Welcome back for another book review. It was an excellent month of Spook-tober thrillers. Well, three mystery/thrillers and one romance, made for a great month of reading.
People often ask me for reading recommendations and I feel like I always have something that is excellent, but sometimes I have duds as well. This month I only had one that was “eh” but that doesn’t mean YOU may not like it. So here we go, my honest review of the following books.
The Night She Disappeared – This book contains my absolute favorite trope: people missing without a trace. I was completely taken aback with this twist and I was totally shocked! It had me flipping as fast I can to get to the end so I could finally know what happened.
SYNOPSIS:
Told in two timelines:
2017 Nineteen year olds Tallulah and her boyfriend Zach, parents of a young son, disappear after going out on a dinner date. Tallulah’s mother, Kim is worried and starts working with the police to trace their movements and hopefully find them.
2019 Mystery novelist Sophie and her boyfriend move into a house near the grounds of the school where her boyfriend will be the head teacher. On her first day there, she finds a sign in her back garden saying “Dig Here” and she does. What she finds helps to reopen the case of the missing teenagers.
The earlier timeline also has a year’s lead up to the disappearance through the eyes of both Tallulah and Kim, revealing the backstory and providing clues as to what might have happened.
5/5
They Never Learn – This was such a great revenge-focused thriller, with a female vigilante serial killer. This one was very devious and dark, and it reminded me of a feminist Dexter. I FLEW through this one, and I would highly recommend it to anyone that loves this kind of intriguing and twisty thrillers!
SYNOPSIS: Scarlet Clark is a professor who loves her job, loves her students, and loves killing men who she believes deserve to die- sexual predators, voyeurs, rapists, and the like. However, when her latest kill becomes to personal, she begins to spiral. Meanwhile, shy and awkward Carly has just started university and forms an intense friendship with her roommate. However, when she witnesses her roommate being sexually assaulted at a party, she becomes increasingly obsessed with getting revenge.
4/5 Stars
The Ex Hex
So, this one got a LOT of hype and I'm not sure it was totally worth it. Now don't get me wrong, it was fine; it had a cute concept and was "in the spirit" of Halloween but that's about it. It started with the promise of magic, witches, enemies to lovers trope all set in a small town. I honestly had to skim the last 30% because I didn't want to finish it. I hate to say that but it just wasn't my favorite.
SYNOPSIS: Nine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths…and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows she shouldn’t use her magic this way, but with only an “orchard hayride” scented candle on hand, she isn’t worried it will cause him anything more than a bad hair day or two.
That is until Rhys Penhallow, descendent of the town’s ancestors, breaker of hearts, and annoyingly just as gorgeous as he always was, returns to Graves Glen, Georgia. What should be a quick trip to recharge the town’s ley lines and make an appearance at the annual fall festival turns disastrously wrong. With one calamity after another striking Rhys, Vivi realizes her silly little Ex Hex may not have been so harmless after all.
Suddenly, Graves Glen is under attack from murderous wind-up toys, a pissed off ghost, and a talking cat with some interesting things to say. Vivi and Rhys have to ignore their off the charts chemistry to work together to save the town and find a way to break the break-up curse before it’s too late.
3/5 stars
In My Dreams I Hold a Knife
This is my new favorite thriller. I LOVED this book so much, part murder mystery part coming of age with multiple twists. This one will leave you speechless-. It's fascinating and mysterious all at once! SYNOPSIS: A college reunion turns dark and deadly in this chilling and propulsive suspense novel about six friends, one unsolved murder, and the dark secrets they’ve been hiding from each other—and themselves—for a decade. Ten years after graduation, Jessica Miller has planned her triumphant return to southern, elite Duquette University, down to the envious whispers that are sure to follow in her wake. Everyone is going to see the girl she wants them to see—confident, beautiful, indifferent—not the girl she was when she left campus, back when Heather’s murder fractured everything, including the tight bond linking the six friends she’d been closest to since freshman year. Ten years ago, everything fell apart, including the dreams she worked for her whole life—and her relationship with the one person she wasn’t supposed to love. But not everyone is ready to move on. Not everyone left Duquette ten years ago, and not everyone can let Heather’s murder go unsolved. Someone is determined to trap the real killer, to make the guilty pay. When the six friends are reunited, they will be forced to confront what happened that night—and the years’ worth of secrets each of them would do anything to keep hidden. 5/5 STARS
