Books-n-Kisses

TITLE: They Did Bad Things
CHARACTERS: a number of characters
AUTHOR: Lauren A Forry
PUBLICATION DATE: 06/02/20
ORDER LINKS: Amazon | B&N

BOOK SYNOPSIS:
And Then There Were None meets The Last Time I Lied in this dark and twisty psychological thriller.

In 1995, six university students moved into the house at 215 Caldwell Street. Months later, one of them was found dead on the sofa the morning after their end-of-year party. His death was ruled an accident by the police. The remaining five all knew it wasn’t, and though they went on with their lives, the truth of what happened to their sixth housemate couldn’t stay buried forever.

Twenty years later, all five of them arrive—lured separately under various pretenses—at Wolfheather House, a crumbling, secluded mansion on the Scottish isle of Doon. Trapped inside with no way out and no signal to the outside world, the now forty-somethings fight each other—and the unknown mastermind behind their gathering—as they confront the role they played in their housemate’s death. They are given one choice: confess to their crimes or die.

They Did Bad Things is a deviously clever psychological thriller about the banality of evil and the human capacity for committing horror.

REVIEW:
2.75 Hearts Boy was this book hard to get into. To tell the truth if not for the reviews saying the end got better I would have set this book aside. But I will say it did get better but not good in my opinion.

Something was very off in this story. First off I didn’t like any of the characters. I mean none of them. I never cared what happened or why. The story was so jumpy that it was distracting. I do not mind a back and forth between time periods but this seemed (not really but it did seem) to jump every other paragraph.

I will admit that like the other reviews said it got better in the end. But by then I just didn’t care what was going on.

Just not my thing I guess.

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

TITLE: A Mother’s Lie
CHARACTERS: Beth & Dana
AUTHOR: Sarah Zettel
PUBLICATION DATE: 04/07/20
ORDER LINKS: Amazon | B&N

BOOK SYNOPSIS:
A compulsive family drama about a mother’s desperate search to reclaim her daughter from the horrors of her own past, perfect for fans of Then She Was Gone.
Beth Fraser finally has her life together. She’s built a successful career in the tech sector, has a bright fifteen-year-old daughter, and she’s completely erased all evidence of her troubled past. At least that’s what she thought.
Dana Fraser always wondered why she’s the only kid with two backup phones, emergency drills, and a non-negotiable check-in time every single day. When a stranger approaches her on the street claiming to be her grandmother, Dana starts to question what else her mother has been hiding.
Soon Beth’s worst nightmare is coming true: Dana is in grave danger, and unless Beth is willing to pull one last con job for her parents, she may never see her daughter again.

REVIEW:
This book was hard to decide on a rating so I went right down the middle. The story was interesting and I liked that the memories of Beth’s life wasn’t told in a matter of a few pages and those few pages affected her whole life. There is a slow unwind of Beth’s past which helps the reader understand why Beth is the way she is.

Now there is Dana who has no idea why her mother is the way she is and honestly I felt for Dana. Her mom is nuts in her opinion and would have long ago sent me out into my own world without my mother in it.

The story had me interested in the past but the end left me a bit bereft. It seemed so rushed.

A hard book to like but I didn’t dislike it. Does that make sense?

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

TITLE: Have You Seen Me?
CHARACTERS: Ally Linden
AUTHOR: Kate White
PUBLICATION DATE: 04/28/20
ORDER LINKS: Amazon | B&N

BOOK SYNOPSIS:
From New York Times bestselling author Kate White comes a gripping novel about one woman’s dangerous quest to recover lost memories someone would rather she never find.

The key to her missing memories could bring relief—or unlock her worst nightmares.

On a cold, rainy morning, finance journalist Ally Linden arrives early to work in her Manhattan office, only to find that she’s forgotten her keycard and needs to have a colleague she’s never met let her in. When her boss finally arrives, he seems surprised to see her—because she hasn’t worked there in five years.

Ally knows her name, but little else, and it’s only after several hours in an emergency room and multiple interviews with the hospital psychiatrist that she begins to piece together important facts: she lives on the Upper West Side; she’s now a freelance personal finance journalist; she’s married to a lovely man named Hugh. But she still can’t recall what happened to her during the previous two days. When she learns that she’s experienced a dissociative fugue state, Ally tries to think of triggers and remembers that she’d been seeing a therapist about a traumatic event from her childhood, in which she came across evidence for a murder that was never solved.

Desperate to unearth answers, Ally focuses on figuring out where she spent the missing forty-eight hours. As ominous details of the two days pile up, so does the terrifying pressure: she must recover the time she lost before the time she has left runs out.

Featuring Kate White’s signature twists and turns, Have You Seen Me? is a harrowing read that will keep readers guessing until its shocking ending.

REVIEW:
2.75 Hearts I will be honest, I didn’t get it. I thought that the story was ok and thought I had it figured out. And I did figure out the who-dun-it but the why-do-it was so out of the blue that it just didn’t make sense.

I have read other books by White and remember enjoying them but it almost felt that White wanted to make sure you didn’t figure it out so much that the answer wasn’t just outside the box it wasn’t even in the delivery van.

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