Category: Mystery/Thriller

#BookReview Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister @GillianMAuthor @HarperCollinsCa #BooksofHCC #GillianMcAllister #JustAnotherMissingPerson

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#BookReview Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister @GillianMAuthor @HarperCollinsCa #BooksofHCC #GillianMcAllister #JustAnotherMissingPerson Title: Just Another Missing Person

Author: Gillian McAllister

Published by: William Morrow on Aug. 1, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 384

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: HarperCollins Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

From the author of the Reese’s Book Club Pick and the New York Times bestseller Wrong Place Wrong Time comes a new heart-stopping thriller in which a missing-person case unravels deeper, darker secrets that lead a detective to an impossible moral choice.

22-year-old Olivia has been missing for one day…and counting. She was last seen on CCTV, entering a dead-end alley. And not coming back out again.

Julia, the detective heading up the search for Olivia, thinks she knows what to expect. A desperate family, a ticking clock, and long hours away from her husband and daughter. But she has no idea just how close to home this case is going to get.

Because the criminal at the heart of the disappearance has something she never expected. His weapon isn’t a gun, or a knife: it’s a secret. Her worst one. And her family’s safety depends on one thing: Julia must NOT find out what happened to Olivia – and must frame somebody else for her murder.

If you find her, you will lose everything. What would you do?

This clever and endlessly surprising thriller is laced with a smart look at family and motherhood, and cements Gillian McAllister as a major talent in the world of suspense and a master of creating ethical dilemmas that show just how murky the distinction between right and wrong can be.

Review:

Intricate, gripping, and sharp!

Just Another Missing Person is a well-paced, engrossing police procedural that sees DCI Julia Day and her team tangled up in an inquiry that seems at first glance to be an isolated, missing person case, but as the investigation unfolds and dangerous secrets start to come to light, it quickly becomes apparent that this case is a lot more sinister and complicated than anyone could have ever imagined.

The writing is tight and intense. The characters are layered, secretive, and persistent. And the plot, told from multiple perspectives, is an ominous tale full of twists, turns, red herrings, secrets, deduction, mayhem, greed, and manipulation.

Overall, Just Another Missing Person is a relentless, eerie, simmering tale by McAllister that keeps you guessing from start to finish and is a wonderful reminder of the lengths a parent will go to protect their children at any cost.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

             

 

 

Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Gillian McAllister

GILLIAN MCALLISTER is the New York Times bestselling author of Reese's Book Club Pick Wrong Place Wrong Time, Everything but the Truth, The Choice, The Good Sister, The Evidence Against You, How to Disappear, and the Richard & Judy Book Club pick That Night. She graduated with an English degree before working as a lawyer. She lives in Birmingham, England, where she now writes full-time. She is also the creator and co-host of the popular Honest Authors podcast.

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#BookReview Out of Nowhere by Sandra Brown @sandrabrown_NYT @HBGCanada @GrandCentralPub #SandraBrown #OutofNowhere #GrandCentralPub #HBGCanada

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#BookReview Out of Nowhere by Sandra Brown @sandrabrown_NYT @HBGCanada @GrandCentralPub #SandraBrown #OutofNowhere #GrandCentralPub #HBGCanada Title: Out of Nowhere

Author: Sandra Brown

Published by: Grand Central Publishing on Aug. 1, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller, Romantic Suspense

Pages: 417

Format: Hardcover

Source: HBG Canada

Book Rating: 10/10

#1  New York Times  bestselling author Sandra Brown returns with a fast-paced, emotional thriller where the lives of a young mother and a high-rolling consultant collide under devastating circumstances—culminating in a desperate manhunt that will change their futures forever.
 
At a Texas county fair, amidst carousels and a bustling midway, children’s book author Elle Portman is enjoying a rare night out with her favorite her two-year-old son, Charlie. But just as they’re about to head home, the unthinkable a shooter opens fire into the crowd, causing widespread panic to erupt all around them.

Also caught in the melee was corporate consultant Calder Hudson. Arrogant, self-centered, and high off his latest career win, he’s frustrated and confused when he wakes up in the hospital after undergoing emergency surgery on his arm.  The doctor tells him that he was lucky—that as far as gunshot wounds go, he pulled through remarkably well.  Others weren’t so lucky, which instills in Calder a furious determination to get justice . . . a goal shared by Elle.

Their chance encounter at the police station leads to a surprising and inexplicable gravitation to one another, but even as the attraction grows, Elle and Calder can’t help but wonder if the unimaginable tragedy that brought them together is too painful and too complicated to sustain—especially while the shooter remains at large.

Review:

Adrenaline-pumping, riveting, and twisty!

Out of Nowhere is a well-executed, suspenseful tale that takes you into the life of Elle Portman, a hardworking, single mother who, after her worst nightmare comes true, finds herself consistently in the company of the handsome, successful Calder Hudson when it quickly becomes apparent they’re both still in the crosshairs of a relentless, highly motivated killer.

The writing is tight and intense. The characters are vulnerable, resilient, and resourceful. And the plot is a cat-and-mouse game full of twists, turns, friendship, deception, desire, temptation, attraction, dangerous situations, red herrings, suspicious personalities, romance, violence, and murder.

Overall, Out of Nowhere is another action-packed, sinister, highly satisfying page-turner by Brown that had the perfect amount of suspense and romance to not only keep me invested, engaged, guessing, and entertained from start to finish but also more than happy to devour it in only one sitting.

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

             

 

 

Thank you to HBG Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Sandra Brown

Sandra Brown is the author of sixty-nine New York Times bestsellers, including the #1 Seeing Red. There are over eighty million copies of her books in print worldwide, and her work has been translated into thirty-four languages. She lives in Texas.

 

Photograph courtesy of grandcentralpublishing.com.

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#BookReview The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon @Clemence_Mcl @AAKnopf @PenguinRandomCA #TheQuietTenant #ClemenceMichallon #PenguinReads

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#BookReview The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon @Clemence_Mcl @AAKnopf @PenguinRandomCA #TheQuietTenant #ClemenceMichallon #PenguinReads Title: The Quiet Tenant

Author: Clémence Michallon

Published by: Knopf Canada on Jun. 20, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 303

Format: Paperback

Source: Penguin Random House

Book Rating: 9/10

A pulse-pounding psychological thriller about a serial killer narrated by those closest to him: His 13-year-old daughter, his girlfriend—and the one victim he has spared

Aidan Thomas is a hard-working family man and a somewhat beloved figure in the small upstate New York town where he lives. He’s the kind of man who always lends a hand and has a good word for everyone. But Aidan has a dark secret he’s been keeping from everyone in town and those closest to him. He’s a kidnapper and serial killer. Aidan has murdered eight women and there’s a ninth he has earmarked for death: Rachel, imprisoned in a backyard shed, fearing for her life.

When Aidan’s wife dies, he and his thirteen-year-old daughter Cecilia are forced to move. Aidan has no choice but to bring Rachel along, introducing her to Cecilia as a “family friend” who needs a place to stay. Aidan is betting on Rachel, after five years of captivity, being too brainwashed and fearful to attempt to escape. But Rachel is a fighter and survivor, and recognizes Cecilia might just be the lifeline she has waited for all these years. As Rachel tests the boundaries of her new living situation, she begins to form a tenuous connection with Cecilia. And when Emily, a local restaurant owner, develops a crush on the handsome widower, she finds herself drawn into Rachel and Cecilia’s orbit, coming dangerously close to discovering Aidan’s secret.

Told through the perspectives of Rachel, Cecilia, and Emily, The Quiet Tenant explores the psychological impact of Aidan’s crimes on the women in his life—and the bonds between those women that give them the strength to fight back. Both a searing thriller and an astute study of trauma, survival, and the dynamics of power, The Quiet Tenant is an electrifying debut thriller by a major talent.

Review:

Unsettling, unique, and intricate!

The Quiet Tenant is a skillfully plotted, sinister tale that takes you into the life of Aidan Taylor, a hardworking, handsome widower who appears to be an honest, loyal, single father in need of a little help, but behind that friendly smile lies a depraved secret and a dark impulse to confine, violate, and murder that only a few know about, most of whom are already dead, one of whom desperately needs to escape, and one of whom may just become his next victim.

The writing is sharp and crisp. The characters are secretive, cunning, and vulnerable. And the plot, told from multiple perspectives, builds quickly, creating intensity and suspense as it unravels all the relationships, motivations, personalities, deception, and devious behaviours within it.

Overall, The Quiet Tenant is a fast-paced, unnerving, impressive debut by Michallon that does an exceptional job of eerily reminding us that even the most heinous of evil often live comfortably amongst us merely hidden behind masks of normality.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

        

 

 

Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Clémence Michallon

CLÉMENCE MICHALLON was born and raised near Paris. She studied journalism at City University of London, received a master's in Journalism from Columbia University, and has written for The Independent since 2018. Her essays and features have covered true-crime, celebrity culture, and literature. She moved to New York City in 2014 and recently became a US citizen. She now divides her time between New York City and Rhinebeck, NY.

Photo by Gabrielle Malewski

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#BookReview Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena @sharilapena @doubledayca @PenguinRandomCA #EveryoneHereisLying #ShariLapena #PenguinReads

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#BookReview Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena @sharilapena @doubledayca @PenguinRandomCA #EveryoneHereisLying #ShariLapena #PenguinReads Title: Everyone Here is Lying

Author: Shari Lapena

Published by: Doubleday Canada on Jul. 25, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 336

Format: ARC, eBook

Source: Penguin Random House

Book Rating: 8.5/10

Welcome to Stanhope! A safe neighborhood. A place for families.

William Wooler is a family man, on the surface. But he’s been having an affair, an affair that ended horribly this afternoon at a motel up the road. So when he returns to his house, devastated and angry, to find his difficult nine-year-old daughter, Avery, unexpectedly home from school, William loses his temper.

Hours later, Avery’s family declares her missing.

Suddenly Stanhope doesn’t feel so safe. And William isn’t the only one on his street who’s hiding a lie. As witnesses come forward with information that may or may not be true, Avery’s neighbors become increasingly unhinged.

Who took Avery Wooler?

Nothing will prepare you for the truth.

Review:

Unsettling, intricate, and tortuous! 

Everyone Here is Lying is a twisty, disturbing mystery that takes you into the lives of a handful of residents of the Stanhope community, including the Wooler family, as their worlds get turned upside down when one afternoon, nine-year-old Avery Wooler vanishes without a trace leaving some residents eager to help however they can, some pointing fingers at anyone they don’t get along with, and all of them scrambling to keep their darkest secrets hidden for good.

The writing is brisk and sharp. The characters are manipulative, secretive, and unlikeable. And the plot is an eerie, suspenseful tale full of twists, turns, secrets, surprises, lies, betrayal, familial drama, neurodiversity challenges, adultery, and suspicious personalities.

Overall, Everyone Here is Lying is another ominous, gripping, sophisticated tale by Lapena that kept me guessing from the very first page and ultimately left me chilled, satisfied, and curious to see what her devious mind could possibly come up with next.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

        

 

 

Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Shari Lapena

Shari Lapena is the internationally bestselling author of the thrillers The Couple Next Door, A Stranger in the House, An Unwanted Guest, Someone We Know, The End of Her, and Not a Happy Family, which have all been New York Times and The Sunday Times (London) bestsellers. Her books have been sold in forty territories around the world. She lives on a farm outside of Toronto. Everyone Here Is Lying is her seventh thriller.

Photo by Tristan Ostler

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#BookReview The Shadow Girls (Natalie Lockhart #4) by Alice Blanchard @AliceBooks333 @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #AliceBlanchard #TheShadowGirls #MinotaurInfluencers #SMPInfluencers

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#BookReview The Shadow Girls (Natalie Lockhart #4) by Alice Blanchard @AliceBooks333 @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #AliceBlanchard #TheShadowGirls #MinotaurInfluencers #SMPInfluencers Title: The Shadow Girls

Author: Alice Blanchard

Series: Natalie Lockhart #4

Published by: Minotaur Books on Jul. 25, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 320

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Minotaur Books

Book Rating: 9/10

Someone is playing deadly games. Lieutenant Luke Pittman lies in the hospital in a coma after being attacked by one of their own. Veronica Manes, Burning Lake’s most respected modern-day witch, is dead, her murder left unsolved. Natalie Lockhart has become embroiled in a case with threads that become increasingly difficult to untangle.

Now, a new horror is uncovered, one that shocks the town as never before, and the dark, shadowy path forward for Natalie is paved with challenges that haunt her past―Veronica’s unsolved case. Her sister’s traumatic murder. The long-lost disappearance of her old best friend. Natalie’s obsession with finding the truth leads to a twisted, elemental struggle between good and evil―and nothing will ever be the same again.

The woods have secrets.

The trees are carved with curses.

There’s something wicked in Burning Lake.

Review:

Mesmerizing, dark and spine-chilling!

The Shadow Girls is an unpredictable, sinuous thrill ride that takes us back to Burning Lake, NY, where Detective Natalie Lockhart and her team now find themselves not only keeping their fingers crossed that Lt. Pittman will quickly awake from his coma but also investigating the death of a local employee of Murray’s Halloween Costumes, Randolph Holmes, who unbeknownst to most, seems to have had a penchant in the past for kidnapping, confining, and murdering young girls.

The writing is seamless and fluid. The characters are tough, determined, and flawed. And the engrossing plot is a tightly-paced, ominous tale full of twists, turns, surprises, violence, manipulation, depravity, and murder.

Overall, The Shadow Girls is a highly entertaining, gripping, eerie thriller by Blanchard that highlights her exceptional ability to write police procedurals that have well-drawn characters and disturbingly realistic storylines. It is the fourth novel in the Natalie Lockhart series, and if you’re not already reading this series, you really should be!

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Alice Blanchard

Alice Blanchard is an award-winning author. She has received a PEN Award, a New Letters Literary Award, a Centrum Artists-in-Residence Fellowship, and a Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction. Her debut novel, Darkness Peering, was a New York Times' Notable Book and a Barnes & Noble Best Mystery book. Her work has been published in 17 countries.

Photo Credit: DH Dowling.

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#BookReview A Stolen Child by Sarah Stewart Taylor @SSTaylorBooks @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #MinotaurInfluencers #AStolenChild #SarahStewartTaylor #MaggieDArcy #SMPInfluencers

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#BookReview A Stolen Child by Sarah Stewart Taylor @SSTaylorBooks @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #MinotaurInfluencers #AStolenChild #SarahStewartTaylor #MaggieDArcy #SMPInfluencers Title: A Stolen Child

Author: Sarah Stewart Taylor

Published by: Minotaur Books on Jun. 20, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 384

Format: Paperback

Source: Minotaur Books

Book Rating: 8.5/10

Sarah Stewart Taylor is known for her atmospheric portrayal of an American detective in Ireland, and her critically acclaimed series returns with A Stolen Child.

After months of training, former Long Island homicide detective Maggie D’arcy is now officially a Garda. She’s finally settling into life in Ireland and so is her teenage daughter, Lilly. Maggie may not be a detective yet, but she’s happy with her community policing assignment in Dublin’s Portobello neighborhood.

When she and her partner find former model and reality tv star Jade Elliot murdered—days after responding to a possible domestic violence disturbance at her apartment—they also discover Jade’s toddler daughter missing. Shorthanded thanks to an investigation into a gangland murder in the neighborhood, Maggie’s friend, Detective Inspector Roly Byrne, brings her onto his team to help find the missing child. But when a key discovery is made, the case only becomes more confusing—and more dangerous. Amidst a nationwide manhunt, Maggie and her colleagues must look deep into Jade’s life—both personal and professional—to find a ruthless killer.

Review:

Meticulous, sinister and sharp!

In this fourth instalment in the Maggie D’Arcy series, A Stolen Child, we head back to Dublin where former Long Island Detective and now Garda police officer Maggie D’Arcy finds herself working once again with DI Byrne as a part-time detective when she suddenly becomes immersed in a tricky investigation involving a murdered model, a missing toddler, a father with something to hide, and a few family members who don’t seem to be as concerned or helpful as one would expect them to be.

The writing is seamless and precise. The characters are flawed, diligent, and persistent. And the plot is a menacing tale full of twists, turns, deception, mayhem, lies, secrets, suspicious personalities, revelations, familial dysfunction, mental illness, and murder.

Overall, A Stolen Child is an ominous, sophisticated, entertaining tale by Taylor that had just the right amount of mystery, intrigue, atmosphere, and intensity to keep me engaged from start to finish and left me, a huge fan of this series, more than satisfied and eager for more.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Press for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Sarah Stewart Taylor

Sarah Stewart Taylor grew up on Long Island and was educated at Middlebury College and Trinity College, Dublin. She lives with her husband and three children on a farm in Vermont where they raise sheep and blueberries.

Sarah is the author of THE MOUNTAINS WILD, an atmospheric thriller about a Long Island homicide detective named Maggie D'Arcy who returns to Ireland twenty-three years after the unsolved disappearance of her beloved cousin Erin in the Wicklow Mountains. When a young woman disappears and new evidence from Erin’s case is found, Maggie will have to uncover the truth about the Irish man she's never stopped loving and, in order to help Irish police save the missing woman, the truth about who Erin was and what happened to her.

It will be published by Minotaur Books on June 23, 2020.

Sarah is also the author of the Sweeney St. George mystery series, about an art historian who studies funerary art, "the art of death," from Minotaur Books. The first book in the series, O’ Artful Death, was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel.

Her non-fiction has been published in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and many other publications.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

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#BookReview Queen Wallis by C. J. Carey @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #QueenWallis #CJCarey #bookmarkedbylandmark

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#BookReview Queen Wallis by C. J. Carey @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #QueenWallis #CJCarey #bookmarkedbylandmark Title: Queen Wallis

Author: C. J. Carey

Series: Rose Ransom #2

Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark on Jul. 18, 2023

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, Science Fiction

Pages: 416

Format: Paperback

Source: Sourcebooks Landmark

Book Rating: 8/10

The thrilling sequel to Widowland, a feminist dystopian novel set in an alternative history that terrifyingly imagines what a British alliance with Germany would look like if the Nazis had won WWII.

London, 1955. The Leader has been dead for two years. His assassination, on British soil, provoked violent retribution and intensified repression of British citizens, particularly women. Now, more than ever, the Protectorate is a place of surveillance and isolation―a land of spies.

Every evening Rose Ransom looks in the mirror and marvels that she’s even alive. A mere woman, her role in the Leader’s death has been miraculously overlooked. She still works at the Culture Ministry, where her work now focuses on poetry, which has been banned for its subversive meanings, emotions, and signals that cannot be controlled.

A government propaganda drive to promote positive images of women has just been announced ahead of a visit from Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first American president to set foot on English soil in two decades. Queen Wallis Simpson will be spearheading the campaign, and Rose has been tasked with visiting her to explain the plan. When Rose arrives at the palace, she finds Wallis in a state of paranoia, desperate to return to America and enjoy the liberty of her homeland following her husband’s death. Wallis claims she has a secret document so explosive that it will blow the Protectorate apart. But will the last queen of England pull the trigger on the Alliance?

Review:

Unique, mysterious, and pensive!

Queen Wallis is a dark, sinister tale that picks up two years after Widowland left off, taking us back to a dystopian London during 1955 where the German Protectorate is still in rule and working hard to create his perfect society, espionage and repression are both still in abundance, Edward Vlll is dead, Queen Wallis remains though with little power or position, the American President and First Lady are set to make a surprise visit, women are still segregated based on attractiveness, reproductive capabilities, and age, and higher-caste Rose Ransom is still rewriting literature while doing whatever she can to empower women to fight for the respect and freedom they rightly deserve.

The prose is intense and rich. The characters are passionate, sly, and resilient. And the plot is a gripping tale of surveillance, segregation, courage, social injustice, politics, manipulation, control, suppression, and power.

Overall, Queen Wallis is an intricate, thought-provoking, creative sequel by Carey that incorporates a compelling mix of historical figures, atmospheric settings, and what-if fiction into an entertaining tale that’s bursting with feminism, intrigue, and action.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About C. J. Carey

C. J. Carey is a novelist, journalist, and broadcaster. She has worked at the Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph, and the BBC, among others. She also writes novels under the name Jane Thynne and lives in London. Widowland is the first novel she has written as C. J. Carey.

Photo Credit: Charles Kerr

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#BookReview Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent @lizzienugent @SimonSchusterCA #StrangeSallyDiamond #LizNugent #SimonSchusterCA

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#BookReview Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent @lizzienugent @SimonSchusterCA #StrangeSallyDiamond #LizNugent #SimonSchusterCA Title: Strange Sally Diamond

Author: Liz Nugent

Published by: Simon & Schuster on Jul. 18, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 320

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 9/10

The internationally bestselling author of the “dark, captivating psychological thriller” (People) Lying in Wait returns with a wickedly dark, twisted, and brilliantly observed new novel about an enigmatic woman confronting her unknown past.

For Sally Diamond, people are confusing, unpredictable, and hard to read. She has always preferred routines to spontaneity, silence to noise, and forthright communication to small talk. Adopted at the age of seven by a psychiatrist, she cannot remember any details of her childhood before that age. Now, at forty-three years old, the truth comes into sharp focus when Sally’s past becomes headline news: she endured something unthinkable as a child, and now, the entire world knows exactly who she is…and was.

Suddenly, Sally finds herself in the spotlight. People everywhere are digging into her past, ravenous for details, and Sally herself is learning things about herself and her family that she never knew before. Soon, a stranger from New Zealand sends her a familiar teddy bear in the mail, but why does he insist on addressing her as Mary? And why is her new neighbor so obsessed with her?

Told from the alternating perspectives of Sally in the present-day and a boy named Peter in the past, this is a novel that confronts the trauma of family secrets and explores one woman’s brave decision to define herself and her future.

Review:

Thrilling, haunting, and highly unnerving!

Strange Sally Diamond is a dark, perceptive, mysterious tale that takes you into the life of Sally Diamond, a socially inept, middle-aged woman with PTSD from childhood trauma and a tendency to take things literally who, after recently losing the only father she’s ever known, begins to struggle with living alone when long-buried secrets come to light, memories begin flooding back, someone is intent on tormenting her about the past, and danger now seems to lurk around every corner.

The prose is meticulous and tight. The characters are scarred, selfish, eccentric, and dangerous. And the plot, told from alternating perspectives, unfolds methodically into a seedy tale full of twists, turns, surprises, familial drama, lies, secrets, deception, self preservation, wickedness, tragedy, and murder.

Overall, Strange Sally Diamond is a nuanced, sinister, unpredictable tale by Nugent that once again highlights her innate ability to showcase the scheming, despicable, demoralizing, evil side of human nature while also reminding us of the devastating, enduring consequences of living in environments fraught with excessive control, manipulation, violence, and forced captivity.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Liz Nugent

Liz Nugent has worked in Irish film, theater, and television for most of her adult life. She is an award-winning writer of radio and television drama and has written critically acclaimed short stories both for children and adults, as well as the novels Unraveling Oliver and Lying in Wait. She lives in Dublin.

Photograph by Beta Bajgartova.

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#BookReview The St. Ambrose School for Girls by Jessica Ward @SimonSchusterCA #TheStAmbroseSchoolforGirls #JessicaWard #SimonSchusterCA

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#BookReview The St. Ambrose School for Girls by Jessica Ward @SimonSchusterCA #TheStAmbroseSchoolforGirls #JessicaWard #SimonSchusterCA Title: The St. Ambrose School for Girls

Author: Jessica Ward

Published by: Gallery Books on Jul. 11, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 368

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8/10

Heathers meets The Secret History in this thrilling coming-of-age novel set in a boarding school where the secrets are devastating—and deadly.

When Sarah Taylor arrives at the exclusive St. Ambrose School, she’s carrying more baggage than just what fits in her suitcase. She knows she’s not like the other girls—if the shabby, all-black, non-designer clothes don’t give that away, the bottle of lithium hidden in her desk drawer sure does.

St. Ambrose’s queen bee, Greta Stanhope, picks Sarah as a target from day one and the most popular, powerful, horrible girl at school is relentless in making sure Sarah knows what the pecking order is. Thankfully, Sarah makes an ally out of her roommate Ellen “Strots” Strotsberry, a cigarette-huffing, devil-may-care athlete who takes no bullshit. Also down the hall is Nick Hollis, the devastatingly handsome RA, and the object of more than one St. Ambrose student’s fantasies. Between Strots and Nick, Sarah hopes she can make it through the semester, dealing with not only her schoolwork and a recent bipolar diagnosis, but Greta’s increasingly malicious pranks.

Sarah is determined not to give Greta the satisfaction of breaking her. But when scandal unfolds, and someone ends up dead, her world threatens to unravel in ways she could never have imagined. The St. Ambrose School for Girls is a dangerous, delicious, twisty coming-of-age tale that will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

Review:

Sinister, atmospheric, and unpredictable!

The St. Ambrose School for Girls transports you back to 1991 and into the life of Sarah Taylor, a fifteen-year-old girl with severe self-loathing and mental health issues that reluctantly heads to an elite private girl’s school in Greensboro Falls, Massachusetts, where all she wants to do is muddle through and be left alone, but when the poplar mean girl gets her in her sights everything starts to spiral out of control, secrets are exposed, reputations are ruined, and someone ends up dead.

The writing is tight and intense. The characters are damaged, secretive, insecure, and selfish. And the plot is a suspenseful, twisty, coming-of-age tale filled with friendship, drama, deception, jealousy, hatred, abuse, callousness, desperation, cruelty, and revenge.

I’m always intrigued when an author decides to write something a little different than what they’re well known for and so I was excited when I received this one. Would I say it’s as memorable as the novels found in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series? Probably not. Did I love it as much as one of my all-time favourite series, The Bourbon Kings? Definitely not. But Ward wasn’t writing it to be like either of these. And so, do I think The St. Ambrose School for Girls is an engrossing, tight, edgy, dark academia novel that’s highly entertaining and worth a read? I sure do.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Jessica Ward

Jessica Ward is a pseudonym for the #1 New York Times bestselling author who writes as J.R. Ward and has over 20 million copies in print. She enjoys spending time in the Adirondacks and lives in the south with her family and her dogs.

Photo Credit: Andrew Hyslop

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#BookReview The Resurrectionist by Paul T. Scheuring @paultscheuring @PRbytheBook #TheResurrectionist #PaulTScheuring #PRbytheBook

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#BookReview The Resurrectionist by Paul T. Scheuring @paultscheuring @PRbytheBook #TheResurrectionist #PaulTScheuring #PRbytheBook Title: The Resurrectionist

Author: Paul T. Scheuring

Published by: One Light Road Inc. on Apr. 8, 2022

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 327

Format: Paperback

Source: PR by the Book

Book Rating: 8.5/10

It’s 1820, and the physicians of London are on fire to unlock the secrets of human anatomy, some consorting with criminals to get their scalpels into a fresh body. Job Mowatt has become such a criminal—a body snatcher, a resurrectionist. The wages are just enough to keep his brilliant daughter, Ivy, clean and safe in London’s worst slum. When anatomist Percival Quinn asks Job to dig up a rare specimen—the wife of a powerful and dangerous man—Job knows instantly he is inviting trouble, but knows, too, that the payment would allow Ivy to escape the brief, miserable existence that awaits women of her class. All it will take is a single night’s work. A single night that will bring Job deeper into darkness and closer to death than he has ever been. Lords and ladies in their glittering mansions, six-bottle men and opium eaters in foul tenements, they all take their secrets to the grave…and sometimes the resurrectionist brings them back.

Review:

Ominous, vivid, and gritty!

The Resurrectionist is an eerie, sinister, absorbing tale set in London in the 1820s at a time when the city was bustling, scavenging was prevalent, respectability meant everything, and a shortage of cadavers for anatomical research created a need for those with a stomach to dig in the dirt and retrieve the flesh and bones of those recently buried.

The prose is meticulous and tight. The characters are hardened, troubled, and resourceful. And the plot, told from multiple perspectives, is a menacing tale about life, loss, tragedy, desperation, survival, manipulation, abuse, deviance, violence, class disparity, body snatching, and murder.

Overall, The Resurrectionist is a dark, gothic, intense novel by Scheuring that does a wonderful job of interweaving historical facts and compelling fiction into a suspenseful mystery that is deliciously atmospheric and disturbingly entertaining.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to PR by the Book for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Paul T. Scheuring

PAUL T. SCHEURING has been a working writer, director, and producer for Hollywood since 1999. He has written numerous projects for film and TV, including FOX’s popular Prison Break, A Man Apart starring Vin Diesel, and Den of Thieves. He wrote and directed The Experiment starring Academy Award winners Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker, and served as a producer alongside Ridley Scott on Klondike, a series he created and co-wrote. Scheuring lives in Northern California with his wife and two children. The Resurrectionist is his second novel

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