Hi friend, how are you? I feel like I’m poking my head up from out of the sand. I’ve been deep in business stuff lately. As most of you know, I’m a YA author, but I’ve never really shown up in the world as an author. I write books. Publish them. And hide behind a computer screen. But this year I promised myself I’d start showing up and treating this author thing like an actual business. So I’ve been getting things ready for signing events (yes, like real, IRL events!) and other fun business things (like researching the mess out of custom t-shirt printing. I KNOW! Exciting stuff!). All of that to say, I don’t really make time to read as much as I’d like. And because of that, I was in such a bad reading slump for a long, long time.
But then I accidentally joined a book club (I don’t know how these things happen to me, but I’m glad they do!) and that definitely helped reignite my passion for reading.
Most of these were book club reads. Some were not (like The Perfect Marriage & The Last Thing He Told Me). But the book club definitely helped to get that craving going, if you know what I mean. (If you read books, you know. If you don’t you’re probably like WTF are you talking about?)
Mystery & Psychological Thriller Books I’ve Read Lately
Just another missing person; Gilliam McAllister
Summary:
22-year-old Olivia has been missing for one day…and counting. She was last seen on CCTV, entering a dead-end alley. And not coming back out again.
Julia, the detective heading up the search for Olivia, thinks she knows what to expect. A desperate family, a ticking clock, and long hours away from her husband and daughter. But she has no idea just how close to home this case is going to get.
Because the criminal at the heart of the disappearance has something she never expected. His weapon isn’t a gun, or a knife: it’s a secret. Her worst one. And her family’s safety depends on one thing: Julia must NOT find out what happened to Olivia – and must frame somebody else for her murder.
If you find her, you will lose everything. What would you do?
This clever and endlessly surprising thriller is laced with a smart look at family and motherhood, and cements Gillian McAllister as a major talent in the world of suspense and a master of creating ethical dilemmas that show just how murky the distinction between right and wrong can be.
Verdict: READ. Not at all what I was expecting. Kept me interested.
None of this is true; Lisa Jewell
Summary:
Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.
A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.
Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.
But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.
Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?
Verdict: READ. Totally bizarre and interesting. Props for creativity and delivering something outside the norm.
The Housemaid; Freida McFadden
Summary:
“Welcome to the family,” Nina Winchester says as I shake her elegant, manicured hand. I smile politely, gazing around the marble hallway. Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like. But I’ll soon learn that the Winchesters’ secrets are far more dangerous than my own…
Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.
I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.
I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out… and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.
But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.
They don’t know what I’m capable of…
Verdict: READ. I thought I had this book figured out right away and boy, was I wrong. So, so wrong.
The Housemaid’s secret; Freida McFadden
Summary:
“Don’t go in the guest bedroom.” A shadow falls on Douglas Garrick’s face as he touches the door with his fingertips. “My wife… she’s very ill.” As he continues showing me their incredible penthouse apartment, I have a terrible feeling about the woman behind closed doors. But I can’t risk losing this job—not if I want to keep my darkest secret safe…
It’s hard to find an employer who doesn’t ask too many questions about my past. So I thank my lucky stars that the Garricks miraculously give me a job, cleaning their stunning penthouse with views across the city and preparing fancy meals in their shiny kitchen. I can work here for a while, stay quiet until I get what I want.
It’s almost perfect. But I still haven’t met Mrs Garrick, or seen inside the guest bedroom. I’m sure I hear her crying. I notice spots of blood around the neck of her white nightgowns when I’m doing laundry. And one day I can’t help but knock on the door. When it gently swings open, what I see inside changes everything…
That’s when I make a promise. After all, I’ve done this before. I can protect Mrs Garrick while keeping my own secrets locked up safe.
Douglas Garrick has done wrong. He is going to pay. It’s simply a question of how far I’m willing to go…
This absolutely explosive and shockingly twisty sequel to international phenomenon and New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street JournalbestsellerThe Housemaid will keep you racing through the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose, The Woman in the Window and Gone Girl will be totally hooked!
This book can also be enjoyed as a standalone.
Verdict: READ. Liked it even more than the first one, which I didn’t think was possible.
A flicker in the dark; Stacy Willingham
Summary:
When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, her own father had confessed to the crimes and was put away for life, leaving Chloe and the rest of her family to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath.
Now twenty years later, Chloe is a psychologist in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. While she finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to achieve, she sometimes feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. So when a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, seeing parallels from her past that aren’t actually there, or for the second time in her life, is Chloe about to unmask a killer?
From debut author Stacy Willingham comes a masterfully done, lyrical thriller, certain to be the launch of an amazing career. A Flicker in the Dark is eerily compelling to the very last page.
Verdict: Maybe. It was…wild. And interesting. But I did find myself losing interest occasionally. That might have been what was going on in my life at the time I was trying to read it, so I can’t say for sure it was the fault of the book.
The last thing he told me; Laura Dave
Summary:
Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.
As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a US marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.
Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they’re also building a new future—one neither of them could have anticipated.
With its breakneck pacing, dizzying plot twists, and evocative family drama, The Last Thing He Told Me is a riveting mystery, certain to shock you with its final, heartbreaking turn.
VERDICT: READ! I could not put this one down.
The Perfect Marriage; Jenva Rose
Summary:
Sarah Morgan is a successful and powerful defense attorney in Washington D.C. As a named partner at her firm, life is going exactly how she planned. The same cannot be said for her husband, Adam. He’s a struggling writer who has had little success in his career and he tires of his and Sarah’s relationship as she is constantly working.
Out in the secluded woods, at the couple’s lake house, Adam engages in a passionate affair with Kelly Summers. But one morning everything changes. Kelly is found brutally stabbed to death and now, Sarah must take on her hardest case yet, defending her own husband, a man accused of murdering his mistress.
The Perfect Marriage is a juicy, twisty, and utterly addictive thriller that will keep you turning pages. You won’t see the ending coming . . . guaranteed!
Verdict: Pass. I was gripped initially but it slowly (and then very quickly) lost me. This was a DNF for me. I did look up spoilers and was shocked by the ending. I also saw that it’s been optioned for a movie — which I’d definitely watch.
That’s it for me today, friend! Until next time! XOXO
The Perfect Marriage is the best of her books lol. I liked it and tried two others and don’t think I even finished them.
Any book by Freida McFadden is worth picking up!