Tessa Hart suffers from agoraphobia after a traumatic experience during a summer program she was attending. She has even deferred her freshman year of college. She spends all her time in her room obsessing over pop star Eric Thorn on Twitter.  Eric Thorn is worried his fans will attack him. This fear started after another artist had been stalked and murdered by one of his fans. Eric is fed up with all the fangirls and the social media publicity and promoting he's forced to do, so he creates another account to anonymously bash himself and his fangirls. He decides to message one of his top followers, which happens to be Tessa, to tell her her life is meaningless and Eric Thorn will never like her. But what blossoms into a strong friendship may have deadly consequences.  I enjoyed this book. The ending was great! I'm a sucker for books like this - told through Twitter messages and police interrogations. I liked the suspense. It starts off with a police interrogation then we learn

Quinn Cutler is sixteen and pregnant. But she has no recollection of ever having sex. Before she can figure things out, her story becomes public. Rumours start flying, jeopardizing her reputation, her relationship with her boyfriend, and her father’s campaign for Congress. Religious fanatics begin gathering at their home, believing Quinn is pregnant with the next messiah. In Quinn's search for the truth, she uncovers strange family secrets that have her wondering if she really is a virgin. The book started off good with strong writing, the way lots of great YA books are written. But overall it was boring. Not much happens, some parts were repetitious, and I didn't care for the ending. My need to know how the mystery unravelled kept me turning the pages but ultimately left me disappointed. There were lots of things I liked about the book - the main character, her childhood, her grandmother's past, the setting, why she thinks she's a pregnant virgin but the whole thing ju

Kate Baron is a single mother to fifteen-year-old Amelia. As a litigation lawyer Kate works long hours and doesn't have as much time to spend with her daughter as she would like. When a phone call from her daughter's private school disrupts the meeting Kate is in with the news that Amelia has been caught cheating, Kate can't believe it. Amelia has been suspended and Kate has to leave work to pick her up. Her daughter is an intelligent, ambitious teenager who has never been in trouble a day in her life. But Kate will never get the chance to ask her daughter what's going on because by the time she arrives at the school Amelia is dead. The police and the school tell Kate that Amelia jumped in an act of spontaneous suicide, unable to cope with what she'd done. Kate accepts what they're telling her but doesn't truly believe that's what happened. When Kate receives an anonymous text saying that Amelia didn't jump, she is forced to sift through Amelia's

This is a short story prequel to Pretty Girls which was one of my favourite reads of 2016. Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes takes us through the day Julia Carroll went missing. She did things a typical nineteen-year-old would do - went to classes, went out that night with her roommate and best friend, Nancy. She thought about her younger sisters and how she should look out for them more and what they would do together that weekend. Although she had lots of different things going on in her life, her mind always came back to Beatrice Oliver. She went missing five weeks ago and it terrified Julia that a girl her own age could walk out the door and not return and can't be found. And really, it became repetitious for me. Same with what happened with her boyfriend that night. It became repetitious especially in a short story and it just felt bogged down. This was a disappointing read for me. It didn't have the same feel as Pretty Girls at all.

Libby Day's two older sisters, Michelle and Debby, and her mother, Patty, were murdered in their home. The murder was known as "The Satan Sacrifice" - a Satanic bloodbath with hateful words smeared on the walls. Libby was only seven-years-old when she testified that her fifteen-year-old brother Ben was the one who killed them. Twenty-five years have passed without Libby ever visiting Ben. A member of a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes contacts Libby in hopes of finding proof that will set Ben free. Libby only wants money, so she'll talk to the suspects from that night for a fee. As the truth comes out, she finds herself on the run from a killer. Again. This book was raw and gritty. The characters were well-developed. I couldn't wait to find out what happened to the Day's that night and feared that with all the build up I would be disappointed. But I wasn't! I liked looking back at that day, as told by Ben and Patty, and seeing how all these li

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a package with his name on it, and with no return address, on his front porch. There are several cassette tapes inside recorded by Hannah Baker - his classmate and crush. Hannah committed suicide two weeks earlier. As he listens to the tapes, he learns that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. And that he is one of the reasons. This was interesting - it's told from Clay's perspective but as he listens to the tapes Hannah's story is interwoven with his thoughts, memories and what he's doing at that particular moment. I think this format made the book hard to put down. I did sympathize with Hannah. She gives us all the reasons that keep adding up, leading to her decision - things she may have been able to stop, things that other people may have been able to stop, how some teenagers can be so cruel and thoughtless.

Ted Severson is sitting in an airport bar, having a martini when he meets mysterious Lily Kintner. On the plane they play a game of truth - they reveal intimate details about themselves because chances are they won't see each other again. After Ted tells Lily that he's sure his wife is cheating on him and that he'd like to kill her, Lily tells Ted that she would like to help. They plan to meet up again and create a plan and put it in motion to get rid of Ted's wife.  This is one of those books that I actually felt as though I was part of the action. The characters were fleshed out. The situations everyone got themselves into were interesting. I loved the ending. There were no weak points in the book, everything in there made it a great read!

Katie has just been told that her younger sister, Mia, has been found dead at the bottom of a cliff in Bali and that it has been ruled a suicide. Katie and Mia didn't exactly get along with each other as they got older and they hardly talked to each other since Mia suddenly left on an around-the-world trip six months ago, but Katie doesn't believe that Mia killed herself. After Mia's journal has been returned to her sister in London, Katie decides that the only way to find out the truth is to travel in Mia's footsteps. So Katie leaves her safe, orderly life behind and travels to all the places Mia wrote about in her journal. The chapters go back and forth between Katie and Mia. The book was nothing special, in fact it was boring and mostly forgettable. A few things seemed too convenient. But I wanted to know what happened to Mia. And when I found out I was a little disappointed. What I really enjoyed was travelling - I felt like I was in California, Hawaii, Australia, a

The Barbizon Hotel in New York City is a glamorous place for women where models, secretaries, and editors live while trying to claw their way to success until they can find themselves a husband. The year is 1952 and Darby McLaughlin has arrived at the Barbizon Hotel to stay while she attends Katharine Gibbs secretarial school. But she doesn't fit in and the secretarial work is boring. Darby befriends a maid from the Barbizon and together they hang out in a seedy jazz club called the Flatted Fifth until all hours of the night. But it's not all fun and games for long. Present day - the Barbizon is no longer a hotel but a condo. Rose Lewin is a journalist living there. She's on the fifth floor while the old women who've lived there since it was a hotel live on the fourth floor. She becomes interested in one woman in particular after she hears a juicy story about Darby's involvement in a deadly skirmish back in the 50's. She becomes obsessed with uncovering this wom

College senior Lana Granger has constructed her future by lying about her past. Shortly after she begins babysitting a manipulative eleven-year-old boy, her best friend Beck mysteriously disappears. Eyewitnesses say Lana was the last person to see Beck. She finds herself telling more lies - to the police, to friends, to herself. She's trying to keep things together especially now that she knows there's someone out there who's trying hard to expose her secrets. This was good! It was a page-turner with lots of suspense and twists and turns. I really appreciate the creativity that went into this book. I enjoyed uncovering all of Lana's secrets and learning why she wanted so desperately to bury her past. 

The unnamed narrator is leaving her old job of pro hand job giver and moving on to fortune teller. As a fortune teller she meets a mousy woman named Susan Burke. Susan hires the unnamed narrator to cleanse her old house of evil. But she may be in over her head. I liked the main character; actually I liked all of the characters. I loved the creepy old house and all that went with it. The story kept me guessing. But the ending didn't work for me. It was weak and disappointing and left just a few too many questions unanswered.

I would love to go to Italy. I thought this book might take me there, but it only put me to sleep. The story was soooooo slooooooow. I can't even tell you what it was about. I'd read a sentence several times - my mind was wandering. It didn't keep my interest at all. DNF @ 34%. 

Nineteen-year-old Gwendolyn Hooper is starting her new life in Ceylon with her new husband Laurence. He's rich - the owner of a tea plantation - and charming and Gwen is in love. But life in Ceylon isn't quite what she expected. The plantation workers aren't very nice and Laurence seems to be hiding a few things from her. And eventually Gwen will come to have a secret of her own - and it's a doozy. I feel like this book took forever for me to get through. There's too many words, it's overly descriptive, the characters aren't very interesting, and absolutely nothing happens! 

This is book number two in The Hatching series. And it is exactly like the first one. Filled with so many different characters from all around the world that I don't care who's who. I don't want their life story, I want action. They're preparing for the spiders? Okay, fine. But there are so many different characters, everyone doing their own thing, that there is not enough actual action from the spiders. So, again, the concept of flesh-eating spiders is cool but it is not executed very well in either book.

Victoria Zell doesn't fit in. She was the new kid last year at St. Ann's - a close-knit Catholic school - and still hasn't made any friends. But now she's not the new kid anymore. Mysterious and charismatic Z is. He makes her feel special. He makes everyone in the whole school feel special. Victoria becomes obsessed with Z, trying to figure out who he really is. And that's when something terrible happens. This book was so good. I devoured it so I didn't have a chance to put the pieces together that I may have noticed otherwise. I love how this is Victoria's story about what happened, written to her boyfriend, Andrew. The whole story flowed well, the characters felt real, I enjoyed the twists and turns. I also really enjoyed the police interviews with students, teachers and parents. Definitely worthy of a re-read.

Kat has been through a lot. She does what she has to do to get by and she numbs her pain with alcohol and one-night-stands. But on her eighteenth birthday she meets a man who will turn her whole world upside down. She can't let herself get close, but there's a spark between them that she can't ignore. As time passes he teaches her many things - how to love, to be optimistic, literature. She met Gavin in the summer, before they knew he'd be her Lit teacher during her senior year of high school. This is Kat's story about her struggles and now, four years later, how she has Gavin - Mr. Cooper - to thank for the woman she has become. I had my doubts through a lot of the book about how much I'd enjoy it overall. But now that I've finished it, it was actually really good. There were many obstacles, lots of ups and downs; and it felt like a complete, solid story. Kat was hard to warm up to, but she's had her share of pain. Gavin kinda felt a bit possessive at t

Instead of Maggie's summer being filled with fun it's been filled with pain. Maggie remembers hanging out at the gorge with her best friends, she remembers climbing the trail with her perfect boyfriend, but she doesn't remember what happened when they were supposed to dive off the cliff together. What happened that left her scared up on the top of that cliff and Joey dead in the water down below? Maggie's memories return to her in pieces over time and finally she uncovers the ugly truth. Even though things were predictable from early on, the fantastic writing made the book fun and easy to plow through. The characters, their situations - it all came to life and made you feel as though you were there with them. I really enjoyed it!

Tara Logan lives with her husband and two children on a quiet cul-de-sac. Things are going fairly well. Until she wakes up one morning to discover she's laying next to her neighbour in his bed with no memory of how she got there. And also, he's been stabbed to death. Tara is convinced she didn't kill him and she decides to keep quiet about the whole thing. But she soon realizes that someone in her life knows what happened that night. I've read one other book by this author and did not enjoy it. I had my doubts I'd enjoy this one but the blurb just sounded too damn good not to give it a try. For more than half of this book my main thought was "how can the author take something that sounds so good and make it so dull?" The last little bit of the book was good, full of action and the truth coming out, but I suffered to get to it. Overall it wasn't that bad, but I'm not sure I'd pick up another book by this author, she's just not for me.

A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. The house is long gone but he finds himself drawn to the old farmhouse at the end of the road where his childhood friend lived. Lettie Hempstock wasn't an ordinary little girl and her mother and grandmother weren't ordinary women. He hasn't thought of Lettie in many, many years but as he sits by the pond, the pond Lettie claimed was an ocean, he's taken back to the past. A past so strange it's hard to believe. I don't honestly know what to say. It took me a while to get into but even so it's still a great book from start to finish. It's creative and magical and weird and real.

Beneath the city of Paris, France, are The Catacombs - a labyrinth of crumbling tunnels filled with six million dead. A video camera that contains mysterious footage has been left behind and found by a friend of a friend. Danièle is showing the footage her friend Pascal has found to her new friend Will. She wants him to join a small group of friends exploring the Catacombs. They're going to the place where the video camera was found in hopes of finding the woman who dropped it. Will is adamant he doesn't want to go. But he changes his mind at the last minute and it could cost him his life. This one seemed almost boring. I don't know if it was because of the setting, underground and dark, that it gave off that vibe. They walk and walk through the tunnels and then towards the end everything happens, and it's a bit far-fetched. And there were lots of mistakes - the ones that stick out the most, for me, are the girls who balled their eyes out - kinda funny, kinda sad for an

A ten-thousand-year-old egg sac has been found at the Nazca Lines and is sent to a laboratory in Washington, D.C. where it hatches and an ancient species of killer spiders emerge. Now the black, skittering mass is causing global pandemonium. This book is told from multiple perspectives - people from all over the world where these giant, man-eating spiders are out of control. It quickly became boring reading about these people. I wanted the main characters to be the spiders but they play a minor role compared to these peoples' lives and how they're preparing for and dealing with the spiders. It was disappointing.

Morgan and Ali are fraternal twins. Morgan thinks her life would be better without Ali. Now Ali is moving across the country with her husband to open up her dream restaurant. Morgan's jealousy and resentment will inadvertently create a chain of events that will cause things to get a lot worse before they get better.  The blurb sounded good, but this book was not. The characters are beyond unlikable. Morgan is so childish and petty - throwing temper tantrums just to hurt someone then wonders why no one likes her. Both Morgan and Ali are always wondering what secrets the other is hiding and they KNOW they're hiding secrets because of the way they blinked their eyes or whatever. The writing itself was not that good - it seemed amateurish to me. The story had no real depth. I was tired of hearing the same old things over and over and over. The ending is what caused it to drop from a two star book to a one star book - just awful.

A group of friends are planning to hike Mt. Fuji but their plans are cancelled due to impending rain. They then meet an Israeli couple who were also planning to hike Mt. Fuji but are now going to go camp in Aokigahara Jukai (also known as The Suicide Forest) instead. The group of friends tag along with the Israeli couple to see if the place is really haunted. They move past the signs urging people to think of their loved ones and not to continue into the forest but their curiosity is piqued. The forest is so dense it's easy to become lost. And by morning one of them will go missing. This was well-written. It had the right amount of spookiness. The characters were three-dimensional. I enjoyed the snippets about their lives before they got caught up in the horrors of The Suicide Forest. It was easy to feel like you were there in the forest with them. I'm looking forward to book number two in World's Scariest Places!

Kristine Rush and her fiancé, Daniel, are on their way from Las Vegas to Lake Arrowhead, California for the Fourth of July. Kristine isn't looking forward to spending time with Daniel's mother, but that's the least of her worries when Daniel is abducted from a desolate rest stop. Now Kristine must choose: return home safe and sound without Daniel or take orders from a killer that will send her on a trip through hell to find him. This book was intense! The stellar writing and the amount of suspense made this book grip me from page one and didn't let me go until the very last page. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, the author would surprise me. Kristine's situation was palpable (and definitely not enjoyable) I loved the setting. I loved Kristine's relationship with her daughter. And I loved this book!

DCI Erika Foster is searching a quarry that is no longer used. She's looking for a huge amount of heroin packed into a waterproof container. Not only does she find it, she also finds the skeleton of a young child. The remains are quickly identified as seven-year-old Jessica Collins. A little girl who went missing twenty-six years ago on her way to a birthday party. Erika soon realizes this is going to be one of the hardest cases she's ever taken on. She has to dig through old evidence, piece it together with new evidence and find out all she can from the first detective on the case, Amanda Baker. But there's someone out there who doesn't want anyone finding out what happened to Jessica Collins and they'll stop at nothing to keep anyone who gets close to the truth silent. This is the third book in the DCI Erika Foster series. I found most of it slow compared to the other two, but it really picked up towards the end. I did not like what little romance was in the book.

I wanted to try something different and this sounded good. But it's not. It's painful to read. I don't understand the lingo, I can't keep track of who's who. I'm not interested so I'm not remembering anything. I hate not finishing a book but I can't read any more of this. DNF @ 19%.

Nora hasn't been in touch with her childhood best friend Clare in ten years. Then out of the blue an invitation to Clare's hen do arrives in her inbox. She knows going is a bad idea. She just didn't know how bad. This book was sloooooooow. The writing was nothing spectacular. I did like the last 15% or so of the book even if some of it was a bit far-fetched/convenient, but overall this was a disappointing read for me.

Kate is a designer/decorator for a large interior landscaping company. She works her magic in the offices, homes and malls in St. Louis, making everything beautiful and spreading happiness. Her work keeps her from spending the holidays with her family but it also gives her less time to face the pain of a breakup just before Christmas the previous year. Kate's world is about to be turned upside down when she's asked to decorate the home of a widowed single dad.  I loved The Charm Bracelet so when I saw this on Netgalley I had to read it. Sadly this story wasn't for me. It was too fluffy and Kate's heart was always leaping into her throat. I did like the setting and what Kate does for a living and I do enjoy this author's writing and look forward to reading more. Anyone looking for a cute little romantic, heart-warming Christmas story should definitely check this out!

Ivy Baygren loves her husband, Adam, and their bungalow that's in one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Salt Lake City. She loves the quaint details and the rose bush called Emmeline Rose after one of the home's original inhabitants. When Adam would renovate their home and find treasures left behind from previous owners, he would call them "Easter Eggs" But Adam has unexpectedly died and it's up to Ivy to finish the home improvement projects they had planned. As she does so, she finds more Easter Eggs and uncovers clues about the women who have lived in the house throughout its one hundred years - the young Mormon torn between following her heart and her anti-polygamist beliefs, the Greek immigrant during World War II, a troubled single mother in the 1960's. As she learns about their lives, she also learns that there is a little sad in every story. The cover is beautiful. I loved the concept of the book and enjoyed learning about each of the five women connected

Julie Prentice has had a stalker ever since the publication of her bestselling novel, The Murder Game. Hoping to start anew and leave her stalker in the past, Julie and her family move across the country. Their new neighbour, John Dunbar, befriends Julie but soon their friendship brings complications within their close-knit, watchful community. Despite her best efforts to fit in Julie inadvertently creates more problems that lead to disastrous consequences.  The chapters count down from twelve months ago with Julie's point of view and John's point of view with "today" in between each month. We know something bad has happened. The build up was great. The writing was excellent. I love how every little thing came together to set the end in motion. The characters felt real. I love that this book is about Julie, the woman who wrote The Murder Game (but The Murder Game and Fractured are actually written by Catherine McKenzie) Very interesting concept and very well-done.

Meredith Delay became close friends with Johnathan, Julian and Lily during their time at law school. It's now ten years later and Meredith has been assigned to a high-profile prosecution involving the murder of a disgraced hockey star. The accused? Their old friend Julian. And who is going to defend him? Their friend Johnathan. Meredith isn't quite sure whose side Lily is on. But with everyone back together Meredith is brought back to her university days and how she made it to where she's at. I devoured this book. I had to stay up late to finish it, I didn't want to wait until the next day. I'm not into legal thrillers but there was something about the blurb that drew me in. What went on in the courtroom was (thankfully!) easy to understand. The writing was phenomenal - characters that come to life in gorgeous Montreal. Everything about this book was so good. I loved it!

Eleanor Blackwood was only six-years-old when she witnessed her mother's murder. The killer was never found. Now, exactly 18 years later, Eleanor finds a woman's body in the same spot where her mother was killed. By the time Eleanor gets out of the woods and the police arrive, the body is gone. The police don't believe the body was ever there and Eleanor is left wondering if her mother's killer has resurfaced, who it could be and when they'll come after her. The writing wasn't that good. The characters were one-dimensional. The main character got on my nerves. She's finding dead bodies all over the place and all she's thinking about is how good Connor, Tris and Denzil look and which one she wants to sleep with at that particular moment, even when she suspects they could be the killer. The romance thrown into the book seemed out of place. The author spent too much time describing paths, hills and waves - I wanted to know about the murders! It was boring.

Adam Dunne's longtime girlfriend, Sarah, is not on the plane when she's due to return from a Barcelona business trip. His life begins to crumble more and more with each passing day as texts and phone calls to her cell go unanswered. How could she leave him like this? How could she have gone to Barcelona and not tell her parents? Then Sarah's passport and a note that simply reads "I'm sorry-S" arrives in their mailbox. Adam believes something more sinister is going on and that Sarah didn't just decide to leave her old life behind. That's not the Sarah he knows. Or maybe he didn't know her as well as he thought he did. But as he digs around he is able to connect Sarah to a cruise ship called the Celebrate and to a woman who disappeared from that same ship almost exactly a year before. Adam needs answers and will do whatever he has to do in order to find out what really happened to his girlfriend. Wow. This book was GOOD! I was hooked from the very fi

Shelby Richmond and her best friend Helene Boyd were in a car accident when they were teenagers. Shelby blames herself for what happened and always carried around the guilt of being the driver and the survivor. Shelby suffered through some dark years, but she's slowly crawling out of the depths of despair to discover what makes her happy - Chinese food, dogs and the people who cared about her when she didn't even care about herself. Not only has she found true friends but she finally found the angel that has been watching over her since that icy night long ago. At first I wasn't sure about this book. But I grew to love Shelby so much. Her feelings, her actions, just everything about her felt real. All of the characters felt real. The story was well-written, flowed smoothly and made me feel so many different emotions. It's one of those books that truly makes you feel as though you're part of the character's life in some way. I really enjoyed it!

DCI Erika Foster is called to a murder scene where the victim is found dead in bed with a plastic bag over his head. As DCI Foster and her team are looking for clues as to who could have committed the murder, another victim is found dead in bed with a plastic bag over his head. All they know at this point is that there is a calculated serial killer out there stalking the victims before going in for the kill. What could possibly link the victims to their killer? DCI Foster will do whatever it takes to find out. Another great book in the DCI Erika Foster series! It's well-written. It's descriptive, it's vivid, it's a page-turner. It has strong characters, great pacing. I can't say enough good things.

Mackenzie and six of her friends are spending the weekend at a cabin in the woods. She's expecting it to be a drunken good time but that's not what it turns out to be when they wake up in the morning to find that two of their friends have been killed. Detective Inspector Wright is working the case and is treating them all as suspects. He's not giving Mackenzie enough information and she wants to clear her name as well as her friends names so she does some investigating herself. She discovers that each of her friends has a secret and that any one of them could be capable of murder. The writing wasn't great. I know this comes out on September 6th but was previously published as "Covert" so I don't know if the errors are in the Covert as well, but there are lots!! Mackenzie went to Kyle's house to talk to him and when she left she hung up the phone. Blake walked to his truck and got in his car. The errors didn't affect my rating. My one star came from

Shona McIver was thirteen when she was murdered. That was almost forty years ago, and modern DNA evidence shows that the wrong man has been serving time. As Shona's brother Tom returns to Scotland from South Africa to scatter their mother's ashes, he grows closer to Sarah and together they try to figure out who could have killed Shona. Sarah was Shona's best friend and was with her just before she was killed. As Sarah's life begins to unravel she begins to realize that we don't always know the people closest to us. I felt like I was reading a book. I was not, at any time, absorbed in the story. I didn't really care for the characters. Lots of things were convenient. It all fell flat for me.

Hattie Hoffman is a high school senior in a small town where nothing ever happens. Everyone is shocked when they learn she's been stabbed to death on the opening night of her high school play. She was a good daughter, a good student, a good friend, a good actress. She was going to New York after graduation. Who could have done this? Del Goodman, local sheriff and family friend of the Hoffman's, vows to find out. When he starts investigating, he uncovers another side of Hattie virtually no one knew about. This is told from three points of view. Their stories are equally compelling. The timeline jumps around to give us Hattie's last months and the aftermath of her death. The writing was really good. I devoured the book, so it was fun to look back and realize the little clues I missed and see the cleverness that was sprinkled throughout the book.  I won a copy through Goodreads First Reads.

Cassie has been dealing with a lot the last couple of years. Her mother died, she doesn't have a good relationship with her father who is an ex-Navy SEAL, she has no friends. Now she hears voices. The day she makes a gruesome discovery on the beach is the same day she starts to hear a voice inside her head. If she doesn't obey it, it will punish her. The voice is constantly putting her down. She falls in love with one of the guys staying in the apartment above the garage for the summer, but she's too embarrassed to tell him about the voice. She doesn't want his pity. She can't explain where she goes every Thursday night, the night she sneaks off to the bowling alley for the voice support group. Things didn't end well between the two of them. But she wants another chance and this is her writing an e-mail trying to explain why she pushed him away. I loved the writing and the fact that this book was a long e-mail. I liked Cassie. She felt real to me. She's just

More than twenty years ago, Julia Carroll vanished without a trace. Her two younger sisters haven't spoken since. Claire is married to a millionaire and has no children. Lydia is a single mother, dating an ex-con and struggling to make ends meet. Although they couldn't be more different, they still carry the pain of losing their sister. The murder of Claire's husband brings Claire and Lydia together and after uncovering one horrifying secret after another they finally find the answers to questions they've had for over twenty years. This book was soo good! I was hooked from the very beginning. I stayed up very late because I couldn't stop reading. The writing was excellent. There was lots of suspense and twists and turns. I was shocked at some things. It's heartbreaking to think that these kinds of things happen all the time. I really enjoyed reading from their father's point of view. The only downside is that the book is very long with long chapters. I was b

It's two in the morning, the morning of Sophie's 40th birthday, when she wakes to find an intruder in her bedroom. They hand her a letter along with a threat: she is to open the letter later this evening in front of everyone at her party at exactly 8 p.m. or the people she loves will be in danger. As sleep eludes her, and her family fills her day with surprises, Sophie wracks her brain to come up with an answer as to what the letter contains and who could've sent it. This was an easy read. The writing was good, it grabbed me from the very beginning. I played the guessing game a little and it was fun. But after eight o'clock came and went I was left feeling unsatisfied. After I learned what happened it just made the whole book weird and far-fetched, although I can appreciate the cleverness it took to weave the story together.

Ana Bacon, a young housewife and mother to a three-year-old, has fallen off a cruise ship into the dark and deadly water below and it's up to Ryan Monahan to find out exactly what happened to her. Ryan's an investigator and when he finds out that Ana's death could net a huge payout, he's skeptical that what happened was an accident. But her husband has an alibi and the security tape shows Ana falling. And yet Ryan keeps digging and the more he uncovers about Ana's life, the more reason he has to believe it was murder. We alternate between Ana and Ryan and learn more about Ana's husband, Tom - a drunk who has lost his job. The writing was good. The book was fast-paced and suspenseful. It's full of twists and turns that kept me guessing. But I lost interest after I found out what happened. Also, there were too many things happening all at once towards the end of the book.

Lane Roanoke is fifteen when she comes to Osage Flats, Kansas to live with her maternal grandparents and her cousin, Allegra, after her mother commits suicide. Lane doesn't really know anything about her family. Her mother ran away when she was young and severed all ties with them. Allegra, abandoned at birth and raised by her grandparents, begins to show Lane the perks of being one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But the Roanoke girls don't last long around here, they either die young or run away. When Lane stumbles across the truth of why she has no choice but to run. Now, eleven years later, Lane is barely making ends meet in Los Angeles when her grandfather calls to tell her that Allegra has gone missing and he wants her to come home. Returning to Osage Flats means facing what happened all those summers ago. Unable to resist her grandfather Lane returns to Kansas, determined to find her cousin. I like the way this book goes between the summer Lane first arrived at

Melody and Duncan have been friends all their lives. They spend every summer vacationing with their parents at their lake houses which are side by side. While they thought this summer was going to be filled with carefree fun before they start their first year of college together, Duncan's father announces that he has been promoted and the whole family will soon be moving to Florida. Melody and Duncan won't be going to college together after all. And on top of all that, they secretly like each other. There's only one week until their lives will change drastically. It's a cute story about lifelong friends who develop feelings for each other and are starting to act on those feelings. It's a quick and easy read. It'll be interesting to read what happens next in the series!

It's 1926 and Canadian-born, American-raised Maisie Musgrave is living in London. She's very excited to land a job as a secretary at the British Broadcasting Corporation. Radio is still new and although some people don't like it, it is captivating the nation. Maisie falls in love with her job - the hectic pace, arranging broadcasts by the most influential people in Britain, working alongside smart minds of the BBC. It's here that she finds her voice and blossoms into a confident and capable young woman. But there is growing conflict between Maisie's two bosses. John Reith has a very different opinion than Hilda Matheson when it comes to what the BBC should be airing. But no matter what happens, Maisie is determined to let her work speak for her. The author makes you feel as though you're in London during the years after WWI when radio was just catching on but had to be censored, when women had just won the right to vote and had jobs other than secretarial ones.

Jeanie and Matthew met, fell in love and got married after six months. They're supposed to have a fairytale marriage. Jeanie's the perfect wife, Matthew is the handsome and wealthy businessman with a big, beautiful home. They both have children from previous relationships. They're supposed to live happily ever after. But contrary to the fairytale, Jeanie is not an evil stepmother. She is caring and kind. While she is trying so hard to create one big happy family, someone else is threatening to destroy her marriage by digging up her old secrets. I found the first half of the book boring. The story was finally picking up and getting good and then there was this weird twist that I found didn't fit in properly with the way the story was going. Towards the end it became too convoluted. I didn't mind Jeanie. I liked reading about her time in the big old house where she could hear the walls whispering and see a ghost referred to as the Grey Lady.

Grace, Grace's boyfriend Dan, and Charlie have been friends since childhood. But one day Charlie leaves without saying goodbye. For years she sends Grace postcards from all over the world. Then one day she reappears in Grace's life, but before they get a chance to talk, Charlie dies. Grace is left with her mysterious last words “I did something terrible, Grace. I hope you can forgive me.” She has no idea what Charlie did, but she's determined to find out and she's also determined to find Charlie's father, something Charlie wanted so desperately to do. Grace and Dan turn to social media to search for him or to find someone who knows him. A girl claiming to be Charlie's half-sister responds and meets up with Grace to talk. That's when things start to fall apart for Grace. This is an excellent debut novel. It's well-crafted. There is the right amount of twists and turns, and they're good. It alternates between then and now and flows well. The characters

Ever since her best friend and next door neighbour, Oliver, was kidnapped ten years ago, Emmy's parents are extremely overprotective of their only child. At seventeen she feels as though she's not allowed to grow up. But now Oliver has returned home. After being picked up by his father from school one day, Oliver spent the last ten years with him, not knowing he was kidnapped and thinking his mother didn't want him anymore. With Oliver back, Emmy hopes to get to know him again and see where their friendship takes them. The whole book came together so well - the pacing, the characters, the writing - everything was so, sooo good. It didn't lack anything. There were no slow parts. I loved Emmy. I loved Oliver. I loved Emmy and Oliver together. I loved her relationship with her best friends Caro and Drew, their bond felt strong and genuine. Caro and Drew themselves were three-dimensional with their own joys and problems. Her relationship with her parents was frustrating but

Becca and Asher were best friends for years until she started dating Trip. Asher noticed she was more withdrawn and had lost her spark. Becca dumped Trip months ago but she's still distant with Asher. With both of their families vacationing at the cabin before school starts up again, Asher learns what happened between Becca and Trip and hopes that their own friendship can grow. This touched on emotional and mental abuse within a relationship, and when I say "touched" I mean like if you were to touch something hot then immediately pull your hand away before getting burned. It would have been nice to have more depth there. I couldn't relate to Becca or Asher. I didn't like them, they got on my nerves. Another thing that bothered me was going on about the games they played, like "Don't Break The Ice" and "Phase 10." I've never played either game and found it tedious to read through the rules and how each player took their turn.

Annie is the new girl in town. She befriends an insecure and anxious Jessie and they immediately become best friends. But as the school year progresses, Annie starts hanging out with Courtney and Larissa - two girls who have made Jessie's life hell for the past couple of years. Annie also starts dating Scott - Jessie's lab partner and the guy she has a huge crush on. Their friendship slowly begins to fall apart due to secrets, miscommunication and, what seemed like to me, plain not caring on Annie's part. The characters and situations are realistic. It's typical teenage/high school drama. Clichéd. There's nothing that makes this book stand out.

When teenage outcast Hawthorn Creely finds out Lizzie Lovett, a girl she didn't really know at all but spent years both envying and hating, went missing while camping with her boyfriend, she decides to look for her. She becomes obsessed with Lizzie. She comes up with a wacky idea about what happened and winds up working her old job and hanging out with her boyfriend in an attempt to find her. I really enjoyed the writing. The main character felt real to me. I almost don't want to admit how relatable I found her. At times the book did become long and drawn out especially towards the end. The thing I couldn't get over was how weird it was that Hawthorn and Lizzie's boyfriend were spending time together. But if that didn't happen we wouldn't have The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett, would we.

Louise Leighton's life has been falling apart ever since that night. Now, a year later, her husband is having an affair with her sister, she is going to lose everything she owns, her daughter is missing, and her life is in danger. But Louise can't tell the police the whole story because it will incriminate her daughter. No one can know about that night. I liked the cover and chose to read the book because of it. Huge mistake. The birds are dead. I hated the first half of the book. The chapters were short and "that night" was mentioned a dozen times in each one. I understood that something happened one night last year, I didn't need to read those words a thousand times before we actually got to that night. The writing was just okay. I didn't like any of the characters. The epilogue was the best part.

The Gardener has a beautiful garden filled with pretty flowers, shady trees and a collection of butterflies. But these are no ordinary butterflies, these are young women who have been kidnapped, renamed and tattooed with very detailed wings to resemble the different types of butterflies. And like butterflies they have a short lifespan. But the Gardener will preserve them and have them on display so he can always admire their beauty. After many decades the garden is finally discovered and a survivor named Maya is brought in for questioning by the FBI. This is her story. This is a very interesting concept for a book. What a world for those girls to live in. I loved how the stories flowed together - Maya is brought in by the FBI who are asking her questions and we go back as Maya is telling them about her past and her time in the garden - it was very well done. I wasn't crazy about the unnecessary twist at the end but it didn't deter me from giving it five stars.

Paige Dawson's daughter was murdered ten years ago and her husband has recently committed suicide. She has nothing left to live for. When she begins to go through his belongings she finds a gun. Paige then goes on a hunt to find answers as to why her husband would have a gun, but she could never have prepared herself for what she discovers. This was quick and easy. But I felt like I was reading a book and not there going through everything with the characters. There was no real depth to the writing or characters. There was no build-up to the big twists and they felt weird for the sake of being weird, like the author threw in one weird thing after another until it was just ridiculous.

Jessica Campbell is sorting through her recently deceased mother's belongings. She wasn't expecting to find two dead bodies in the bottom of her deep freezers. As a foster mother, Donna Campbell had many children come into their home over the years. Jessica can remember two teenaged sisters who lived with them almost thirty years ago. Casey and Jamie Cheng were two very troubled and defiant girls who everyone assumed had just run away. Jessica can't believe her mother was capable of something like this, but as she learns more about her mother's childhood she realizes that she didn't know her mother as well as she thought she did. This was a compulsive read for me. It is very well-written. I enjoyed going back and forth between the past, learning about the Cheng sisters, their upbringing and what lead them into foster care, and the present where Jessica is trying to figure out why her mother would murder two of her foster children. The ending wasn't what I was ex

The book begins with a suicide in the town of Battle Creek - a place where nothing at all ever happens. The townspeople fear that Satan may have something to do with it. The aftermath brings Hannah Dexter and Lacey Champlain together to form an unlikely friendship filled with violence and rebellion.  Sometimes I loved the writing, sometimes I thought the author tried too hard. Sometimes I liked the characters, sometimes I hated them. Sometimes I was bored, sometimes I was totally absorbed in the story. 

Noah Calaway fell in love with April Moon when he was fourteen. Now, many years later, after losing touch, April is in a coma at the hospital and she's the lead suspect in a murder. Noah is a former lawyer, no wait, maybe he still is a lawyer now that April may need one. He believes wholeheartedly that she is not capable of murder. He searches for evidence that will prove her innocence. Then Ella weirdly enters the story. She is beginning to uncover her family's secrets. Secrets that could help solve the murder. Wow, lots of animals are killed in this book. I definitely don't like that. I didn't care for the writing. The chapters alternate between past and present and sometimes in between. The characters were frustrating with their secrets, their manipulative ways and their drama. Some things were just unbelievable. It wasn't as suspenseful as I thought it would be and by the time the twists came along I wasn't surprised by them because I wasn't anywhere nea

Elisa has just visited a beautiful and strange place called Duskland. She finds all its inhabitants interesting and falls in love with Leonhard after just a short time. She is pulled from Duskland to rejoin the living, but she is still not safe here. Her husband wants her dead and will do anything in his power to find her. With the help of new friends Elisa has the strength to fight back and in the end she must choose between living and the afterlife. The book started off slow but once it picked up it was really enjoyable. Duskland was unique and had that eerie/dreamlike quality to it. I loved the Victorian Gothic vibe throughout the whole story. The illustrations are gorgeous. The author has a great imagination!

Nora Hargrove works an entry-level job that she hates, lives in an apartment that is more like a cave, and she avoids all interpersonal relationships. Instead of spending time over the summer with the mother she hates, she stays in an overcrowded Dewey Beach rental. It's here that Nora becomes inspired to live her life instead of hiding and running from what she wants. I really liked the concept and all of the characters, but there was nothing particular that stood out to make this a great book for me.

Jonah Daniels is a seventeen-year-old who has a passion for cooking and is following in his father's footsteps. But with his father's sudden death six months ago, he has more on his plate than just black cherry cobbler. His mother has withdrawn from her family. She spends all her time in her bedroom while Jonah and his two older siblings look after their three younger siblings. Vivi Alexander and her mother are staying in Verona Cove for the summer. Vivi is a vivacious sixteen-year-old who loves art and fashion. And Jonah Daniels. But her world is not all twinkle lights and glitter. She's been keeping something from Jonah and it takes something extreme for him to find out what it is. The cover is lovely. The title is great. All the characters in this book were phenomenal, but I fell in love with Vivi. I loved her personality and her story. I don't have a word for the author's writing, it was soooo good! It was an honest and realistic portrayal of someone living with

This book is told from three different perspectives: Isabel's - a geneticist, Diego's - a software engineer, and Matt's - a physicist.  Isabel runs into Diego fifteen years after their relationship ended. Now she must travel back in time to make sure they stay together. It's the only way to save the world. After writing a review about only winning a part of the book in a giveaway instead of the whole book like I thought it would be, the author was kind enough to get in touch and send me all of book one, so a big thank you to her! I've never really read any time travel or dystopian books, but this one intrigued me. " Be prepared to encounter a finicky time machine, a mysterious seashell and a very clever dog.  The prologue drew me in. I liked Matt's perspective the most. I did like that Isabel made it to the other world. But when Isabel and Diego were together they annoyed me to no end. Despite that, though, I did enjoy the book and am curious as to what wil

Izzy Stone is seventeen. Her mother fatally shot her father while he slept ten years ago and she has refused to visit her in prison. She was living with her grandmother until she passed away and has been with several foster families. But her new foster parents seem great. They're curators at the local museum and have asked for Izzy's help cataloging the items found inside an old state asylum. The asylum makes her uncomfortable as it makes her think of her mother's "insanity." As she goes through one of the former patient's belongings she's taken to another time in search of answers. Clara Cartwright was eighteen years old in 1929 when she was sent away to a genteel home for nervous invalids; her overbearing father furious at her for rejecting an arranged marriage and falling in love with an Italian immigrant. But when he can no longer afford her care at the home after losing money in the stock market crash, Clara is committed to the asylum. This is a weird

Keeley Hewitt has lived in Aberdeen her whole life. She's looking forward to having a terrific summer with her best friend Morgan and being a senior in high school next year. But things are falling apart for the small town. Due to severe flooding everyone living there is ordered to pack up their belongings and relocate. A dam will be constructed and a reservoir will be created. Keeley is determined to make sure everyone has fun before the end of Aberdeen. But things don't turn out the way she thought they would. I love the concept of the book which is based on true events. The writing was great. I liked the different opinions and actions taken by the residents concerning the crisis. The characters were realistic and relatable. I really liked Keeley. 

Billy, Al and Mickey were part of the LA music scene in the 80's with their band Vertigo. But Al and Mickey were left behind when Billy became famous. Decades later Mickey drags Al on a trip in an effort to reunite with Billy where he'll be playing his next concert and make the last dream they had as a band come true - play at Madison Square Garden together. This was a solid novella. The author created real characters and a vivid world filled with violence, drugs, hopes and broken dreams.

Cecily was only 13-years-old in the summer of '39. She was desperate to grow up and be like her older sister Rose. But something happened that summer that tore the family apart and it seemed that everyone blamed Cecily, including herself. Now, 29 years later, she has returned to the deserted family farm. She goes through her memories of that summer and remembers the good times and the bad, her innocence - bits and pieces of conversations that she was too young to fully understand. Her memories combined with things she finds in the old house finally let Cecily make sense of the past. It started off confusing and that confusion was sprinkled throughout the book - it jumped ahead or went back 29 years with no warning. I had a love/hate relationship with the writing - at times it was beautiful and at times it was way too much, unnecessary, repetitious and also confusing. It dragged in parts. But I couldn't put it down. I had to know what happened. And I loved the setting.

Young Pierrot has lost his parents, his best friend, and his dog. He must leave his life in Paris behind and start anew in Germany with his aunt Beatrix. Beatrix is the housekeeper in a wealthy household at the top of a mountain. It's not just any household, it belongs to Adolf Hitler. And the Second World War is about to break out. Over the years spent under Hitler's wing, Pieter (no longer Pierrot) is transformed from a naive little runt to a young man who worships Hitler and will do anything to please him.  This is a powerful, well-written story. Pierrot made me feel so many different emotions towards him - sympathy, disbelief, hope, disgust. He was at an impressionable age, had no other father figure, and was impressed by the uniforms then became so filled with hatred. Another great and memorable book from John Boyne.