Tag: Thriller

Kate’s Review: “When We Were Monsters”

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Book: “When We Were Monsters” by Jennifer Niven

Publishing Info: Knopf Books for Young Readers, September 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publisher at ALAAC25

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

Book Description: A simmering psychological thriller about a dead teacher at an elite boarding school, the students who had every reason to want her gone, and the tangled web of rivalry and romance concealing the truth—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of All the Bright Places.

At an elite boarding school, 8 students are selected for an exclusive program, but only one will walk away with a lifechanging opportunity to realize their creative dreams. 

Effy is piecing together a story about the tragic betrayal that led to her mother’s death. Arlo hopes to publish a novel—but he’s also trying to start a new chapter with Effy after he broke her heart and ghosted 3 years earlier. Everyone has a compelling reason to be there—they all want a big break—but only the most ambitious will prevail as the students are eliminated one by one.

Their mentor is the one and only Meredith Graffam, an enigmatic writer, director and actress, whose unorthodox teaching methods push them past the breaking point. Under Graffam’s tutelage, the students reveal their darkest secrets, take unthinkable risks, and slowly start to turn on one another. But Graffam never expected they would turn on her . . .

Review: Thank you to Knopf Books for Young Readers for giving me an ARC of this novel at ALAAC25!

There were times at ALAAC25 that I would find myself in a line that I hadn’t intended to join. What can I say, I sometimes go full lemming mode and follow the crowd, especially when books are involved. So when I found myself in a signing line to get an ARC of Jennifer Niven’s new book “When We Were Monsters”, I didn’t really have any expectations, I just knew that if others were in line, I should be in line (in my defense in this case, Serena was in line too and I was following her lead). But once I had it in my hands, and read the description, I was pretty interested. Sometimes just jumping in line pays off!

We have two perspectives in this book, both students at the workshop of the mysterious and possibly nefarious Meredith Graffam, famous and notorious author who is running a writing workshop for J-Term at a boarding school wtih a dark history. The first is Effy, a girl who is trying to unpack the trauma of her mother being killed in a drunk driving accident where her father was the drunk driver. The other is Arlo, Effy’s ex who is trying to work through his own trauma where he feels like he is the one at fault, and who also feels bad about hooking up with Effy and then ghosting her. I enjoyed both of their perspectives, as they felt different enough that there was a contrast between the two, but at the same time I liked seeing how each of them approached the unfolding mystery, and also their past and their feelings for each other. I think that I liked Arlo a bit more, as his voice felt a bit more well rounded than Effy, but Niven did both of them justice. And I also enjoyed their romance, call me sappy or whatever. I just enjoyed seeing them reconnect and strengthen a bond between each other.

As for the mystery and thriller aspects of this book, it’s a promising foundation. I love the idea of a sinister authority figure pressuring and manipulating those under their authority, especially seeing how the manipulated players fall into trap after trap and the intensity that comes with it. Meredith Graffam is a pretty well developed antagonist, lording over her eight students who depend on her not only for their potential future dreams as creators and artists, but also as one of the only adults at the program, and pushing them to the limits until they get close to breaking. It has the frog in the boiling water moments, it has gaslighting, it has a lot of tension as things get worse but Effy, Arlo, and the others aren’t certain if they are overreacting. I will say, however, that sometimes the frog in the pot of boiling water felt like it could move a little bit faster. I like a slow burn, but there were times I felt like things were dragging a bit.

As a whole, I enjoyed “When We Were Monsters”. It’s a solid psychological thriller with an enjoyable romance, and it’s a good dark academia read.

Rating 7: I liked the perspectives and I liked the unfolding of the mystery within this thriller, though the slow burn may have been a LITTLE slow at times.

Reader’s Advisory:

“When We Were Monsters” is included on the Goodreads list “2025 Dark Academia Releases”.

Kate’s Review: “Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests” by K.J.Whittle

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Landmark, September 2025

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

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

Book Description: Three courses. Seven guests. One card. It’s a deadly evening they’ll never forget. 

Seven strangers meet for an anonymously hosted dinner party. As the evening winds down, seven cards appear, one in front of each of the guests. On each card is a number – the age at which the guest will die. Spooked but skeptical, the guests disperse into the rainy night with the hope of forgetting the morbid turn of events. 

Two weeks later, one guest is dead. At exactly the age the card predicted. 

More guests begin to die as the years go on, each one dead at the same age as their card. It soon becomes clear that something much more sinister is abound. Now, it’s up to the quickly dwindling group of dinner guests to figure out who (or what) was behind that fateful dinner party all those years ago, before their numbers catch up with them too. 

Told from the perspectives of each of the seven guests, which span from hilarious to hateful, Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests is a spellbinding and mysterious exploration of mortality, begging the how would you live your life if you knew your number was up?

Review: Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for sending me an ARC of this novel!

Well I was all excited because last week it really felt like Fall had arrived, and then THIS week we were once again in the 80s with sun and humidity. Once we get to mid-September, my attitude turns to Autumn things in all their forms, and that includes looking for books that have a certain feel to them. That can be cozy, or spooky, or an undefinable third thing that has me like ‘yeah, this feels like a Fall book’ as I read. The book “Seen Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests” by K.J. Whittle definitely had that feeling to me as I was reading, as an Agatha Christie-esque whodunnit just feels like Fall.

As a mystery, “Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests” has a pretty standard set up: seven strangers are called to a mysterious dinner party with no obvious host, and at the end of the night they all receive envelopes that tell them at what age they are going to die. For many of them, it’s in the very near future, and when it starts happening they realize that someone, for whatever reason, wants them all dead. Throw in some Seven Deadly Sins themes, and you have a solid premise and a mystery that mostly kept me guessing, or at the very least invested and interested. I liked that we got different perspective points in the book so that we could get clues from different people that added to the whole, and I found myself surprised a few times. I also have always loved a Seven Deadly Sins theme, and liked seeing how various players lined up within that theme. Did I figure some stuff out? Sure. But there were some twists that had me guessing.

The characters run the gamut from complicated but relatable to genuinely frustrating and terrible. They all had their flaws, but some were a bit more well articulated than others. I liked Vivienne, the cold but intrepid and determined journalist who is our main perspective as she tries to figure out what is going on with all of her compatriots dropping dead after the ill fated and mysterious dinner party. She’s not very kind or nice, but I thought that she felt pretty realistic, and has her moments. I also liked how Whittle explores other unlikable characters and gives them SOME humanizing edges, whether it’s the outlandish and somewhat vapid Janet, who has experienced trauma and sadness around her inability to have a baby, or the closeted cop Melvin who pines for his partner in secret but feels guilt with a sick wife at home. There are also interesting plays on people who are full on hypocrites, like the famous Doctor Gordon who preaches stringent and health conscious lifestyles, but is hiding an eating disorder to maintain his own physique. Other characters were kind of bland or two dimensional, but it was the little quirks of these characters that stood out the most as I was reading.

“Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests” is solid and serviceable as a mystery, and it just felt like the perfect Fall read as we head towards a changing of the seasons. Cozy up with some unlikable characters and just have fun with it!

Rating 7: A solid whodunnit with an enjoyable take on the Seven Deadly Sins, “Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests” is an entertaining mystery that just feels like an Autumn read.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests” isn’t on many relevant Goodreads lists as of now, but would probably fit in on the shelf “Culinary Mystery Books”.

Kate’s Review: “The Long Walk”

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Book: “The Long Walk” by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman)

Publishing Info: Signet Books, July 1979

Where Did I Get This Book: I own it.

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

Book Description: Against the wishes of his mother, sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty is about to compete in the annual grueling match of stamina and wits known as The Long Walk. One hundred boys must keep a steady pace of four miles per hour without ever stopping… with the winner being awarded “The Prize”—anything he wants for the rest of his life. But, as part of this national tournament that sweeps through a dystopian America year after year, there are some harsh rules that Garraty and ninety-nine others must adhere to in order to beat out the rest. There is no finish line—the winner is the last man standing. Contestants cannot receive any outside aid whatsoever. Slow down under the speed limit and you’re given a warning. Three warnings and you’re out of the game—permanently…

Review: I first read “The Long Walk”, one of Stephen King’s ‘Bachman Books’, in 2015, just a couple of months before we started the blog. So about ten years ago! It had be recommended to me by one of my very closest coworkers at the library I was working at at the time, and I was absolutely enthralled with it. It instantly skyrocketed up to my top 3 Stephen King books (with “The Stand” and “Carrie” along with it). When I saw that they were going to make a movie based on this book I was excited, but nervous. Then I saw the trailer, and was like “I NEEEEEED TO SEEEEEE IT!!!” Serena and I are actually planning on going at some point, and I have plans to see it with other people too. And the time is almost upon us, as the movie comes out this Friday. So I thought that it would be the perfect time for a reread and to finally review it on this blog, since it JUST missed out. And wow. It hit even harder this time around.

Actual footage of me reeling on the couch while reading as the kittens come to see what’s happening…. (source)

I’ve always said that when King was writing as Bachman he felt no need to be hopeful or optimistic. Most of King’s books have some kind of hints at hope even in all the darkness (there ARE exceptions; “Pet Sematary”, “Cujo”, “Carrie” all come to mind), but when he wrote as Bachman he was just fine being a huge bummer. “The Long Walk” basically keeps up with that pattern, as a group of teenage boys participate in an unending walk in hopes of being the last man standing to receive a prize to make their lives better. After all, in “The Long Walk” America has been taken over by cruel authoritarian fascists who value control and violence to maintain it (ughhhhh), and the televised Long Walk competition is entertainment built from children being killed if they stop walking at the speeds they are supposed to be at. Our protagonist is Ray Garraty, who joined like all others thinking that walking at 5 miles per hour is easy and that the money will be his, but as the walk keeps going he and his companions start to break down as they are all picked off one by one (and let me tell you, when I was originally reading this I tried to walk as long as I could at 5mph while on a treadmill at the gym. It was NOT EASY). Garraty and other contestants, like the steadfast and snarky McVries, the antagonistic and crude Barkovitch, and the mysterious Stebbins, enter in and out of each other’s orbits as their companions are killed, they become physically exhausted, and their mental faculties start to break down. It’s tense, it’s awful, and it is relentless. I know that King has said he originally wrote this book when he was in college, when boys he knew were being drafted and sent to Vietnam, and the hopelessness and bleakness definitely harkens to the idea of young men and boys being sent into a meat grinder for a country’s own devices. But as someone who now has a kid of her own this book hit THAT MUCH HARDER, with these children sobbing, screaming, or in some cases dying slowly and painfully before actually being shot for losing (one character contracts pneumonia while walking, and my God it was harrowing as he slips further and further into illness with no ways to rest and heal). There was one moment with a character screaming about his feet for prolonged moments where I couldn’t go any further for a bit. I just had to put it down. It’s an effective and dark dystopian nightmare.

BUT. There are also moments of intimacy and camaraderie between some of the characters, specifically Garraty and McVries, that show that even in the darkest and most terrible times and experiences, if you can find someone, or a community, to hold onto, there will always be bits of hope. The relationship between Garraty and McVries was so, so lovely, as while it has its ups and downs as the contest goes on and their stress, exhaustion, and fear kick in, you can tell that they both have a connection that keeps each other going. There has long been queer subtext speculated about these characters, which is definitely a fair way to interpret it, but what I loved about their friendship is that it’s another example of one of my favorite relationship portrayals: when two people connect to each other and get each other on a level that transcends platonic and romantic and is a whole other thing that isn’t quite definable. It makes them that much more touching and intimate, and that much more tragic as the story goes on. This book isn’t optimistic or hopeful as a whole, but these bits as these boys keep each other going DO have small bright spots in a sea of despair. And it’s a reminder of how important that can be.

“The Long Walk” is still one of my favorite Stephen King novels. It’ll wreck you if you let it. But it’s so, so good.

Rating 10: This is still one of my favorite Stephen King books. Devastating, tense, and bleak, but so incredibly emotional with glimmers of intimacy and camaraderie.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Long Walk” is included on the Goodreads lists “Dystopia!”, and “Games of Death”.

Kate’s Review: “In Deadly Company”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “In Deadly Company” by L.S. Stratton

Publishing Info: Union Square & Co, September 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publicist

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

Book Description: A year after the blowout birthday celebration she organized accidentally ended in the death of her nightmare, one-percenter boss, Xander Chambers, Nicole Underwood thought she was setting the public record straight by agreeing to consult on a feature film based on her story. But on the set in LA, she watches in frustration as her experiences are persistently sidelined by inappropriate casting and frequent, bizarre script changes.
 
Nicole is haunted by the events of that fateful house party and visions of her now deceased boss. Xander had been unfit to lead the company his mother—famed entrepreneur Bridget Chambers—had founded and built to Fortune 500 status until her untimely death in a car accident several months prior. After being Bridget’s favorite assistant, Nicole had honored her mentor by staying on to keep Xander organized and on task despite his relentless partying. When he wanted her to plan his wild bash, Nicole saw a chance to probe the people closest to the Chambers family and learn if Bridget’s crash was truly a simple tragedy. But Nicole, who just wanted to be the best assistant possible, could not have foreseen the terrible consequences of her actions.

Review: Thank you to Sparkpoint Studio for sending me an ARC of this novel!

If a book comes at me and promises to have a “White Lotus” vibe to it I am probably going to be interested regardless, as that show is such a (not so) guilty pleasure for me. There’s something tantalizing for me about nasty wealthy people being shown as nasty with fun bits of dark humor AND the perspectives of the less wealthy having to deal with their bullshit. So it’s probably not shocking that when I was offered “In Deadly Company” by L. S. Stratton, which centers on an assistant of a notoriously awful billionaire reeling from a weekend that ends in multiple deaths, I was like ‘oh yes please’.

The plot is straightforward and very twisty, with two different perspective times and multiple perspective characters (though some are more prominent than others). Our main character is Nicole (or Nikki), the former assistant to famous billionaire Xander Chambers. She had been the assistant to his mother Bridget, but when Bridget died in a car accident she was kept on my Xander, who was far more crass and far less outwardly magnanimous. We have a first person POV in the present day, where she’s acting as a consultant on a film about a deadly weekend during Xander’s birthday celebration that happened a year prior. We also have third person POVs back to the weekend of the birthday bash, with Nicole and a couple other characters serving as the perspectives. I liked the way that Stratton used these two timelines, as it gives us a way to look at some very personal fallout for Nicole in the present day while also giving us hints beyond her scope during the birthday weekend. Nicole is a VERY enjoyably protagonist, as not only is she one of the few likable people in the book, she is also funny and sardonic and very easy to root for, whether that’s because of the crappy behavior of her employer and his terrible friends that she has to run damage control for, or the saccharine and very inauthentic movie production that she has been roped into in hopes of setting the record straight (while having to deal with colorism, misogynoir, and the general misrepresentation in the pursuit of a narrative that Hollywood is known for).

As a mystery, it had a lot of pretty well set up twists and turns. I could call a few of them here and there, but there were a couple that generally blew me away. Stratton has a dubious (in a good way) list of suspects, all of whom are believable to be killers or at least malevolent BECAUSE they are all such shifty and careless people, and if that doesn’t sum up the billionaire class I don’t know what does. Nicole’s interactions with them elicit both dark satire as well as ugly realities. I will say that I didn’t buy into the romance between Nicole and Jeremiah as much, but that’s not because of either of the characters. Like I said above I really liked Nicole, and Jeremiah was a solid ‘outsider’ perspective to give us more clues that Nicole wouldn’t necessarily be privy to when he did have his perspective points. But I thought that the romance between them could have had a bit more exploration and depth as opposed to the re-introduced whirlwind with so many other things happening in such a short period of time. But again, that’s a minor quibble in a story I generally enjoyed!

Ultimately I enjoyed “In Deadly Company” as it points out the greed and sociopathy of billionaires (both in the corporate and entertainment world) all wrapped up in a fast paced whodunnit. Definitely an enjoyable thriller!

Rating 8: A fun murder mystery with under-appreciated workers and conniving elites, “In Deadly Company” was a fast read that had me surprised consistently.

Reader’s Advisory:

“In Deadly Company” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “Damn These Rich People!”.

Kate’s Review: “What’s Yours Is Mine”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “What’s Yours Is Mine” by Jennifer Jabaley

Publishing Info: Lake Union Publishing, August 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from the publicist.

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

Book Description: Determined daughters. Controlling mothers. There’s no such thing as friendly competition in a twisty novel of suspense about ambition, revenge, and unrealized dreams.

Valerie Yarnell is a hardworking single mother who’d do anything for her daughter, Kate. Kate is a dancer with dreams of stardom, just like her talented best friend, Colette. Despite Valerie’s sacrifices, it’s Colette’s mother, former prima ballerina Elise, whom Kate adores. And Colette has become like the practically perfect sister Kate never had. How can Valerie not feel frustrated, ineffectual, and a little jealous of the queen bee of dance moms? Not only has she hijacked her daughter, but Elise is married to the man Valerie pines for.

Rivalries are forming. Tension is mounting. In preparation for an elite dance competition, Kate outshines the more promising Colette onstage, and the pressure is on for Colette to keep her position in the spotlight—and especially to keep her demanding mother happy. Who could have foreseen the violent attack that sabotages everything? Anyone who’s been watching closely.

As ruthless and sinister ambitions are exposed, a media firestorm and an explosive town scandal erupt. Before it’s over, two mothers and two daughters will learn just how fierce and dangerous a rivalry can still get.

Review: Thank you to Sparkpoint Studio for sending me an ARC of this novel!

My kid is five years old and my husband signed her up for soccer this past Spring into Summer. I was talking to book club about this during our cabin weekend and how I’ve somehow been wrangled into the role of ‘soccer mom’ since his work schedule means that more often than not I was the one taking her, and probably will be in the future (as the kid LOVED it), and it was pointed out that at least soccer, comparatively, is cheaper than other popular sports and pastimes (we’re in the land of hockey, after all). One that came up was dance, and I kept thinking about that as I read “What’s Yours Is Mine” by Jennifer Jabaley, a new soapy thriller about teenage dance rivalries spilling into mother’s circles and running amok. It was either a stark reminder that it could always be worse, or a scrying glass into my future (hopefully without the extra drama and bodily harm).

As a thriller, it worked fairly well for me. The set up is simple: Kate and Colette are teenage dancers and best friends, Kate’s mother Valerie being a single mom who works a difficult and time consuming job, and Colette’s mother Elise being a former prima dancer turned powerful and put together housewife. Kate has ambition to be the best, while Elise has that same ambition for her daughter. When it becomes clear that Kate may be outshining Colette, and Kate starts to REALLY want to become the best, tensions rise between friends, and mothers and daughters, until Colette is injured in a suspicious accident. The crux of it is who wants to hurt Colette, and how far are some of these characters willing to go to get what they want? It’s simple, it’s straightforward, but it has a good amount of suspense with lots of suspects, clues, and misdirections to keep me guessing in general. Were all of the reveals surprising? It was a bit of a mixed bag. But the pacing was well done and the suspense was there.

And I mean it’s just so dramatic and soapy, and that is truly my catnip when it comes to domestic thrillers. We have best friends who are now fully competing with each other! We have class wars! We have a former dancer who wants her daughter to be a star no matter what! We have potential affairs! It has so many suds just spilling out of it that I was eating it up and reveling in the histrionics of it all, and I fully mean that in a complimentary kind of way. I liked jumping perspectives between characters so we could get an idea of what they were all thinking, but Jabaley was successful in keeping clues hidden away for the most part even when we were getting into each character’s head. A nice soapy vibe is usually going to be something I like and this book had it and then some.

As a whole I enjoyed “What’s Yours Is Mine”. It has some twists and turns and a lot of dramatics, and if you are still looking for easy poolside reading this summer, this is a good choice.

Rating 8: A tension filled domestic thriller about ambition, rivalry, and passion that kept me guessing and kept me invested. Also, VERY sudsy, which is always a plus.

Reader’s Advisory:

“What’s Yours Is Mine” isn’t on any Goodreads lists as of now, but if you like Megan Abbott this will surely be a good fit.

Kate’s Review: “Influencer”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Influencer” by Adam Cesare

Publishing Info: Union Square & Co, October 2024

Where Did I Get This Book: I received a finished copy at a panel at ALAAC25

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

Book Description: Aaron Fortin is new in town. He drives a brand-new Acura—a gift from his parents for uprooting him in the middle of senior year. Showing up on his first day at the local public school in that nice of a car? He knows he’ll never blend in, and he doesn’t care to try. The car, the new kid mystique, he can use all that…

Crystal Giordano carpools to the same school in her friend Trevor’s beat-up van. In the van along with Crystal and Trevor are Paul, Harmony, and Gayle. Crystal’s technically part of their misfit group, but most of the time, she feels like she’s the only one who doesn’t fit.

When Aaron Fortin sits at their lunch table, Crystal can see he’s not who he says he is. But how big of a fraud is Aaron Fortin? Crystal clumsily exposes Aaron and becomes his target, falling victim to his insidious campaign to erase her. Only then does she discover who he truly is—and it’s so much worse than she thought.

As her friends begin to follow him one by one, Crystal wonders if she can protect them or if his influence is just too strong.

Review: Thank you to Union Square & Co for giving me a finished copy of this novel at ALAAC25!

So here is a story that perfectly reflects the fates of some of my ARCs. During the ALA Annual Conference in 2024, I picked up an ARC of the book “Influencer” by Adam Cesare. I grabbed it because 1) I have enjoyed other books by Adam Cesare and was happy to see he had a new one, and 2) I just love a thriller or horror story that uses social media influencers as a sticking point in their plots. Fast forward to the ALA Annual Conference in 2025, where I find myself attending a panel that has Adam Cesare, and he is talking about his 2024 “Influencer”…. A book that I wholly left by the wayside the year before. As I listened to him talk I thought to myself ‘ah shit, I really should have read “Influencer” by now, it sounds great’. Well good news! I got a new copy at ALAAC25, and I DID READ IT THIS TIME!

Hooray! (source)

I had a lot of fun with this book! Once it hooked me in the very first chapter (which was a start that had QUITE a shocking bang I must say!), I had a really hard time putting it down. It’s a very readable thriller with a well done narrative structure of two narrators, one being our psychopathic ‘influencer’ Aaron and the other being awkward but observant Crystal. Through both of their perspectives we see the making of a cat and mouse game as Aaron slowly dismantles Crystal’s life and isolates her from her friends, and as Crystal tries to figure out a way to expose him for the dangerous villain he is. We can slowly start to tell what Aaron is plotting on one hand, but on the other we can see Crystal coming up with her own counter moves, and the tension of seeing who ends up on top propels the story. And as someone who used to have an unfortunate hyperfocus on serial killers, I definitely picked up on a lot of what Cesare was referencing. It’s also just a wicked take on how social media stars and influencers build upon parasocial relationships to create a profit, whether that’s money in our world or Manson-like control and violence mongering to make oneself feel powerful in the story at hand. Cesare isn’t afraid to really go balls to the wall in disturbing content in this book, but it makes his point (also, note that this book has instances of animal abuse, sexual assault, and many murders including that of a pregnant person, just to put some content warnings out there. Also, the book has a page of content warnings to refer to). It’s just a thriller that really worked for me.

But my favorite part of this book was the character of Crystal, our protagonist who can see right through Aaron due to her incredible intuition and pattern recognition. Crystal is very observant and perceptive, but she is also riddled with anxiety and awkwardness and constant worries about the status of her friendships and how her friends perceive her. If we’re being honest, Crystal was a LOT like me in high school, never quite feeling like she totally fit in with her peers and even her friends outside of perhaps one or two exceptions, and I thought that she was very, very endearing because of it. In fact, I also really enjoyed (as much as one can, I suppose as a villain’s perspective!) Aaron’s POV chapters as we see his manipulations, his deviousness, and his absolute sociopathy. It’s a shocking contrast between the two main POVs, and I thought that Cesare nailed both of them pretty well. Some of our supporting characters could have used a bit more oomph, specifically Harmony and Paul, as I felt like I didn’t know them well enough to know if I believed their quite heel turns as happy lapdogs to Aaron’s plots and plans no matter how crazed and violent, but I’m willing to suspend my disbelief a bit just because I enjoyed so many other things about the book.

Me finally getting to “Influencer” took some time, but I’m thrilled I finally got the kick in the pants I needed to pick it up. If you are looking for some more fast and fun reads as the summer winds down, check this one out for sure!

Rating 8: Fast paced, twisted as hell, and suspenseful until the end, “Influencer” is a darker tale from star on the rise author Adam Cesare!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Influencer” is included on the Goodreads list “Fiction About Influencers”.

Kate’s Review: “The Between”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “The Between” by Tananarive Due

Publishing Info: Harper Perennial, October 2021 (originally published 1995)

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

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

Book Description: When Hilton was a boy, his grandmother sacrificed her life to save him from drowning. Thirty years later, he begins to suspect that he was never meant to survive that accident, and that dark forces are working to rectify that mistake. 

When Hilton’s wife, the only elected African American judge in Dade County, Florida, begins to receive racist hate mail from a man she once prosecuted, Hilton becomes obsessed with protecting his family. The demons lurking outside are matched by his internal terrors—macabre nightmares, more intense and disturbing than any he has ever experienced. Are these bizarre dreams the dark imaginings of a man losing his hold on sanity—or are they harbingers of terrible events to come? 

As Hilton battles both the sociopath threatening to destroy his family and the even more terrifying enemy stalking his sleep, the line between reality and fantasy dissolves . . . 

Chilling and utterly convincing, The Between is the haunting story of a man desperately trying to hold on to the people and life he loves as he slowly loses himself. 

Review: Back in 2024 when I read Tananarive Due’s “The Reformatory”, I told myself that once I had processed the absolute magnificence of that book I would need to start reading her back catalog. And it admittedly took me awhile, probably not just because I was processing (out of sight, out of mind is basically how I function, unfortunately). But I finally kicked myself in the pants and told myself READ MORE TANANARIVE DUE, and I decided to go back to her debut novel “The Between”. Staring at the beginning is a very good place to start after all! It helped that it had been re-released a few years ago, and my local library had a copy ready to to! So as I read the story of Hilton James, a Black man who nearly drowned as a child but was saved by his grandmother, and who is now married and having horrifying nightmares AND dealing with racist threats on his family, I could tell from the jump that starting here was the right choice.

My initial thought was, as an elder Millennial horror fan, that this has similar vibes to “Final Destination”, but this came out long before that first movie made its grand entrance into the zeitgeist. So it goes to show that Due was ahead of the curve! I really enjoyed the weird and ever building tension as Hilton starts to have weirder and more distressing dreams, just as his wife (and the entire family really) is getting death threats from a stalker with a racist hatred for the family. It makes for some good muddling of the waters, in that it’s not fully clear if Hilton is really experiencing premonitions or harbingers of doom due to something supernatural, or if it’s because of a very real threat of racist violence against his family. Due taps into both the worldly and otherworldly, and I found myself just completely wound up as Hilton spirals more and more and alienates himself from those he loves as things become more and more out of control for him.

But what really stood out to me, and what I have greatly appreciated in Due’s other work, is her take on American racism and the harm it has caused and continues to cause. Setting aside the strange dreams and setting aside the lapses in memory and setting aside Hilton’s history and his potential outrunning of Death when he wasn’t supposed to, the letters and threats that he and Dede and their children receive are terrifying, vile, and, unfortunately still all too real even in the decades after this book was first published. Hilton has a lot of trauma that has been passed down through the generations as well, and the themes of grief, loss, trauma, and race all come together in ways that are incredibly powerful and absolutely heartwrenching. It’s really terrible that so few things have changed in this country since it was first published in 1995.

“The Between” was a stellar debut from a horror author that I really, really enjoy. I’m glad I went back to Tananarive Due’s first novel, as now I am going to work my way through the rest!

Rating 8: Haunting and incredibly tense, “The Between” is a strong debut from a now legendary horror author.

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Between” is included on the Goodreads list “BELLETRIST”.

Kate’s Review: “Not Quite Dead Yet”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Not Quite Dead Yet” by Holly Jackson

Publishing Info: Bantam, July 2025

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

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

Book Description: In seven days Jet Mason will be dead.

Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. I’ll do it later, she always says. She has time.

Until Halloween night, when Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder.

She suffers a catastrophic head injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a deadly aneurysm.

Jet has never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her former best friend turned sister-in-law, her ex-boyfriend.

She has at most seven days, and as her condition deteriorates she has only her childhood friend Billy for help. But nevertheless, she’s absolutely determined to finally finish something:

Jet is going to solve her own murder.

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

I’ve been on the Holly Jackson hype train for a few years now, having read most of her books and enjoying all of them to varying degrees. But imagine how surprised and excited I was when I found out that she had written a new thriller for an adult audience instead of the expected YA crowd. “Not Quite Dead” yet is her adult debut, and boy does it have a banger of a premise: a woman named Jet is brutally attacked, leaving her with a brain aneurysm that is going to eventually kill her in a few days time, and she decides to use her final days to figure out who killed her. If that doesn’t grab ya, I don’t know what will. And WOW. I absolutely loved this book.

No doubt in my mind this is going to be on my Top 10 list of this year. (source)

As a mystery and thriller, I was pretty much hooked on this book from the moment I picked it up until the moment I finished. Jackson has crafted well done mysteries in the past, but this one, for me, is her at her best. I think that perhaps because it’s for adults this time around she has a little more freedom to explore the darker tendencies, and in “Not Quite Dead Yet” explore she does. I thought that the mystery about who attacked/will ultimately kill Jet was well done, with a town full of secrets, a family full of problems, and a very plucky but addled amateur detective at the forefront. The idea of having to solve one’s own murder is horrifying, and we have lots of clues, lots of suspects, and some well done misdirections and some well done reveals as well. While I could call a few things here and there, I was mostly kept in the dark, and Jackson really keeps things tight lipped and well hidden until she’s ready to start explaining. Jet and her friend Billy follow leads, find suspects, and look for clues, all while her health continues to deteriorate, and the very enjoyable mystery mixed with a building dread of her about to die at any moment made for a LOT of suspense as I read.

But the heart and soul of this story is Jet and the ever present reality of her imminent mortality as she races the clock to solve her eventual murder. Jackson has always had a knack for writing witty dialogue and interesting and well rounded protagonists, but she really takes the cake with Jet, who is snarky and steely and a pain in the ass while also being incredibly vulnerable and easy to care about. The messy family dynamics, her chronic illness and the way it affects her relationships with those around her, the way she has to peel back really dark and upsetting truths about people and things she thought she knew, it’s an amazing emotional journey, and the fact that she is going to die soon and knows it makes it all the more emotional. Her relationship with childhood best friend Billy was also one of the strongest pillars of this story, as her rough around the edges personality combined with his gentle soul as they desperately search for answers makes for a wonderful duo. Sometimes with foregone conclusions when it comes to characters stories I don’t find myself getting too attached, but Jet? Good lord did I absolutely adore Jet, and that made all the emotional beats resonate all the more.

“Not Quite Dead Yet” is a fantastic mystery with a deep emotional well it pulls from. I absolutely loved it. I hope that Holly Jackson writes more adult thrillers because this one was tops.

Rating 10: A suspenseful mystery with some perfect twists, and enjoyable main character, and a deeply emotional core, “Not Quite Dead Yet” is a fantastic adult debut for Holly Jackson.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Not Quite Dead Yet” is included on the Goodreads list “Mystery & Thriller 2025”.

Kate’s Review: “Everyone Is Lying To You”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “Everyone Is Lying To You” by Jo Piazza

Publishing Info: Dutton, July 2025

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC at ALAAC25.

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

Book Description: Lizzie and Bex were best friends in college. After graduation, Bex vanished, leaving Lizzie confused and devastated.

Fifteen years later, Bex is now Rebecca Sommers, a “traditional” Instagram influencer with millions of followers who salivate over her perfect life on her ranch with her five children and handsome husband, Gray. Lizzie is a struggling magazine writer, watching reels while her young children demand her attention.

One night out of the blue, Bex calls Lizzie with a career-making proposition—an exclusive interview with her about her multimillion-dollar business venture and an invitation to MomBomb, the high-profile influencing conference.

At the conference, Bex goes missing and Gray is found brutally murdered on their ranch. Lizzie finds herself plunged into the dark side of the cutthroat world of social media that includes jealousy, sordid affairs, swingers, and backstabbing. She must learn who her old friend has become and who she has double-crossed to try to find her, clear her name, and maybe even save her life.

Piazza’s master storytelling and razor-sharp insight into the world of social media brings us a pulpy, juicy, and cleverly plotted read that will have you guessing all the way through and leave you gasping for more.

Review: Thank you to Dutton for giving me an ARC at ALAAC25!

In recent years we have seen an uptick in ‘tradwife’ content online. For those unaware, tradwife influencers generally create content surrounding traditional family values, homemaking, motherhood, and pushing a conservative (and oftentimes far-right) agenda. It’s interesting seeing it play out as our societal Overton Window in the U.S. has shifted further right, making these influencers centerpieces of aspirational ‘and you can be an ideal traditional housewife and mother too!’ content, even though by being incredibly successful (and certainly monetized) influencers they are already not following the ‘be a submissive homemaker’ ideal they are pushing but being the actual breadwinner who supports their families with their content creation more than many of their husbands do. This kind of stuff fascinates and unsettles me, and when I heard that Jo Piazza had a tradwife centered murder mystery coming out called “Everyone Is Lying To You” I knew that I HAD to read it. And man, it was great.

At the heart of “Everyone Is Lying To You” are two women, who are both wives and mothers and who were best friends in college but lost touch for years. We have Lizzie, a determined journalist who works for a women’s publication, but has been struggling to adjust to working passion and becoming a mother to two children with a newly unemployed husband (who is supportive and great but a little aimless). The other is Rebecca, formerly Bex, who is a very popular family influencer who shows off her perfect marriage on a sprawling ranch while she raises six kids and homesteads with her traditional and conservative husband Gray. Rebecca reaches out to Lizzie promising her a juicy story if she attends the biggest female/family centered influencer convention, and while they are there Bex disappears and Gray is murdered on the ranch. We follow Lizzie’s perspective as she tries to figure out if her friend is a murderer whilst also fending off gossipy and perhaps cutthroat influencers, finding pieces of the puzzle and hoping to clear Bex while also wondering if she is actually a murderer. Piazza has some solid pacing, some really well done reveals and twists, and has so many misdirects and suspects that I really was kept guessing for most of the story. Hell, it was so well done that I didn’t even roll my eyes at any of the more out there reveals, as the story itself was so strong that it was easily forgivable.

The mystery of a murder and tradwife influencers is great, and I was already fully in, but it’s the two women we are following that really made this story a true knockout for me. I found Lizzie to be incredibly relatable, as a woman who never really took to the motherly instincts that we are told we all have, and who feels frazzled and sometimes overwhelmed by her family and the expectations that come with being a mom even if she really really loves every bit of her kids and her husband. But it was Rebecca/Bex that really shined, as we slowly learn her story through her perspective chapters and how she has ended up incredibly famous, while hiding so many of the darker aspects of her life because it would hurt the brand she has built around herself, and because she doesn’t want the world to know what her husband is really like. It was pretty clear to me that a lot of the inspiration for her was from Hannah Neeleman, aka Ballerina Farm (if you want a summary of the really insidious undertones of Hannah and her creepy husband’s vision, Jordan and McKay have a GREAT breakdown as former Mormons who have a lot of insight, or a REALLY deep dive from Fundie Fridays that postulates it’s pure Christian Nationalist propaganda), and Piazza makes Rebecca incredibly easy to root for while also making it hard to know if she could be capable of murder. I loved Rebecca’s chapters and wanted the best for her, even when I didn’t know if she was a killer or not.

In instances like this I’m down to support women’s rights AND wrongs. (source)

And finally, Piazza clearly knows her stuff when it comes to influencers and tradwife Internet/media content, because she knows all the ins, outs, controversies, and hypocrisies and finds ways to showcase them front and center. Whether it’s women who peddle wellness lifestyles while doing not so healthy things off camera, or mommy influencers who hide their nannies from the camera, or women who feel like they have to promote really exploitative things, usually at their children’s expense, for clicks and engagement, this book tackles a LOT and makes it snappy, cutting, and incredibly engaging. It’s such a great deconstruction of all the hypocritical and damaging things that tradwife content promotes as ideal, and I savored every bit of it.

“Everyone Is Lying To You” is a fast and addictive thriller with a bit of satirical bite to it. It’s a surefire winner for summer reading, and I really, really loved it.

Rating 9: I mean this book was basically written for me and all of my special interests and I was totally absorbed by all of it. PERFECT summer reading.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Everyone Is Lying To You” is included on the Goodreads list “Fiction About Influencers”.

Kate’s Review: “With A Vengeance”

This post may contain affiliate links for books we recommend.  Read the full disclosure here.

Book: “With A Vengeance” by Riley Sager

Publishing Info: Dutton, June 2025

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

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

Book Description: One train. No stops. A deadly game of survival and revenge.

In 1942, six people destroyed Anna Matheson’s family. Twelve years later, she’s ready for retribution.

Under false pretenses, Anna has lured those responsible for her family’s downfall onto a luxury train from Philadelphia to Chicago, an overnight journey of fourteen hours. Her goal? Confront the people who’ve wronged her, get them to confess their crimes, and deliver them into the hands of authorities waiting at the end of the line. Justice will at last be served.

But Anna’s plan is quickly derailed by the murder of one of the passengers. As the train barrels through the night, it becomes clear that someone else on board is enacting their own form of revenge—and that they won’t stop until everyone else is dead.

With time running out before the train reaches its destination, Anna is forced to hunt the killer in their midst while protecting the people she hates the most. In order to destroy her enemies, she must first save them—even though it means putting her own life at risk.

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

For me, summer has some guarantees that I can always count on, and one of those things is a new Riley Sager book. I’ve been reading a Riley Sager book every summer for the past eight years, starting with “Final Girls” and going with a new book every year from there. It’s just a staple of the season to me. And because of this it was obvious that I was going to read his newest novel “With A Vengeance”. It’s just what summer brings. I know that Sager has his fans and his detractors, but I haven’t had a bad experience with any of his books, finding all of them at the very least entertaining and ultimately good reads. That is, until now.

Hey, eight out of nine ain’t bad, right? (source)

But first the good. I an always respect and author who wants to switch things up in their writing, and “With A Vengeance” is a huge tone shift for Sager, as the sub-genre is an Agatha Christie-esque locked door mystery and the time period if post-WWII 1950s America. It’s a huge shift from his previous works, and I definitely applaud him taking this risk. I also think that he has the bare bone foundation of a solid locked room mystery, with a dubious cast of characters who could all be suspects, and with a pretty well thought out motivation at the heart of Anna wanting revenge for her brother’s and father’s deaths and her ruined life, as well as having pretty clear reasons for many of the conspirators that sought to take her father down. Sager has a solid set up here, I can’t deny that.

But the execution was off. There were so many twists and turns that were supposed to be interesting and scandalous, but they were either predictable, or they just felt like they were too many things going on at once. We’d have one solution, only to have another new solution, only to backtrack on ANOTHER solution, with a few obvious red herrings thrown in that didn’t really work. By the time we got to the third or fourth shocking twist, I was pretty much over it, and I was just ready for the train to pull into the station so that it could all be over and done with. On top of that, while I thought that the characters had believable motivations to want to set up Anna’s father to take a pretty horrendous fall, I didn’t feel like I got to know ANY of them beyond their villainy (with one possible exception I won’t spoil here, but their reasoning was at least humanizing to the character which made them a bit more interesting), or their need for revenge in Anna’s case. Anna also didn’t do much for mer, as her rage and desire to get her vengeance was understandble, but there wasn’t much else to her, which made her less interesting and made her less likable because of it. I know that Sager can be pretty hit or miss for lots of people when it comes to his protagonists, but this was the first time I just really didn’t care about a main character in one of his books. I really and truly wanted more and it just sputtered out.

“With A Vengeance” had so much potential but never quite reached it. I’m not giving up on Sager after one misstep, but as someone who has been a staunch defender of him in the past, it was a disappointment to be sure.

Rating 5: While I appreciate Sager experimenting with other sub-genres of thrillers, “With A Vengeance” was too muddled and didn’t have enough well developed characters to really endear me to the story.

Reader’s Advisory:

“With a Vengeance” is included on the Goodreads list “Haunting Books For A Stormy Night”.