, Abigail are seventeen and think they know everything about each other. Emma is about to find out just how little she knows. At a party Abigail tells Emma to go home alone as she is meeting someone in the woods. Emma doesn’t know who and Abigail won’t say. All Emma sees is a guy in shadows.

So when Abi doesn’t make it home, Emma won’t let it go. The police think she ran away and with her family who would blame her? But Emma doesn’t believe that. And she isn’t about to let it go.

When evidence is found in the woods, people are scared. It seems everyone has a dirty secret. Everyone. My favorite character was Rat. A Romanian immigrant who is gorgeous and living at the trailer park, which you know is not going to end well.

Abi’s older brother Noah loves Rat and that is an issue. Their fathers violence is an issue. But no one says a thing. Why? Because the preacher is not preaching the gospel of a disciple, he’s preaching about violence and beating the sin out of people.

The more Emma digs, the more secrets she finds that Abi had. As more secrets come to light all of the pent up rage and hate will explode into a night that will change all of their lives forever.

There were the most vile of characters in this book. There were also the most innocent of characters in this book. I think I felt this book more strongly because of the political and social climate of today.

Great writing!

NetGalley/August 3rd, 2021 by Atria Books 




THE DARE by LESLEY KARA

The Dare

Lizzie and Alice have always been best friends. At 13, they are still there for each other. And as they leave for a walk in the country, a place they often go to jump the railroad tracks and argue and make-up and just be kids.

But this time one of them won’t come home. And one will have no clue what happened.

Lizzie has no memory of what happened. It’s all a nightmarish dream she can’t stop or make any clearer. As an epeleptic, she tries to figure out what happened before her seizure that day and deal with grief and uncalled for blame being placed on her by Alice’s sister.

Time goes on and twelve years go by. Lizzie is unpacking in the new place she and her fiancee have moved into when memories come flooding back and they still don’t make sense. As her fiancee, a GP, tries to be supportive he ends up hiring Alice’s sister as a nurse.

Now you know this isn’t going to end well, but oh my goodness, Kara strings you along until the last minutes! And what???

I loved every second of this one.

NetGalley/ August 3rd, 2021 PRHP-Ballentine

THE SINFUL LIVES OF TROPHY WIVES by KRISTIN MILLER

The Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives

Welcome to the exclusive and gated community of Presidio Terrace in San Francisco. Small but very exlcusive. Home to rich husbands and their trophy wives.

Brooke is a mystery writer and also the newest trophy wife. Her hubby is a tech billionaire named Jack who is twenty-two years older and fresh as a daisy. So it seems. She demurs to her husband’s taste and desires. Or so it seems, but there is a lot more to this wifey. I mean, she is a mystery writer. Published.

The new place comes with an HOA with rules that are insane, to say the least, and the most neurotic of their neighbors, Erin, a local news anchor, is the head of this tightly controlled cul-de-sac.

Erin is married to Mason. Who is a liar and a wife beater. Erin is a control freak. And when she goes too far on live television, she gets the boot. Since she has made her career her life, she has little of her marriage left. In fact, she thinks her hubby is sneaking around so they go to therapy.

Erin’s BFF is Georgia “The Black Widow”, whose first two husbands died shortly after marriage. People whisper about her but no one is brave enough to challenge her to her face. Now Georgia is about to marry Robert, who loves her dearly until he disappears and the police come knocking on the exclusive community.

During the first part of the book, I was picturing a 90’s thing going on but then it became a puzzle to figure out. By the end of the book no one was what I thought they were and I was happy!

NetGalley/ July 20th, 2021 by Ballantine Books