Tag: Mystery

Kate’s Review: “What Never Happened”


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Book: “What Never Happened” by Rachel Howzell Hall

Publishing Info: Thomas & Mercer, August 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher via Spark Point Studio.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Colette “Coco” Weber has relocated to her Catalina Island home, where, twenty years before, she was the sole survivor of a deadly home invasion. All Coco wants is to see her aunt Gwen, get as far away from her ex as possible, and get back to her craft—writing obituaries. Thankfully, her college best friend, Maddy, owns the local paper and has a job sure to keep Coco busy, considering the number of elderly folks who are dying on the island.

But as Coco learns more about these deaths, she quickly realizes that the circumstances surrounding them are remarkably similar…and not natural. Then Coco receives a sinister threat in the mail: her own obituary.

As Coco begins to draw connections between a serial killer’s crimes and her own family tragedy, she fears that the secrets on Catalina Island might be too deep to survive. Because whoever is watching her is hell-bent on finally putting her past to rest.

Review: Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and Spark Point Studio for sending me an ARC of this novel!

We are once again in a situation where a new to me author’s new book showed up in my inbox, this time in the form of “What Never Happened” by Rachel Howzell Hall. I am pretty sure that I hadn’t heard of Hall until I read about this book, and the description was enough to catch my eye and reel me in. I mean, the very idea of an obituary writer having to deal with a sinister mystery in her day to day life is just eye grabbing, right? I didn’t really know what to expect, but dove on in, and for the most part was pretty happy with what I found!

As a thriller it has a lot of good to great elements. I liked the character of Coco for the most part, with her return to Catalina Island in the midst of a divorce a good plot device that lends room to explore the many things that have made her a complex and damaged person. I found her to be pretty believable in her caginess, and I found the small town hiding darkness under a veneer of community to be well done. There are a few different mysteries at hand, whether it’s who is sending Coco threatening messages in the mail, to what is happening to a number of elderly women on the island whose deaths are ruled accidents or natural (when they are very potentially NOT), to who killed Coco’s family when she was younger and living on Catalina in the house she has returned to. It’s a lot of balls to juggle, but I did feel like Hall juggles them pretty well and manages to make decent connections as the story goes on. There is also the very real aspect of Coco being one of the few Black people in the community, and the way that her race others her, and in other ways puts a target on her back. Whether it’s microaggressions, general ignorance, or outright hostility, it adds another dimension to the thriller elements at hand.

But here is what worked best for me in this book: Hall uses the COVID 19 pandemic, specifically the early days of complete disarray, confusion, fear, and lockdowns, to create a very unique locked room mystery as Coco is not only on an isolated island that is hiding sinister secrets, but is now potentially going to be cut off because of spreading illness. Now that we are in a less acute phase of this pandemic I’m more able to tackle books and media that uses it as a theme, and what I liked about this is that while it certainly isn’t centered (like in the fun thriller “56 Days”), it makes for a plausible and familiar tension that makes Coco all the more isolated and closed off in a potentially dangerous place, whether it’s because of her history, her investigation, or her race. It also really captured those first weeks of the pandemic, and how disbelief feels like it completely shifted seemingly overnight into ‘oh shit this is really happening’. It’s never heavy handed and doesn’t feel overdone, but it’s present enough that it really gave me the willies because man. THAT was a trip.

I do think, however, that the pacing was a little off. Mostly because I found it sometimes felt a bit draggy in the middle. I’m not sure if it was that there were a lot of working parts that had to be addressed or that some of the investigations and inner thoughts of Coco were a little circular, but I do think that the middle could have been tightened up just a bit. Once we got towards the climax it really picked up, though, and a fair number of the reveals made it feel like it was worth the wait.

“What Never Happened” is a solid thriller with some creative locked room elements and always (sadly) relevant notes about racism, small town facades, and who gets to be seen as a victim by greater society.

Rating 7: An enticing thriller that tackles trauma, small town secrets, and the ever present spectre of racism in America, “What Never Happened” is a claustrophobic read.

Reader’s Advisory:

“What Never Happened” is included on the Goodreads list “Mystery/Thriller/Detective Books Featuring and Written by Black Women: Part 6”.

Kate’s Review: “Harvest House”

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Book: “Harvest House” by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Publishing Info: Candlewick Press, April 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Deftly leading readers to the literary crossroads of contemporary realism and haunting mystery, Cynthia Leitich Smith revisits the world of her American Indian Youth Literature Award winner Hearts Unbroken. Halloween is near, and Hughie Wolfe is volunteering at a new rural attraction: Harvest House. He’s excited to take part in the fun, spooky show—until he learns that an actor playing the vengeful spirit of an “Indian maiden,” a ghost inspired by local legend, will headline. Folklore aside, unusual things have been happening at night at the crossroads near Harvest House. A creepy man is stalking teenage girls and young women, particularly Indigenous women; dogs are fretful and on edge; and wild animals are behaving strangely. While Hughie weighs how and when to speak up about the bigoted legend, he and his friends begin to investigate the crossroads and whether it might be haunted after all. As Moon rises on All Hallow’s Eve, will they be able to protect themselves and their community? Gripping and evocative, Harvest House showcases a versatile storyteller at her spooky, unsettling best.

Review: One of the most confounding book moments of 2023 thus far was I was having a hell of a time remembering a certain book that ran across my timeline. I am the kind of person who, when I see a book in passing that sounds interesting but doesn’t REALLY process in my brain so well, tells myself that SURELY I don’t need to make note of said book, because surely I will remember it. That’s what happened with “Harvest House” by Cynthia Leitich Smith. I saw it on Goodreads, thought ‘oh that sounds neat’, and then kept scrolling… and couldn’t remember it for a good long while. But eventually I did find it and tossed it on my request list, post haste! A Halloween haunted house attraction mixed with an actual ghost story with themes of Indigenous issues in the United States sounded really promising. The latter part of that description worked well, but the former? Not as much as I had hoped.

Like most of the time I will start with the things that did work. I really appreciated how Smith brings up themes of racism and appropriation towards and from Indigenous groups in American society, especially within a Halloween context. Lord knows every year the message ‘my culture is not a costume’ is ever relevant as you see people STILL dressing up in offensive Indigenous stereotypes and using imagery that is important to the culture said people are not a part of. I liked that our protagonist Hughie was grappling with this while volunteering at a town haunted house attraction, that wants to use a local legend of the ghost of an Indigenous girl as one part of the experience, as well as an ‘Indian burial ground’. Hughie is deeply uncomfortable with this, and his boss, Ms. Fischer, just doesn’t understand why these depictions are offensive and insensitive, and this part of the book is a great way to work through why these things are as such. I also kind of liked that Ms. Fischer, while completely clueless, wasn’t a moustache twirling villain, as it approaches the topic in a way that shows that sometimes this kind of racism comes from ignorance as opposed to malevolence, but still needs to be called out. The more contemporary YA elements of this book really clicked with me.

But here is the flip side of all that. I definitely picked this book up in part because I like books that have relevant things to say when it comes to social issues, but I ALSO picked it up because it sounded like it was going to be, ultimately, a ghost story with some horror-centric moments that weave in and out with the messages at hand. But unfortunately, I didn’t feel like the horror elements of “Harvest House” were prevalent enough. We do get some good first person perspective moments from Celeste, the ghost of an Indigenous young adult who is haunting The Crossroads, but it took until probably the last fifth of the book for there to be actual solid interactions between the ghost moments and Hughie. We do get a second hand account of another character encountering something strange at the Crossroads (with description of an online video), but it doesn’t last long, and then there are no more ghostly interactions until much later. It just didn’t feel like there was enough horror throughout the novel. I would say that perhaps removing the ghostly stuff and just stuck with the mystery about what happened at the Crossroads as the sole focus, but even that was abruptly wrapped up in one scene which felt more like an afterthought than anything else. I really just wanted more.

So while I really liked the social justice themes that were in this book, “Harvest House” felt less like a horror novel and more like a contemporary story with some supernatural stuff tacked on. A bit of a disappointment on the horror front, but still a read with some important points to make.

Rating 6: I liked the themes and I liked the messages about racism, appropriation, and misogyny, but for being a horror story it didn’t have the amount of horror that I would have liked.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Harvest House” is included on the Goodreads list “BIPOC Boy MC in YA Fantasy/SciFi/Mystery”.

Kate’s Review: “Dark Spaces: Good Deeds #1”


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Book: “Dark Spaces: Good Deeds #1” by Che Grayson & Kelsey Ramsay (Ill.)

Publishing Info: IDW, May 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from the publisher.

Where You Can Get This Book: Comixology

Book Description: Scott Snyder’s Dark Spaces anthology line returns with an all-new story and creative team! In search of a fresh start, teenager Cheyenne Collins and her mother, Rebecca, move to St. Augustine, Florida, where they cross paths with Jean McKnight, a disgraced big-city journalist determined to pay her dues and rebuild her career, starting with a fluff piece on the town’s upcoming 450th anniversary celebration.

When the quaint community’s festivities give way to bloodshed and Cheyenne is the sole witness, Jean begins an investigation and the women find themselves at the heart of a supernatural conspiracy linked to St. Augustine’s colonial past. Together, they vow to expose the town’s historical sins, but the deeper Jean digs, the less clear it Who is Cheyenne Collins, and when does a quest for truth become a thirst for vengeance? Rising talents Che Grayson ( Urban Legends) and Kelsey Ramsay (Joan Jett and the Black Hearts, I Love Rock-n-Roll) team up for an eerie historical thriller about obsession, power, and redemption in Dark Spaces: Good Deeds!

Review: Thank you to IDW for sending me an eARC of this comic!

It is VERY rare that I review a comic in its single issue release format, as I much prefer to have the full story context in place in volume form. Volumes usually contain an arc within a story, or if its a limited series it can be contained in a full on graphic novel in one sitting. But when IDW sent me an email and some promotional pages for “Dark Spaces: Good Deeds #1” by Che Grayson, I was intrigued enough that I decided to take a chance on a single issue review series. Weird small town secrets, an eager to prove herself reporter, and something odd going on, all while simmering in a dark colonial past that leaks into the present? Oh yeah, this has the potential to be great, and “Good Deeds #1” is a great start!

We have a solid set up for our first issue, which is laying the groundwork for what is to come. The first storyline is that of Rebecca and her teenage daughter Cheyenne, who have recently moved to St. Augustine, Florida. They have bought an old abandoned diner, sold to them by a local named Mr. Foster, and they want to start over after having moved around a lot. The other thread is that of Jean, a journalist who, due to an unnamed mistake, has led her to lose credibility in the journalism community. So when she is offered a job to write a puff piece about the anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine, she takes the offer, and expects to have an easy, if not super satisfying, story to help rebuild her career. We have this well done juxtaposition of Jean meeting with the town leaders, who are bragging about how wonderful their community is, with new girl Cheyenne being bullied as an outsider by her very insular new class mates. Grayson, as I said, is laying a lot of groundwork here, and they do a very good job of showing the spun facade of the town the leaders want to present to Jean, all while weird and disturbing things are happening to Cheyenne at the hands of the townspeople. We don’t know what the issues with the townsfolk are and why they are being so secretive, and the unease builds and settles in in a very creepy way.

And then we get a whole other question by the end of the issue (no spoilers here!), that ties back to Cheyenne and Rebecca. Because the citizens of St. Augustine aren’t the only ones being a little bit cagey. I love the way that Grayson peels this back as well, and it feels done in a very deliberate way while happening all within the limited pages of a single issue comic. The climax of this issue alone is enough to make me want more, but there have been so many well placed questions as well as interesting characters that I am definitely hooked and wanting more. Especially since you can tell that there are going to be some complexities as to what is going on with this community, as it boasts of it’s colonial past while hostility is being thrown towards POC outsiders.

And finally, I really liked the artwork for this! Kelsey Ramsay makes good use of color, and I liked how some of the art is designed in a way that looks realistic, but also a bit odd and strange when it fits the scene.

(source: IDW)

All in all, “Dark Spaces: Good Deeds #1” is off to a promising and solid start! I will definitely be checking out where this goes next, as there are many questions I need to know the answer to.

Rating 8: A tantalizing and creepy start to what is sure to be a dark and layered series, “Dark Spaces: Good Deeds #1” has me hooked.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Dark Spaces: Good Deeds #1” isn’t on any Goodreads lists yet, but it would fit in on “Superheroes, Comics, and Social Justice” (admittedly we are early in the story so broader themes aren’t quite as clear yet).

Kate’s Review: “The Only One Left”


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Book: “The Only One Left” by Riley Sager

Publishing Info: Dutton, June 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: “At seventeen, Lenora Hope Hung her sister with a rope“

Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

“Stabbed her father with a knife, Took her mother’s happy life“

It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—”I want to tell you everything”.

““It wasn’t me,” Lenora said. But she’s the only one not dead“

As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novel!

One of my literary time stamps during the year is that if it’s summer, Riley Sager will probably have a book coming out. I have been reading Sager since his debut thriller “Final Girls”, and have found all of his thrillers to be very, very entertaining with a lot of well done twists and shocks that catch me off guard a good amount of the time. I’m always on the look out for his new titles, and when I saw “The Only One Left” pop up on NetGalley I immediately requested it, thinking about how summer was on the way. The description is a bit retro with an 80s setting, with some Lizzy Borden and “Dolores Clairborne” vibes, all of which just snags my attention. And like all Sager books, it’s another twisted winner.

“The Only One Left” is a thriller that unravels the mystery through multiple avenues and perspectives. Our first perspective is that of Kit, a newly reinstated caregiver whose suspension has put her on thin ice with her company and her father. She is assigned to care for a notorious recluse named Lenora Hope, who is believed to have killed her entire family in 1929 (but never charged due to lack of evidence), but is now wheelchair bound, paralyzed, and unable to speak due to a number of strokes. Facing few employment choices, Kit goes to live at the Hope estate, which is isolated on some cliffs above the Atlantic Ocean. As Kit cares for Lenora, and gets to know the staff and learn the history of the Hope family, she wonders if Lenora is who everyone thinks she is.. or if she’s much worse. The other perspective is the writings of Lenora, who is writing what happened to her in the months leading up the murders. There are so many smaller mysteries intertwined with the bigger overarching mystery, with questions about Kit as a caregiver, questions about what the strange noises she hears at night are, questions about why the staff has stayed for so long, and questions about what happened to the former caregiver, who seemingly ran off in the night. With so many mysteries, there are bound to be hits and misses, and while I guessed a few of the surprises and reveals, I was also completely caught off guard by others. Sager knows how to divert attention, knows how to distract the reader, and knows how to bring together so many threads that seemingly have no meaning, only for them to be significant and surprising.

In addition I really enjoyed how we had two unreliable in their own ways perspectives, whether it’s disgraced caregiver Kit, or potential murderer Lenora, and the suspense builds up in a consistent and well paced way that had my head swimming at times. I loved getting into both their heads through their perspectives, and really liked how I would be thinking one truth about each of them one moment, and then second guessing myself another moment. Even the supporting characters in both perspectives would surprise me, as they felt like they had their own secrets to discover, while also being interesting and complex in their own right. And being significant in ways I never could have guessed until the very moment of reveal!

One quibble I did have with this book was that Sager does the thing that I don’t care for, and completely shifts the ending in last couple of pages in a way that changes everything for one last big twist. You all know that this kind of story choice just drives me nuts, and while Sager opts to do it in a way that isn’t as nihilistic as other authors have approached such a ninth inning twist, it still felt a bit too far. We had a pretty good ending in place. To totally upend the conclusion always feels hollow to me, even if it is a bit more of a positive surprise. On top of that it’s very much a telling versus showing reveal, and that can work sometimes, but as a giant info dump to completely change the conclusion it just adds to my frustration.

Overall, I love having a new Riley Sager to read every summer, because his books always entertain and find ways to surprise me. “The Only One Left” is another fun thriller that you can take to the pool or the beach and have an enjoyable reading experience!

Rating 8: Another entertaining thriller from Riley Sager just in time for vacation season! The end feels a little bit tacked on, but generally it’s an enjoyable and twisty tale.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Only One Left” isn’t on many Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “What A Strange Family”.

Kate’s Review: “A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality”

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Book: “A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality” by Kate Khavari

Publishing Info: Crooked Lane Books, June 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: 1920s London isn’t the ideal place for a brilliant woman with lofty ambitions. But research assistant Saffron Everleigh is determined to beat the odds in a male-dominated field at the University College of London. Saffron embarks on her first research study alongside the insufferably charming Dr. Michael Lee, traveling the countryside with him in response to reports of poisonings. But when Detective Inspector Green is given a case with a set of unusual clues, he asks for Saffron’s assistance.

The victims, all women, received bouquets filled with poisonous flowers. Digging deeper, Saffron discovers that the bouquets may be more than just unpleasant flowers— there may be a hidden message within them, revealed through the use of the old Victorian practice of floriography. A dire message, indeed, as each woman who received the flowers has turned up dead.

Alongside Dr. Lee and her best friend, Elizabeth, Saffron trails a group of suspects through a dark jazz club, a lavish country estate, and a glittering theatre, delving deeper into a part of society she thought she’d left behind forever.

Will Saffron be able to catch the killer before they send their next bouquet, or will she find herself with fatal flowers of her own in Kate Khavari’s second intoxicating installment.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this novel!

It’s about a year since I reviewed the first Saffron Everleigh mystery, “A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons”, and I can tell you that I am still not really a plant person. It took me forever to get my act together this Spring when it comes to clearing my landscaping of refuse, so my bleeding heart wasn’t as, uh, hardy as I had hoped it would be, and the weeds have already taken over. But real life green thumb problems aside, I’m still very much into plant nerd Saffron and her love for various kinds of flora, and therefore I knew that I wanted to read her second adventure, “A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality”! So back to post WWI England we go, with high hopes of deadly plants and Interwar sensibilities!

I am still really enjoying the time period and societal placement of this book. Post WWI London remains a setting that is rich with possibilities, and this time Khavari has implemented a device that I have a personal connection to: floriography! For those who are unfamiliar, floriography, or language of the flowers, is the Victorian social practice of using flowers to communicate feelings and intentions. When I worked at a Victorian Historic House in St. Paul, one of the tours I gave was all about sexuality and romance during this time period, and I talked about floriography in courtships. In “A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality”, Saffron is brought into a murder investigation by Detective Inspector Green when bouquets of poisonous flowers are found at all the victims homes. It’s such a great way to make Saffron needed as not only a civilian, but also as a woman, and it’s such a great hook as a puzzle piece to the murder mystery. We also see the way that Saffron has to navigate her role as an amateur detective in this setting, facing a lot of issues not limited to misogyny and expected gender roles, and how she has to utilize her new academic partner, Michael Lee, in her works both at the university (where they are investigating plant poisoning reports throughout the countryside for research) and in the criminal investigation, because him being a man (a very smart and capable man, but no more so than Saffron herself) can open doors a bit easier than she alone can. I really liked Lee as a character, his sarcasm and wit egging Saffron on and leading to some fun moments of banter and sexual tension (we’ll be talking more on that in a bit), and I did like that while being a new member to the story he felt like he fit in almost immediately. His role both at the University parts of the book as well as the criminal parts rounded her out really well and complemented her without constraining her.

The mystery was also pretty well done. I loved seeing Saffron and Lee have to go into unseemly JAZZ CLUBS and have to wrangle with the idle rich and their COCAINE HABITS, and I loved the deadly bouquets and the undercover hijinks they have to get into to get to the truth. Given that this is solidly a cozy mystery series (ha, of the two of us it’s probably surprising that I’m the one covering the two cozy mystery series on the blog), it never goes into very suspenseful territory, as you generally know that Saffron is going to figure it all out and probably come out unscathed, and it’s never TOO gruesome. But that doesn’t mean that Khavari’s mystery is dull by any means, and I thought that there were well done red herrings and well executed ‘ah ha!’ moments.

I will say that there was one aspect that didn’t quite work for me that kind of brought down the rest of the book in some ways: we find ourselves in a bit of a love triangle with Saffron. Our first suitor is Alexander, her partner in detection from the first book, who has gone on the Amazon expedition mentioned in that novel. Saffron has been exchanging letters with him while he’s on the trip. The other, of course, is the aforementioned Lee, her new partner in detection who is pretty much the opposite of Alexander in all ways. Where Alexander is brooding, Lee is extroverted and vivacious. Where Alexander is earnest, Lee is sardonic and a bit of a bad boy. It’s a trope we have seen many times in a love triangle, and I was kind of bummed to see Saffron thrust into this when she is so much more interesting on her own and doesn’t need romantic conflict (some of which, on Alexander’s side, felt very out of character and made him pretty unlikable, at least to me) to buoy up her story.

So, aggravating love triangle aside, I did enjoy “A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality”. It continues to represent the time and place in an enjoyable way, and Saffron Everleigh is still a fun and engaging heroine!

Rating 7: A fun new adventure for tenacious detective Saffron Everleigh, with interesting new characters and deadly flowers abound.

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Botanist’s Guide to Flowers and Fatality” is included on the Goodreads lists “Historical Mystery 2023”, and “Cozy Mysteries 2023 New Releases”.

Previously Reviewed:

Kate’s Review: “Bad Summer People”

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Book: “Bad Summer People” by Emma Rosenblum

Publishing Info: Flatiron Books, May 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: A whip-smart, propulsive debut about infidelity, backstabbing, and murderous intrigue, set against an exclusive summer haven on Fire Island. None of them would claim to be a particularly good person. But who among them is actually capable of murder?

Jen Weinstein and Lauren Parker rule the town of Salcombe, Fire Island every summer. They hold sway on the beach and the tennis court, and are adept at manipulating people to get what they want. Their husbands, Sam and Jason, have summered together on the island since childhood, despite lifelong grudges and numerous secrets. Their one single friend, Rachel Woolf, is looking to meet her match, whether he’s the tennis pro-or someone else’s husband. But even with plenty to gossip about, this season starts out as quietly as any other.

Until a body is discovered, face down off the side of the boardwalk.

Stylish, subversive and darkly comedic, this is a story of what’s lurking under the surface of picture-perfect lives in a place where everyone has something to hide.

Review: Thank you to Flatiron Books and NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this novel!

Summer is finally here, and for some people that means getting to the beach and reveling in the sand, sun, and surf. While my summer travels aren’t taking me to such a place, I do know a few people who may be going to Fire Island this summer, though more in the capacity that many people think of Fire Island. Honestly, before “Bad Summer People” by Emma Rosenblum ended up in my hands I, too, thought of Fire Island as predominantly a place for the LGBTQIA+ community to party hard. But apparently it’s also a spot where the wealthy and entitled elites also like to spend the summer months. And in this book, those wealthy and entitled elites might just end up murdered amongst all their secrets and lies. And you know what? SIGN ME UP TO READ ALL ABOUT IT!

The mystery is presented right away at the top of the book. A body is found in the sand in a posh Fire Island community called Salcombe. We don’t know who they are, we don’t know how they got there, and we immediately jump back to the start of summer and start to meet our cast of characters, all of whom could be victims or suspects based on the secrets, backstabbing, and resentment and malice that they all feel towards each other. I liked the set up of having different third person perspective chapters of the various players, as they all have unique insights into not only how the mystery is slowly going to come together, but also into their own parts to play in the overall question as to what happened. Like so many suds filled thrillers before it, we get twists, we get turns, some are revealed more deftly than others, and the red herrings and clues pile up at breakneck pace. You add in a bunch of poisonous people who we could either take or leave in terms of their survivability and it’s the kind of book that reads super fast and keeps the reader mostly engaged. It’s at times a little predictable, and at times it’s pretty familiar with it’s tropes and plot reveals, and that these reveals mean for the identity of the victim found at the top of the narrative.

And to be fair, this is definitely more focused on the interpersonal drama and backstabbing than it is the mystery. But that didn’t stop me from having a hell of a fun time whilst reading it. I love me soap opera drama nonsense, and “Bad Summer People” delivered a whole lot of it. We get into the minds of a number of people in Salcombe, from the nasty queen bees of the summer community to outsiders desperate to be insiders to more seasoned residents who are more removed from the dramatics, and they all have a nasty bite that reads like guilty pleasure fun. Whether it’s Lauren, the most popular mom in a dying marriage who starts to seek out attention elsewhere, or Jen, the well loved wife of the community’s golden boy who has some darkness she’s always hidden, or Robert, the new tennis instructor who is desperate to be a part of the wealthy elites, all of our characters are kind of assholes, but it’s really entertaining seeing them all spiral as the summer goes on. Sure, there’s the question of whose body is found on the beach at the start and how it got there, but that sometimes feels a bit incidental. Because of that this may not be the BEST fit for people who are in it for the thriller aspects of the mystery. But for people like me, who also love watching people be dicks to each other on the page, it’s a quick, breezy jaunt, and the perfect beach read.

“Bad Summer People” was lots of fun and would be a great book to take on a beachy trip this summer! Hopefully you won’t be getting into the shenanigans that these characters stumble into, however.

Rating 7: Sudsy and indulgent with some good twists and turns, “Bad Summer People” is a fun and wicked whodunnit that revels in its soap and drama.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Bad Summer People” is pretty new and not on many Goodreads lists right now, but it would definitely fit in on “Beachy Reads”.

Kate’s Review: “The Quarry Girls”

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Book: “The Quarry Girls” by Jess Lourey

Publishing Info: Thomas & Mercer, November 2022

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: Minnesota, 1977. For the teens of one close-knit community, summer means late-night swimming parties at the quarry, the county fair, and venturing into the tunnels beneath the city. But for two best friends, it’s not all fun and games.

Heather and Brenda have a secret. Something they saw in the dark. Something they can’t forget. They’ve decided to never tell a soul. But their vow is tested when their friend disappears—the second girl to vanish in a week. And yet the authorities are reluctant to investigate.

Heather is terrified that the missing girls are connected to what she and Brenda stumbled upon that night. Desperately searching for answers on her own, she learns that no one in her community is who they seem to be. Not the police, not the boys she met at the quarry, not even her parents. But she can’t stop digging because she knows those girls are in danger.

She also knows she’s next.

Review: I had to wait a LONG time to get “The Quarry Girls” by Jess Lourey from my library. I saw it in passing at some point but didn’t look too much into it, but once I realized that it takes place in Minnesota, that explained a few things. Local author, local interest, that always hypes up the library patron community. I had heard some good things, and jumped in expecting a fairly straight forward and run of the mill mystery, so imagine my surprise when it took me totally off guard and really, really got under my skin. This is the kind of thriller that doesn’t just have a good atmosphere and pace, it’s also the kind that feels super, super real in the most upsetting ways. But that’s what makes it stand out so much.

The mystery itself is haunting and suspenseful. Heather is a teenage girl living in St. Cloud, Minnesota in the late 1970s. A local waitress goes missing, her absence first dismissed as a case of a runaway or a flighty girl off on an adventure, and Heather tries not to worry. She runs with her friend group, best friends Maureen and Brenda by her side, and tries not to fret about the cool older man her guy friends have started hanging out with, lest they think she’s a baby. But then her friend Maureen goes missing too, and Heather is convinced that it has to do with something that she and Brenda saw one night shortly before. I loved the slow build up on this mystery, with Heather trying to find clues as to what happened to Maureen (a girl with a ‘reputation’ and therefore dismissed as another runaway, but we are going to get into all THAT in a bit) and has to break out of her anxious, shy self to try and help her friend. I loved watching her find various clues and insights, and how those clues and insights start to point to an even bigger, more encompassing, and more disturbing mystery at hand. As Heather starts to realize that things she thought were true are false, and that there are people she thought she could trust, but actually can’t, it makes for a slow burn and dread building mystery that kept me hooked and terrified for this literal teenager just trying to help her friend.

And that touches on the bigger themes of this book, specifically the fact that in greater society, sometimes women are victims and sometimes men are either enablers and abusers themselves, and we don’t necessarily REALLY know all sides of a person, even when we care about them or trust them. Heather has many men in her life, whether it is her District Attorney father who has been placing a lot of responsibility on Heather after her mother had a mental breakdown (which had devastating effects on Heather, but also has a hidden backstory), or the Sheriff in town who may be hiding his own corruption and culpability when it comes to Maureen, or childhood guy friends that Heather thought she knew, but have started becoming more aggressive, or demanding, or cruel. As Heather starts to learn things about Maureen, things that others deem ‘wild’ or ‘bad girl’, and tries to piece things together, she starts to learn things about all these boys and men, and it’s very hard to watch her have to learn some really difficult truths. That isn’t to say that there isn’t hope here. Because once Heather learns things she never wanted to know, she can start to learn how to fight back. But growing up too fast always has a cost.

And now I need to talk about the setting of this book because as a Minnesotan I am obligated to gush about a well done book that takes place in my home state. And man oh MAN does Lourey hit the nail on the head when it comes to Minnesota culture and location (which makes sense since she spent a good amount of time in St. Cloud and is currently living in Minneapolis). I’ve been to St. Cloud maybe three times in my life, but it’s a bit notorious to those Minnesotans who live outside of it for a number of negative reasons. The first is it has a reputation for being incredibly racist. The second is that various cogs in the Stearns County law enforcement machine have come under fire for corruption and incompetence (the Jacob Wetterling case is one of the most infamous examples. If you want a good resource on how badly Stearns County fucked this case up for twenty plus years, seek out the “In the Dark” Podcast, Season 1. Your blood will boil). When I started reading I wondered if Lourey was going to tap into some nostalgia about 1970s St. Cloud, but it became quite clear quite quickly that nope, this was going to dive head first into the toxicity of the community, and how misogyny of the 1970s (which still permeates today), of small town look away culture, and general ‘not my business’ sensibilities of Minnesota ‘nice’ combined to create a tragic story that felt very, very real. There are also fun moments of Minnesota in here, though, which didn’t make it all about the very true faults of Minnesota culture. Whether it was references to how we love festivals in summer due to long ass winters, or a trip to Valley Fair, or the weird quirk that a Minnesotan canNOT be the last person taking an item of food from a shared plate, these fun bits were VERY on point and very amusing.

I really loved “The Quarry Girls”. It broke my heart many times but also gave me a little hope beyond the darkness. I need to go back and read more stuff by Jess Lourey, this was just great.

Rating 9: A searing, heartbreaking thriller about small town secrets, violent misogyny, and having to grow up too fast under horrible circumstances while trying to persevere, “The Quarry Girls” is emotional, raw, and yet somehow hopeful.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Quarry Girls” is included on the Goodreads lists “Best Modern Mystery, Crime Fiction”.

Blog Tour: “The Late Mrs. Willoughby”

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Book: “The Late Mrs. Willoughby” b y Claudia Gray

Publishing Info: Vintage, May 2023

Where Did I Get this Book: from the marketer!

Where Can You Get this Book: Amazon | IndieBound | WorldCat

Book Description: Catherine and Henry Tilney of Northanger Abbey are not entirely pleased to be sending their eligible young daughter Juliet out into the world again: the last house party she attended, at the home of the Knightleys, involved a murder—which Juliet helped solve. Particularly concerning is that she intends to visit her new friend Marianne Brandon, who’s returned home to Devonshire shrouded in fresh scandal—made more potent by the news that her former suitor, the rakish Mr. Willoughby, intends to take up residence at his local estate with his new bride.

Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley are thrilled that their eldest son, Jonathan—who, like his father, has not always been the most socially adept—has been invited to stay with his former schoolmate, John Willoughby. Jonathan himself is decidedly less taken with the notion of having to spend extended time under the roof of his old bully, but that all changes when he finds himself reunited with his fellow amateur sleuth, the radiant Miss Tilney. And when shortly thereafter, Willoughby’s new wife—whom he married for her fortune—dies horribly at the party meant to welcome her to town.

With rumors flying and Marianne—known to be both unstable and previously jilted by the dead woman’s newly made widower—under increased suspicion, Jonathan and Juliet must team up once more to uncover the murderer. But as they collect clues and close in on suspects, eerie incidents suggest that the killer may strike again, and that the pair are in far graver danger than they or their families could imagine.

Previously Reviewed: “The Murder of Mr. Wickham”

Review: I really loved “The Murder of Mr. Wickham” when I read it last year. So much so that it became my preferred present for the many readers in my family. Not only was it an excellent mystery, but the author managed to do the near-impossible and accurately depict not one, not two, but a huge cast of Jane Austen’s most popular characters. And on top of that, she created two new characters who were able to hold their own in this very competitive cast. All of this to say, I was incredibly pleased to see that there was a sequel coming out this year!

When Juliet Tilney sets out on another social visit, she’s confident in assuring her parents that there is no possibility of murder this go around. Oh, how wrong she will be. For, when visiting the still-struggling Marianna Brandon, Juliet Tilney is introduced to the Willoughbys, and during one note-worthy dinner party, what should happen but that Mrs. Willoughby drops dead of poison. Now, with the help of her friend Jonathan Darcy, Juliet once again sets out to get to the bottom of the mystery.

I was really excited to see what this book had in store. While I was very impressed with the first book, it was also very much a product of the specific circumstances that made up the plot. Jonathan and Juliet were excellent new characters, but the work of carrying the plot and the interest of the reader, was largely hefted by the sprawling cast of popular Jane Austen heroes and heroines. This book is a much more tightly focused story with a much more limited cast of characters. In this way, Jonathan and Juliet had more work to do to carry the book largely on their own. And I think they were more than capable of the job!

I really liked the continued exploration of Jonathan’s low level autism and how his life has been shaped by the reactions of others and their ability or inability to accept or understand him. Here, we get an insight into Jonathan’s past as a victim of bullying at the hands of none other than Mr. Willoughby himself. We also see Jonathan struggle to understand his changing feelings for Juliet and realizing that he, and not only others, has been placing limitations on himself. It was an interesting and subtle exploration that I thought worked very well. For her part, Juliet’s story is much more straight-forward. But I particularly enjoyed the small commentary that ran through the book that acknowledges the limited choices that young women like Juliet faced. A social visit such as this, where Juliet travels to live with her friends the Brandons for several weeks, would not just be a trip of leisure. No, a large chunk of the expectations and motivation would be that a young woman would gain access to new society and new opportunities for marriage. Juliet reflects several times on the challenges between balancing the very practical concerns of a woman such as herself, one with only limited financial support from her family, with her own romantic preferences.

I also really enjoyed the mystery in this one. I was able to predict a few of the secondary aspects of the mystery, but the author did a great job of laying out believable red herrings and misdirecting the reader effectively from the larger truth behind what had happened and why. The motivation, in particular, was interesting and played into a plotline that I had been thinking of as a completely separate thing up until the end.

I will say, however, that this one did suffer a bit by the loss of the other Jane Austen characters. While I enjoyed Juliet and Jonathan immensely, my own preferences for Austen’s characters would not have me picking a focus on “Sense and Sensibility” and all of the secondary characters that make up this book’s cast. As these characters connect to the first book, I understand why this choice was made, and I also think that, as a whole, they were all done very well. I really liked getting to see Eleanor and Edward, in particular. But Brandon and Marianne just aren’t top choices for me, personally, so I couldn’t help being a bit less interested in their dynamics.

This was a very solid follow-up to the first book! In many ways, Claudia Gray made more a statement with this book than with the first: that wasn’t just a happy chance! No, she’s just that legitimately talented. Fans of the first book will definitely enjoy this, and I recommend both of these books to any fans of historical mysteries or Jane Austen.

Rating 8: With the first book, Gray made a splash as one of the best authors tackling Jane Austen re-imaginings today. With this one, she cements her place in the genre.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Late Mrs. Willoughby” isn’t on any Goodreads lists, but it should be on Jane Austen Re-tellings.

Serena’s Review: “A Tempest at Sea”

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Book: “A Tempest at Sea” by Sherry Thomas

Publishing Info: Berkley, March 2023

Where Did I Get this Book: Edelweiss+

Where Can You Get this Book: Amazon | IndieBound | WorldCat

Book Description: After feigning her own death in Cornwall to escape from Moriarty’s perilous attention, Charlotte Holmes goes into hiding. But then she receives a tempting offer: Find a dossier the crown is desperately seeking to recover, and she might be able to go back to a normal life.

Her search leads her aboard the RMS Provence, sailing from Southampton for the eastern hemisphere. But on the night Charlotte makes her move to retrieve the dossier, in the midst of a terrifying storm in the Bay of Biscay, a brutal murder also takes place on the ship.

Instead of solving the crime, as she is accustomed to doing, Charlotte must take care not to be embroiled in this investigation, lest it become known to those who harbor ill intentions that Sherlock Holmes is abroad and still very much alive.

Previously Reviewed: “A Study in Scarlet Women” and “A Conspiracy in Belgravia” and “The Hollow of Fear” and “The Art of Theft” and “Murder on Cold Street” and “Miss Moriarty, I Presume?”

Review: I’m always so excited when I see another book coming out in Sherry Thomas’s “Charlotte Holmes” series. While I’ve had favorites throughout the series so far, I’ve never disliked any books in this series. They’ve all been smart, and Charlotte Holmes always comes through with the insightful goods. But I was especially looking forward to this book given the way the previous one ended with Charlotte faking her own death to escape Moriarty. Where would this next book go if Charlotte has to be in hiding?

Life in hiding is not the life for her, Charlotte Holmes as quickly decided. So when she’s offered protection from Moriarty if she helps locate a missing piece of information, she jumps at the opportunity. Soon enough, her mission finds her book passage on a ship alongside several friends and foes alike. What seems like a simple enough mission to search a few cabins and locate the dossier quickly becomes overshadowed when a murder takes place on the ship. Now the investigation into the murder could expose Charlotte to the minions of Moriarty unless she can solve the case first.

I always really enjoy closed circle mysteries, that is, those where a murder takes place and all of the suspects are contained within a location that they cannot leave. Not only does it quickly reduce the number of suspects to a small-ish number, but these types of mysteries often involve a lot of complicated relationships between all of these characters as well as the victim. So this book, with its setting of a small, luxury ship is a perfect example of this sort of mystery and Thomas takes full advantage.

I also really liked that this book contains a mystery within a mystery. It starts with what should be a straight-forward search for a missing dossier. But that quickly gets subsumed by the murder mystery that threatens to ruin all of Charlotte and co.’s good work and expose Charlotte to the eyes of the Moriarty minion they are sure is tracing their footsteps. Both mysteries were incredibly clever on their own, but the way that they wove in and out of one another was truly impressive. Because so many people are working different angles with their own very distinct agendas, it’s a constant puzzle trying to piece together who knows what and whose team (or any team!) they are on.

This book also adds an interesting layer by jumping back and forth in time from the ongoing investigation to events that transpired during the night of the murder itself. This tactic worked so well! There were only three or so of these jumps back to the past, but each one, in only a small number of pages, manages to take the entire mystery so far and then turn it at a new angle, making everything suddenly look different with new suspects all around. It was very effective and always added an extra little zing of interest to the story.

I also really liked the small bits that we got from Charlotte and Lord Ingram. Their relationship has always been solidly a second tier plotline to the main mystery, which I think is probably for the best given the complexity of the murder mysteries and the types of characters that Charlotte and Lord Ingram are. However, while we still don’t get a lot of time with them here, there were some very sweet moments between the two. Slowly, slowly, we see this relationship continue to develop as both Charlotte and Lord Ingram grow into this new romance and must grapple with their own emotions.

I really enjoyed this latest installment in this series. I thought all of the side characters were excellent, with a good mixture of “villains” that were fun to hate on and new sympathetic characters you wanted to root for. On top of that, there was a good balance of important moments for our regular cast of characters. This is a solid entry all around, and I think fans of the series will likely be pleased.

Rating: Thomas takes the closed-circle mystery concept and brings in Charlotte Holmes to crack the case wide open!

Reader’s Advisory:

“A Tempest at Sea” isn’t currently on any Goodreads lists, but it should be on Sherlock Holmes Reimaginings and Retellings.

Kate’s Review: “Exiles”

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Book: “Exiles” by Jane Harper

Publishing Info: Flatiron Books, January 2023

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.

Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat | Amazon | Indiebound

Book Description: At a busy festival site on a warm spring night, a baby lies alone in her pram, her mother vanishing into the crowds.

A year on, Kim Gillespie’s absence casts a long shadow as her friends and loved ones gather deep in the heart of South Australian wine country to welcome a new addition to the family.

Joining the celebrations is federal investigator Aaron Falk. But as he soaks up life in the lush valley, he begins to suspect this tight-knit group may be more fractured than it seems.

Between Falk’s closest friend, a missing mother, and a woman he’s drawn to, dark questions linger as long-ago truths begin to emerge.

An outstanding novel, a brilliant mystery and a heart-pounding read from the author of The Dry, Force of Nature, The Lost Man and The Survivors.

Review: Thank you to NetGalley for sending me an eARC of this book!

I will admit that I was a bit shocked when I started to read the description and promotional bits about “Exiles” by Jane Harper and it was referred to as the last Aaron Falk Mystery. I think that part of it is that I’m so used to long running series that end up twenty plus books deep (Hello, Temperance Brennan Series), that when a series that has such critical acclaim and a devoted audience decides to end only a few books in my knee jerk reaction is ‘why?!’ But if this indeed the end, “Exiles” is a great way to say goodbye to a detective that I didn’t realize I would miss until he was leaving.

“Exiles” is a missing person story, with Harper’s investigator Aaron Falk at the helm even though he isn’t really there in a professional capacity. When his friend Raco’s brother’s ex Kim goes missing, and stays missing for a year, Falk finds himself being pulled into the question of what happened to Kim, who may have seen her the night she disappeared during a small town festival and left her baby alone in a carriage in a sea of people, and who may know something that isn’t being said. I liked that Falk was more drawn into this final mystery not because of his profession, but because of his loyalty to Raco, and the connection he has to a family that hasn’t gotten a lot of answers. I also liked Aaron slowly getting to know a family friend named Gwen, and starting to realize that perhaps he wants a more quiet life with people that he cares about surrounding him. It’s funny because it’s not like Falk is a character that I am absolutely obsessed with, and I feel like he is a bit of a conduit to tell other broader stories, but I liked his journey in this one and how it ultimately shakes out for him.

The mystery itself it fairly straight forward, and while I kind of had a good gut feeling as to what had happened, I liked the slow and steady pace Harper took with it. Her mysteries always feel in complete control, and never feel like they tread towards melodrama or the like. I enjoyed seeing Falk have to piece together not only the mystery of what happened to Kim the night she disappeared, but also what other circumstances and moments in her life may have played a part in her ultimate disappearance. But I also liked the additional, potential connection to another unsolved crime in the community, in which a man was the victim of a hit and run (and it just so happens that Gwen is that man’s widow). Harper is deliberate and very quiet in her mystery weaving, but it all comes together very well.

And finally, I just like the way that Harper writes the people in this story. I got a good sense for everyone, whether it’s old familiar characters or brand new ones. They all feel like well rounded people, and while some may be hiding things or may be serving as narrative misdirections they all fit in well and aren’t completely obvious as to how they all fit into the broader mystery at hand. She just knows how to create a believable community and cast.

“Exiles” is an introspective and quiet but engaging mystery. If this is, indeed, the last book with Aaron Falk, I’m glad that his trilogy ended on a high note.

Rating 8: A solid mystery, an enjoyable cast, and a nice swan song for a literary detective!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Exiles” is included on the Goodreads list “Most Anticipated Reads of 2023”.