⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4 stars) What do you get when you throw together an eighty-four-year-old spitfire with a suitcase full of secrets and a twenty-one-year-old gamer girl who’d rather hide under the covers than face real life? In Colleen Oakley’s The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise, you get a hilarious, heart-squeezing road trip that proves friendship has no age limit. Louise hires Tanner as her reluctant caretaker, but before either of them knows it, they’re on the run—destination unclear, motives questionable, and plenty of “wait, WHAT just happened?” moments along the way. The dialogue is whip-smart, the characters are quirky and lovable, and Oakley sneaks in just enough mystery to […]
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Cash Blackbear Rides Again in Broken Fields
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (4.5 stars) Cash Blackbear never goes looking for trouble, but trouble always finds her. When the Ojibwe college student and farmhand stumbles across a murdered farmer and a frightened young girl in rural Minnesota, she’s pulled into a case as tangled as the furrows she plows. What unfolds is more than a mystery—it’s a stark look at the foster care system, the weight of racism, and what it means to fight for survival when the odds are stacked against you. Marcie R. Rendon’s Broken Fields is one of those mysteries you inhale in a weekend. On the surface, it’s a deliciously complicated whodunit set in 1970s Minnesota farm country. […]
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When Twisty Turns to Icky
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Every once in a while, I’m in the mood for a dark psychological thriller, so I gave Freida McFadden’s The Teacher a try. On the surface, it’s got the right ingredients—short chapters, plenty of twists, and a storyline about a teacher whose life unravels after a scandal. It’s undeniably readable; McFadden knows how to hook you. But here’s the rub: the subject matter left me cold. A predator targeting high schoolers? Sick. Layer on too much cheating and way too many graphic sex scenes, and what could have been a tense, smart thriller turned into something that felt more exploitative than entertaining. This was my first McFadden book, and while I […]
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New Cop, New Island, Same Connelly Magic
🌟🌟🌟🌟 Michael Connelly is back with Nightshade, the first book to feature Detective Stilwell. Once a homicide cop in Los Angeles, Stilwell gets shoved aside by department politics and reassigned to Catalina Island, stuck handling property crimes. Sounds easy—until a woman’s body turns up at the bottom of the harbor, identified only by a streak of purple in her hair. Then a routine poaching call explodes into violence, dragging Stilwell into the dangerous orbit of a powerful island figure and an old rival determined to bring him down. The setting is terrific: Catalina’s picture-perfect charm hides plenty of shadows, and Connelly makes the most of it. Stilwell isn’t polished or […]
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Grief, Glitches, and a Message from the Beyond
⭐⭐⭐⭐ I Think I Was Murdered blends grief, tech, and suspense into a twisty, emotionally charged mystery. After her husband Brian dies, Katrina finds herself relying on a cutting-edge AI chatbot that mimics his personality and speech patterns. Built using Brian’s digital footprint—emails, texts, videos—it becomes her lifeline. She chats with “him” daily, unable to let go. But when the bot suddenly types the chilling sentence “I think I was murdered,” Katrina’s world is turned upside down. The concept is both eerie and fascinating. The bot isn’t just a gimmick—it’s Katrina’s crutch, a digital ghost she confides in, argues with, and leans on to cope with overwhelming loss. Her emotional dependency adds depth […]
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A Lukewarm Return for Mitch McDeere
⭐⭐⭐ The Exchange picks up fifteen years after The Firm, but don’t expect the same crackling suspense. Mitch McDeere is back, now a globe-trotting lawyer knee-deep in international legal drama—but the story spends more time in airports than in courtrooms. The constant hopping from city to city slows the pace and muddies the plot. It opens in Memphis, a nice nod to the original, but quickly abandons that thread and never really looks back. Instead, we’re tossed into a convoluted rescue mission that feels more like a spy novel than a legal thriller. The characters are flat, the villains generic, and the lawyers? Let’s just say if you disliked them before, this […]
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Fast, Flashy, and Forgettable
⭐⭐⭐ I thought I would love this book. Brad Meltzer knows how to spin a good government thriller, but The Lightning Rod didn’t maintain my interest the way I expected it to. The premise—an ex-military man murdered after dropping off his car—starts strong, but the story quickly gets bogged down in convoluted twists and uneven pacing. Nola Brown, a standout character in the first book, is back, but this time she feels underused. Her sharp edge and emotional complexity take a backseat to a busy plot that never quite finds its rhythm. The short chapters move things along, but I often found myself tuning out. The pacing is fast, with […]
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A Dark and Twisty Honeymoon Gone Wrong
4.5 stars Talk about dysfunctional families! Everyone in Karin Slaughter’s This Is Why We Lied has secrets, but only one of them is a killer. From the first scream at McAlpine Lodge, the tension never lets up. This locked-room mystery—the 12th book in the Will Trent series—had me hooked from the start. Will Trent and Sara Linton just wanted a quiet honeymoon. Instead, they stumble upon a murder and a web of lies so tangled it’s hard to know who to trust. Mercy McAlpine, the lodge manager, dies whispering her last words to Will, and every family member and guest quickly becomes a suspect. Mercy’s abusive ex, her ice-cold parents, […]
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When the Music Turns into Mayhem: The Dark Maestro Hits a Sour Note
⭐⭐⭐ (3 stars) I was really looking forward to The Dark Maestro. Brendan Slocumb’s first two books were fresh and original, blending music and mystery in a way that worked beautifully. But this one? It veers way off-key. The plot centers on Curtis Wilson, a classical music prodigy whose career gets derailed when his dad—who happens to be a drug dealer—ticks off a ruthless cartel. The family goes into witness protection, but when law enforcement fails to deliver, Curtis and crew decide to take down the cartel themselves. Sure, why not? The premise was already shaky, but then came the comic book storyline. It was supposed to be metaphorical or […]
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Secrets, Surprises, and a Story Within a Story: A Refreshing Turn for Rimmer
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Midnight Estate is a fresh departure for Kelly Rimmer, and I was here for it. Known for emotional historical fiction, Rimmer shifts gears with a dual-timeline mystery full of family secrets, buried truths, and a book that just might know too much. When Fiona inherits her family’s crumbling estate, she also discovers an unfinished manuscript that echoes her own life. The story-within-a-story device is a fun twist and adds another layer of intrigue. I appreciated how the timelines played off one another, slowly revealing hidden connections and long-held grudges. While some call it “gothic,” I didn’t really get that vibe. Yes, there’s an old house and some dark […]
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