Review: She Lies in Wait (Gytha Lodge)

Publication date: January 2019
Amazon price:  $13.99 USD (Kindle)

Rating: 3/5

Synopsis: Six friends. One killer. Who do you trust? A teen girl goes missing after a night of partying; thirty years later, the discovery of her body reopens a cold case in an absorbing novel featuring a small-town cop determined to finally get to the truth—for fans of Tana French and Kate Atkinson.

On a scorching July night in 1983, a group of teenagers goes camping in the forest. Bright and brilliant, they are destined for great things, and the youngest of the group—Aurora Jackson—is delighted to be allowed to tag along. The evening starts like any other—they drink, they dance, they fight, they kiss. Some of them slip off into the woods in pairs, others are left jealous and heartbroken. But by morning, Aurora has disappeared. Her friends claim that she was safe the last time they saw her, right before she went to sleep. An exhaustive investigation is launched, but no trace of the teenager is ever found.

Thirty years later, Aurora’s body is unearthed in a hideaway that only the six friends knew about, and Jonah Sheens is put in charge of solving the long-cold case. Back in 1983, as a young cop in their small town, he had known the teenagers—including Aurora—personally, even before taking part in the search. Now he’s determined to finally get to the truth of what happened that night. Sheens’s investigation brings the members of the camping party back to the forest, where they will be confronted once again with the events that left one of them dead, and all of them profoundly changed forever.

Trigger warnings for rape and drug use

Continue reading “Review: She Lies in Wait (Gytha Lodge)”

2018 Year-End Wrap Up!

IT’S OVER. 2018 IS FINALLY OVER. Of course we still have to deal with rapidly accelerating global warming, refugee children dying at the border, and rampant police racism, but hey! We’re one year closer to a presidential election. This year was kind of a strange year of reading for me.  I did actually exceed my reading goal of 150 books (right now I’m sitting at … Continue reading 2018 Year-End Wrap Up!

Review: An Anonymous Girl (Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen)

Publication date: January 2019
Amazon price:  $14.99 USD (Kindle)

Rating: 5/5

Synopsis: Seeking women ages 18–32 to participate in a study on ethics and morality. Generous compensation. Anonymity guaranteed. 

When Jessica Farris signs up for a psychology study conducted by the mysterious Dr. Shields, she thinks all she’ll have to do is answer a few questions, collect her money, and leave. But as the questions grow more and more intense and invasive and the sessions become outings where Jess is told what to wear and how to act, she begins to feel as though Dr. Shields may know what she’s thinking…and what she’s hiding. As Jess’s paranoia grows, it becomes clear that she can no longer trust what in her life is real, and what is one of Dr. Shields’ manipulative experiments. Caught in a web of deceit and jealousy, Jess quickly learns that some obsessions can be deadly.

Trigger warnings may be spoilers, so please see my review on Goodreads and click “view spoilers” if you want to know what they are.

Continue reading “Review: An Anonymous Girl (Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen)”

Review: The Diviners (Libba Bray)

Publication date: 2012
Amazon price:  $2.99 USD (Kindle)

Rating: 5/5

Synopsis: Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.

Evie worries he’ll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.

As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho hides a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened.

Continue reading “Review: The Diviners (Libba Bray)”

Review: Fence #1 (C.S. Pacat and Johanna the Mad)

Publication date: November 2017
Amazon price:  $1.57 USD (Kindle/comiXology)

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Nicholas Cox is an outsider to the competitive fencing world. Filled with raw talent but lacking proper training, he signs up for a competition that puts him head-to-head with fencing prodigy Seiji Katayama…and on the road to the elite all-boys school Kings Row. A chance at a real team and a place to belong awaits him—if he can make the cut!

Continue reading “Review: Fence #1 (C.S. Pacat and Johanna the Mad)”

November Wrap-Up and December TBR

Yikes, it was a rough reading month for me. I got really wrapped up with NaNoWriMo and barely had time to get done with all the reading that I wanted to. All in all, I read nine books: Ruin and Rising (4/5) Shatter Me (4/5) I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (4/5) (audiobook) Rebecca (5/5) Ruin & Rule (4/5) My Sister, the Serial Killer (3/5) Dollars (re-read) Lost … Continue reading November Wrap-Up and December TBR

Review: My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite)

Publication date: November 20, 2018
Amazon price: $11.99 USD (Kindle)

Rating: 3/5

Synopsis: Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead. Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit.

A kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where Korede works is the bright spot in her life. She dreams of the day when he will realize they’re perfect for each other. But one day Ayoola shows up to the hospital uninvited and he takes notice. When he asks Korede for Ayoola’s phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and what she will do about it.

Trigger warnings for child abuse, murder, hints of pedophilia
Continue reading “Review: My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite)”