Category: Suspense

TITLE: The Night Swim
CHARACTERS: Rachel Krall
AUTHOR: Megan Goldin
PUBLICATION DATE: 08/04/20
ORDER LINKS: Amazon | B&N

BOOK SYNOPSIS:
After the first season of her true crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free, Rachel Krall is now a household name―and the last hope for thousands of people seeking justice. But she’s used to being recognized for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to her, begging for help.

The small town of Neapolis is being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. The town’s golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping a high school student, the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season Three a success, Rachel throws herself into interviewing and investigating―but the mysterious letters keep showing up in unexpected places. Someone is following her, and she won’t stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago. Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insists she was murdered―and when Rachel starts asking questions, nobody seems to want to answer. The past and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases that will change the course of the trial and the lives of everyone involved.

Electrifying and propulsive, The Night Swim asks: What is the price of a reputation? Can a small town ever right the wrongs of its past? And what really happened to Jenny?

REVIEW:
Here is the thing. This book is SO hard to read and yet once you get started you NEED to continue. This story delves very deeply into the subject of rape. But it is a real, upfront depiction of what the victim goes through not only at the hand of the rapist but at the hand of those that still blame the victim. Was she asking for it? How was she dressed? What did she do to deserve this?

I won’t say this book is perfect. There are parts that I do not believe was written accurately but for the most part the story hits home. The story also has the murder of Jenny, who it is claimed accidentally drowned, but her sister is sure it is murder and wants Rachel to find the truth.

Again, this story has parts that are hard to read. It gets intense and you just want to put it down to take a breath but then you can’t stop thinking about it.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

TITLE: Never Look Back
SERIES #: Criminal Profiler #3
CHARACTERS: Melina & Jerrod
AUTHOR: Mary Burton
PUBLICATION DATE: 07/01/20
ORDER LINKS: Amazon | B&N

BOOK SYNOPSIS:
Expect the unexpected in this gritty, tense, and page-turning mystery from New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton.

After multiple women go missing, Agent Melina Shepard of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation makes the impulsive decision to go undercover as a prostitute. While working the street, she narrowly avoids becoming a serial killer’s latest victim; as much as it pains her to admit, she needs backup.

Enter lone wolf FBI agent Jerrod Ramsey. Stonewalled by a lack of leads, he and Melina investigate a scene where a little girl has been found abandoned in a crashed vehicle. They open the trunk to reveal a horror show and quickly realize they’re dealing with two serial killers with very different MOs. The whole situation brings back memories for Melina—why does this particular case feel so connected to her painful past?

Before time runs out, Melina must catch not one but two serial killers, both ready to claim another victim—and both with their sights set on her.

REVIEW:
This is the third in the series but certainly can be a stand alone. The series wraps around Agent Melina Shepard. Melina goes undercover as a prostitute and is barely able to escape an attack from who will soon be identified as a serial killer. In comes FBI agent Jerrod Ramsey who has been trying to catch the killer.

I enjoy a book that can stump me. And while I was close to all the answers some surprised me.

Mary Burton has become one of my favorite authors and I always grab her books as quickly as I can. And this is another great story by the author.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

TITLE: The Bad Sister
CHARACTERS: Hannah, Eden & Ellie
AUTHOR: Kevin O’Brien
PUBLICATION DATE: 07/28/20
ORDER LINKS: Amazon | B&N

BOOK SYNOPSIS:
TOO CLOSE
The site of the old campus bungalow where two girls were brutally slain is now a flower patch covered with chrysanthemums. It’s been fifty years since the Immaculate Conception Murders. Three more students and a teacher were killed in a sickening spree that many have forgotten. But there is one person who knows every twisted detail. . . .

TO SEE
Hannah O’Rourke and her volatile half-sister, Eden, have little in common except a parent. Yet they’ve ended up at the same small college outside Chicago, sharing a bungalow with another girl. Hannah isn’t thrilled—nor can she shake the feeling that she’s being watched. And her journalism professor, Ellie Goodwin, keeps delving into Hannah and Eden’s newsworthy past. . . .

THE DANGER
When Hannah and Eden’s arrival coincides with a spate of mysterious deaths, Ellie knows it’s more than a fluke. A copycat is recreating those long-ago murders. Neither the police nor the school will accept the horrific truth. And the more Ellie discovers, the more she’s convinced that she won’t live to be believed. . . .

REVIEW:
3.25 Hearts I had high hopes for this book once I read the first few chapters. And enjoyed the first half of the book for the most part. But the second half left me a bit, well, unsatisfied. I liked the writing of the first half. The flow is different and entertaining but in the later half the writing changed.

I almost felt like the writer had written half than put the novel away to come back to it later.

Just not all I hoped it could be.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

TITLE: The Next Widow
SERIES #: Jericho And Wright #1
CHARACTERS: Jericho & Wright
AUTHOR: C.J. Lyons
PUBLICATION DATE: 07/28/20
ORDER LINKS: Amazon | B&N

BOOK SYNOPSIS:
A gripping crime thriller with unputdownable suspense

In the distance Leah heard sirens. She ignored them. Right now, her daughter needed her and Emily was just out of reach, curled up under the bed, her eyes closed, desperately shaking. Leah did the only thing any mother would do. She crawled through the blood to get to her daughter.

Dr Leah Wright returned to her childhood home in rural Pennsylvania with her husband to find peace and quiet, start afresh and raise her six-year-old daughter Emily. But when she gets home one dark winter night, clutching roses in her hand, she finds her daughter huddled under her bed and her husband’s blood all over the floor…

When Detective Luka Jericho is called to investigate, he’s shocked to learn that the killer left a witness behind – the victim’s young daughter. The scene is a painful reminder of his fiancé’s unsolved death, and he is desperate to find out what Emily saw that night. He knows that the killer could still be out there, waiting to strike again.

But growing up, Leah learned the hard way that the only person she could rely on was herself. And it’s not until she and Emily are attacked again that she realizes just how close the killer is. Can she trust Luka to keep her daughter safe?

REVIEW:
2.75 Hearts The story was a bit too predictable for me. I figured it out pretty quickly but continued to read in case I was mistaken and I wanted to know the reason. I was a bit disappointed.

The story drags a bit in some parts. There was enough interest to keep me reading but if not for my curiosity to be sure I had it right I wouldn’t have bothered.

I liked Detective Luka Jericho but wasn’t thrilled with Dr Leah Wright. She just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

TITLE: One In Three
CHARACTERS: Louise, Andrew & Caz
AUTHOR: Tess Stimson
PUBLICATION DATE: 07/09/20
ORDER LINKS: Amazon | B&N

BOOK SYNOPSIS:
Both of them loved him. One of them killed him . . .

Louise has had to watch her husband, Andrew, start a new family in the four years since he left her. The ‘other woman’ is now his wife – but Louise isn’t ready to let Caz enjoy the life that was once hers, or to let go of the man she still loves.

As Louise starts to dig into Caz’s past, the two women’s pretence of civility starts to slip. But in trying to undermine each other, they discover more about the man they both married.

And when Andrew is murdered at a family party, both women are found standing over the body.

And when Andrew is murdered during the anniversary celebrations, both women are found standing over the body.
It’s always the wife. But which one?

REVIEW:
What a crazy ride. Ok so Andrew leaves his wife a week after their child is born, marries another woman right after the divorce is final and yet wife #2 thinks she is second in line to wife #1. And then Andrew and wife #2 are invited to wife #1’s parents anniversary party. And guess what… he ends up dead. And both women are standing over the body. Confused yet?

We read a number of different accounts as to what happened and my loyalties kept changing.

I really enjoyed this story and all the mayhem that went with it.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

TITLE: Holy Blood
SERIES #: Eden Grey #2
CHARACTERS: Eden Grey & Aidan Fox
AUTHOR: Kim Fleet
PUBLICATION DATE: 01/20/20
ORDER LINKS: Amazon | B&N

BOOK SYNOPSIS:
Eden returns in a thrilling time slip mystery! Perfect for fans of Kate Morton, Dan Brown, Kate Mosse and Tom Harper.

Digging up the past has deadly consequences…

16th Century England
Dark secrets surround Hailes Abbey – a medieval monastery with a shrine supposedly containing the blood of Christ.
When one of the priests is suspected of hatching a deadly plot against Queen Elizabeth I, a contract killer is sent to the Abbey.
But more than one person has a motive for murder…

Cheltenham, 2015
500 years later, Private Investigator Eden Grey stumbles upon a medieval skeleton when exploring Hailes Abbey with her boyfriend, archaeologist Aidan Fox.
Next to the corpse is an ancient relic – a relic that could contain legendary ‘Holy Blood’ – an artefact that some people believe to have miraculous powers.
But when the relic goes missing and another violent death occurs, Eden must connect the secrets of the past to the crimes of the present…

HOLY BLOOD is the second book in the Eden Grey Mystery Series, dual timeline conspiracy thrillers with a strong female lead.

THE EDEN GREY MYSTERY SERIES:
Book One: Paternoster
Book Two: Holy Blood

REVIEW:
3.75 Hearts This book was originally published in 2017 and re-released in January of 2020. And this is the 2nd in the series that I did not read the first one of but it can be a stand alone because it is mostly the mystery that the book is about.

I really enjoyed the history of the story. It felt like reading a Brad Meltzer or Dan Brown story when you are discussing the history discussed.

The other areas of the story are ok but worth the read to be entwined in the history.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

TITLE: Signalz
SERIES #: Prelude to Nightworld
CHARACTERS: Elli & Hari
AUTHOR: F. Paul Wilson
PUBLICATION DATE: 07/07/20
ORDER LINKS: Amazon | B&N

BOOK SYNOPSIS:
Twilight has come. Night will follow.
It will begin in the heavens and end in the Earth
But before that…the rules will be broken
The Change is coming and the world as we know it is ending. Sixteen-year-old Ellie has changed. She looks the same but her mother detects someone else looking out through her blue eyes. Ellie builds a “shelter” in her room with an entrance that leads…elsewhere.
And what of the convoy of tractor trailers Hari Tate watches drive up a mountain road and return without the trailers…leaving nothing on the mountain. What are they shipping?
And the writer who finds a hole in the floor of his NYC apartment and tumbles through into… elsewhere.
They will all find each other and find their answers in the electromagnetic pulses piercing the Earth from Out There, pulses that no one should hear, but some do. But they are not simply pulses. They are SIGNALZ.

REVIEW:
As a fan of Repairman Jack I was not missing this book. It is a novella from before Nightworld. The story is typical of Wilson with an eeriness not many could match.

Since it is a novella not much could be said without giving much away. But know that this is typical Wilson and a part of the Repairman Jack series you should not miss.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

TITLE: Dark Hollow
CHARACTERS: Jacob Reese
AUTHOR: Steve Frech
PUBLICATION DATE: 12/06/19
ORDER LINKS: Amazon | B&N

BOOK SYNOPSIS:
Your past is catching up with you.
Jacob Reese enjoys the quiet life, running a coffee shop and renting out his cottage in The Hollows, Vermont.
But the calm is shattered when a woman who looks eerily similar to his ex-girlfriend Laura turns up to stay in the cottage, and leaves a mysterious note in the guest book.
Now Jacob’s seeing Laura everywhere—a glimpse of her face across the street, her music box left outside his house, a gift he gave her years before hanging from the trees.
But it can’t be Laura. Because Laura’s dead.
A gripping, twisted and haunting thriller. Fans of Gillian Flynn, Gregg Olsen and Mark Edwards will love Steve Frech.

REVIEW:
3.5 Hearts So I am a bit on the fence about this. This book was not what I thought it would be and so maybe my preconceived notions caused me to think differently about the way I am reviewing it.

The story was good. The suspense was interesting but I really wanted it to be something more. Where was the eeriness that the cover made it seem like it would have. I hoped for a ghost story or some kind of mystery since Laura is dead and yet it seems she has just come to the cottage.

I will give the author another try and I do not say this often but may even go back and re-read this later to see if I have a different feel now that I know what the story is really about.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.