⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (3.5 stars) Loretta Rothschild’s debut, Finding Grace, starts with a shocking twist that pulled me right in. Honor Wharton, her husband Tom, and their daughter Chloe are living an enviable life until tragedy strikes. Tom, left shattered, makes a decision that changes everything, connecting his future with Grace Stone, a widow who bears an uncanny resemblance to his late wife. Narrated by Honor from a limbo state, the story tackles themes of motherhood, grief, and the haunting pull of secrets. The premise is powerful, but the pacing lags after the strong opening, and the romantic angle between Tom and Grace felt unsettling rather than moving. Honestly, I couldn’t stand […]
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Charming Villain, Frustrating Victims
⭐⭐⭐ Lisa Jewell’s Don’t Let Him In is the literary version of yelling “Girl, no!” at your book every five minutes. Nick Radcliffe is polished, persuasive, and apparently made of Teflon—because every red flag bounces right off him while the women around him melt like butter on a July sidewalk. We’ve got Nina, a grieving widow who lets this charmer right through the front door (and basically into her life without a second thought). Her daughter Ash sniffs trouble and plays Nancy Drew, but even she takes her sweet time. Then there’s Martha, who’s basically living in a “My Husband Has a Secret Life” docuseries. Add in a few more […]
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Coben’s Twisty Thriller Keeps You Guessing
(⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½) Nobody’s Fool was my fourth Harlan Coben book—and hands down, my favorite. It kicks off with a jaw-dropper: twenty-something Sami Kierce wakes up in a Spanish hostel, covered in blood, with his girlfriend Anna dead beside him and no clue what happened. So he panics and runs. Fast forward 22 years—he’s now a struggling PI, new dad, and night school teacher in NYC. And one evening, in walks Anna. Alive. Or is she? That’s the moment this twisty thrill ride really takes off. Coben juggles multiple timelines and threads—a decades-old kidnapping, a released killer, and a deeply personal mystery—with sharp dialogue and a healthy dose of dark humor. Sami’s […]
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Secrets, Lies, and Baby Bumps: A Twisty London Thriller
Greenwich Park starts with prenatal yoga and ends with a punch to the gut. Katherine Faulkner’s debut is a twisty domestic thriller that unwraps like a baby shower gift with something sinister inside. Helen is pregnant after years of loss, married to a charming architect, and living in a dreamy Victorian home. But when she meets Rachel—a chain-smoking, wine-guzzling hot mess at her prenatal class—her carefully built life cracks. Rachel latches on fast. She’s fun, unpredictable, and clearly hiding something. So is everyone else, apparently. We get multiple narrators (Helen, her chic sister-in-law Serena, and Katie, a dogged reporter), all tied together by a dark event from their Cambridge days. […]
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Disappointing Dive into Dark Themes
Karin Slaughter’s After That Night, the latest in the Will Trent series, left me cold. The novel dives into the lives of Sara Linton, Will Trent, and Faith Mitchell as they navigate a chilling web of privilege and abuse in Atlanta’s elite circles. Fifteen years after Sara’s own trauma, she witnesses the death of a young woman named Dani Cooper, whose brutal assault draws eerie parallels to Sara’s own and she must confront her demons once again. Despite the promising premise, I found myself unable to connect with the story. The narrative felt overly long and failed to maintain my interest beyond the halfway mark. While some may find the […]
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The It Girl
Now I can see why this book was nominated by readers in the Goodreads Choice Award Best Mystery & Thriller category last year—it’s a killer psychological thriller! The It Girl is told in alternating before and after chapters beginning at Oxford University (did you know Oxford comprises 39 separate colleges?) when freshman Hannah Jones meets her new roommate. April Coutts-Cliveden is sophisticated, wealthy, the ultimate “it” girl. “She had the kind of beauty that hurt your eyes if you looked at her for too long but made it hard to tear your gaze away. It was, Hannah realized, as if a different kind of light were shining on her […]
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The Twilight World Review
“Our tasks are to remain invisible, to deceive the enemy, to be ready to do seemingly dishonorable things while keeping safe in our hearts the warrior’s honor.” ~ Werner Herzog, The Twilight World. Although German filmmaker Werner Herzog has produced, written, and directed over sixty feature- and documentary films, The Twilight World is Werner Herzog’s debut as a novelist. As the Imperial Army prepares to withdraw from Lubang Island, Philippines in December 1944, Japanese intelligence officer, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, is ordered to hold the island until the army returns. At first, he is with three other soldiers, but one-by-one they succumb to the jungle. They ignore leaflets announcing the Japanese […]
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Amy’s May 2022 Reads
Only one 5-star review this month, but once again, Ruta Sepetys takes the top spot. I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys Please remember that when adversity is drawn out of the shadows and recognized, we ensure that human beings living under oppression—past and present—know they are not forgotten. Together, we can shine a light in dark corners of the past. Together, we can give history a voice.—Ruta Sepetys, I Must Betray You. Ruta Sepetys’s latest novel is set in Romania in 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe, but tyrannical dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, who has been in power for twenty-four years, still governs by isolation and fear. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams […]
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