Source: Celadon Books

#BookReview Humor Me by Cat Shook @CeladonBooks #HumorMeBook #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner

#BookReview Humor Me by Cat Shook @CeladonBooks #HumorMeBook #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner Title: Humor Me

Author: Cat Shook

Published by: Celadon Books on Jul. 9, 2024

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Pages: 320

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 8/10

A love letter to the New York City stand-up scene, as told by a charmingly jaded assistant at a late-night talk show―for fans of Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

Presley Fry is not amused. She’s been an assistant at the Late Night Show for way too long, she’s adopted a “business casual” approach to dating to save herself from the embarrassment of seeking genuine connection, and she’s content to allow her gregarious roommate, Isabelle, to orchestrate her entire social life. And yet, Presley is absolutely enamored with her job and the world of stand-up comedy. The joy she finds in discovering up-and-coming comedians, the beauty and connection in their shared humor―it’s enough for now.

Enter Susan Clark, the childhood best friend of Presley’s late mother, whose death still knocks the wind out of Presley whenever she reaches for the phone. Susan is married to the head of the network where Presley works, and she is determined to take Presley under her wing and ease her way through life in the big city. She’s also determined to connect Presley with her son, the bright and affable Lawrence, who couldn’t be further from Presley’s type.

As Presley grapples with the loss of her mother and finds her people among those who seek out comedy to make the world a bit brighter, Humor Me reminds us that friendship can emerge from where you least expect it and that shared laughter can ease some of the deepest pain.


Review:

Comical, uplifting, and sweet!

Humor Me is a charming, engaging read that takes us to Manhattan and into the life of the assistant on the Late Night Show, Presley Fry, as she meanders through all sorts of highs and lows, from losing her mother, a challenging career, a newly formed relationship with one of her mother’s hometown friends, an unexpected fizzle with her long-time crush, and a blossoming romance with a man she would never have expected to even be on her radar.

The prose is well-turned and light. The characters, including all the supporting characters, are amusing, supportive, and authentic. And the plot is a fun, flirty tale full of tricky situations, tender moments, humorous mishaps, self-discovery, friendship, family, grief, happiness, romance, and the NYC comedy scene.

Overall, Humor Me is another entertaining, refreshing, enjoyable treat by Shook that certainly does a good job of reminding you that life is never dull and boring!

 

This novel is available now.

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

         

 

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Cat Shook

Catherine Shook graduated from the University of Georgia in 2016 with degrees in Creative Writing and Mass Media Arts. Born and raised in Georgia, she now lives in Manhattan. IF I WERE BEING HONEST is her first novel.

Photo Credit: MurphyMade

#BookReview Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera @amytintera @CeladonBooks #AmyTintera #ListenForTheLie #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner

#BookReview Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera @amytintera @CeladonBooks #AmyTintera #ListenForTheLie #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner Title: Listen for the Lie

Author: Amy Tintera

Published by: Celadon Books on Mar. 5, 2024

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 352

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 9/10

What if you thought you murdered your best friend? And if everyone else thought so too? And what if the truth doesn’t matter?

After Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town: pretty, smart, and enviable. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all, and if you believe the rumors, especially popular with the men in town. It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA and started a new life.

But now the phenomenally huge hit true crime podcast “Listen for the Lie,” and its too-good looking host Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy’s murder for the show’s second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one that did it.


Review:

Sophisticated, twisty, and gripping!

Listen for the Lie is an edgy, menacing tale that takes you into the life of Lucy Chase, a young woman who, after staying as far away from her hometown as she possibly could for the past five years, reluctantly returns to celebrate her grandmother’s birthday even knowing that the whole town still thinks she murdered her best friend and the persistent true-crime podcaster Ben Owens is hanging around stirring up trouble and trying to finally discover what really happened on that stormy night all those years ago.

The writing is brisk and tight. The characters are layered, secretive, and troubled. And the plot builds quickly as it twists, turns and unravels all the personalities, motivations, actions, and relationships within it.

Overall, Listen for the Lie, at its core, is a novel about family, friendship, secrets, manipulation, obsession, red herrings, revelations, violence, and murder. It’s a fast-paced, riveting, tortuous tale by Tintera that highlights everything is not always as it seems and is a real page-turner I highly recommend, and one you definitely don’t want to miss.

 

This novel is available March 5, 2024.

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

        

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Amy Tintera

Amy Tintera is the New York Times bestselling author of several series for young adults. She earned degrees in journalism and film and worked in Hollywood before becoming an author. Raised in Austin, Texas, she frequently sets her novels in the Lone Star State, but she now lives in Los Angeles, where there’s far less humidity but not nearly enough Tex-Mex. Listen for the Lie is her adult debut.

Photo credit: Stephanie Girard

#BookReview The Fury by Alex Michaelides @CeladonBooks #AlexMichaelides #TheFury #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner

#BookReview The Fury by Alex Michaelides @CeladonBooks #AlexMichaelides #TheFury #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner Title: The Fury

Author: Alex Michaelides

Published by: Celadon Books on Jan. 16, 2024

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 320

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 8.5/10

A masterfully paced thriller about a reclusive ex–movie star and her famous friends whose spontaneous trip to a private Greek island is upended by a murder ― from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient.

This is a tale of murder.

Or maybe that’s not quite true. At its heart, it’s a love story, isn’t it?

Lana Farrar is a reclusive ex–movie star and one of the most famous women in the world. Every year, she invites her closest friends to escape the English weather and spend Easter on her idyllic private Greek island.

I tell you this because you may think you know this story. You probably read about it at the time ― it caused a real stir in the tabloids, if you remember. It had all the necessary ingredients for a press a celebrity; a private island cut off by the wind…and a murder.

We found ourselves trapped there overnight. Our old friendships concealed hatred and a desire for revenge. What followed was a game of cat and mouse ― a battle of wits, full of twists and turns, building to an unforgettable climax. The night ended in violence and death, as one of us was found murdered.

But who am I?

My name is Elliot Chase, and I’m going to tell you a story unlike any you’ve ever heard.


Review:

Gripping, intense, and suspenseful!

The Fury is a menacing, locked-island thriller that sweeps you away to a secluded island in Greece and into the lives of seven people as a furious wind storm leaves six of them stranded, one of them dead, and more than just a few long-buried secrets and skeletons finally coming to light.

The prose is precise and clear. The characters are multilayered, self-absorbed, and secretive. And the plot, told through an unreliable narrator, unfolds and unravels quickly into a foreboding Greek tragedy full of lies, secrets, jealousy, deception, drama, manipulation, desperation, obsession, betrayal, infidelity, violence, and murder.

Overall, The Fury is a dark, taut, unnerving page-turner by Michaelides that did a wonderful job of keeping me mystified, surprised, and guessing from start to finish while at the same time reminding me just how easily people can often be psychologically and emotionally manipulated.

 

This novel is available now.

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

        

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Alex Michaelides

Alex Michaelides was born and raised in Cyprus. He has an M.A. in English Literature from Trinity College, Cambridge University, and an M.A. in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. The Silent Patient was his first novel, debuting at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide. The rights have been sold in a record-breaking 51 countries, and the book has been optioned for film by Plan B. His second novel, The Maidens, was an instant New York Times bestseller and has been optioned for television by Miramax Television and Stone Village.

Photo Credit: Charlotte Knee.

#BookReview The Connellys of County Down by Tracey Lange @CeladonBooks #TheConnellysofCountyDown #TraceyLange #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads

#BookReview The Connellys of County Down by Tracey Lange @CeladonBooks #TheConnellysofCountyDown #TraceyLange #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads Title: The Connellys of County Down

Author: Tracey Lange

Published by: Celadon Books on Aug. 1, 2023

Genres: General Fiction

Pages: 288

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 9/10

From Tracey Lange, the New York Times bestselling author of We Are the Brennans, comes The Connellys of County Down: a story about fierce family loyalty, good intentions gone awry, and the consequences of improbable love.

When Tara Connelly is released from prison after serving eighteen months on a drug charge, she knows rebuilding her life at thirty years old won’t be easy. With no money and no prospects, she returns home to live with her siblings, who are both busy with their own problems. Her brother, a single dad, struggles with the ongoing effects of a brain injury he sustained years ago, and her sister’s fragile facade of calm and order is cracking under the burden of big secrets. Life becomes even more complicated when the cop who put her in prison keeps showing up unannounced, leaving Tara to wonder what he wants from her now.

While she works to build a new career and hold her family together, Tara finds a chance at love in a most unlikely place. But when the Connellys’ secrets start to unravel and threaten her future, they all must face their worst fears and come clean, or risk losing each other forever.

The Connellys of County Down is a moving novel about testing the bounds of love and loyalty. It explores the possibility of beginning our lives anew, and reveals the pitfalls of shielding each other from the bitter truth.


Review:

Sincere, immersive, and insightful!

The Connellys of County Down is a tender, engaging tale that sweeps you away to Port Chester, NY and into the lives of three siblings, Tara, Eddie, and Geraldine, as they each grapple with all the secrets, wounds, trauma, tragedy, hurt, shame, guilt, tears, and discontent that surrounds them.

The prose is heartfelt and raw. The characters are complex, scarred, and loyal. And the plot is a beautifully written, affecting tale about life, loss, friendship, family, secrets, jealousy, guilt, pain, anger, denial, resentments, familial drama, forgiveness, miscommunication, and self-reflection.

Overall, The Connellys of County Down is a hopeful, absorbing, multi-generational saga by Lange that reminds us where there’s love, there’s a way and that when it comes to family, life is a combination of all the messy, frustrating, challenging, heartbreaking, complicated moments, as well as all the lovely, wonderful, touching times that happen in-between.

This novel is available on August 1, 2023.

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

         

 

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Tracey Lange

Born in the Bronx and raised in Manhattan, Tracey Lange comes from a large Irish family with a few secrets of its own. She headed west and graduated from the University of New Mexico before owning and operating a behavioral healthcare company with her husband for fifteen years. While writing her debut novel, We Are the Brennans, she completed the Stanford University online novel writing program. Tracey currently lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband, two sons and their German Shepherd.

Photo courtesy of Author's Goodreads Page.

#BookReview The Woman Inside by M. T. Edvardsson @CeladonBooks #MTEdvardsson #TheWomanInside #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads

#BookReview The Woman Inside by M. T. Edvardsson @CeladonBooks #MTEdvardsson #TheWomanInside #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads Title: The Woman Inside

Author: M. T. Edvardsson

Published by: Celadon Books on Jun. 13, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 384

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 8/10

A wealthy couple ends up murdered in the nicest part of town in this compulsively readable, page-turning thriller from M. T. Edvardsson, The Woman Inside.

Bill Olsson, recently widowed, is desperate to provide for his daughter, Sally. Struggling to pay rent, he welcomes a lodger into their home: Karla, a law student and aspiring judge, who works as a housekeeper to make ends meet. Her clients are the Rytters, an incredibly wealthy couple who hide behind closed doors. The wife is ill and hasn’t left the house in months. The husband is controlling and obsessive. Is he just a worried husband, concerned for his wife’s health? Or is there something more sinister at play?

As Bill’s situation becomes more dire, Karla is forced to make a difficult choice. And when the Rytters wind up dead, and Karla is pulled in for questioning, she’s made to defend some parts of her past she’d rather not revisit.

Every person in The Woman Inside is hiding something, but could any of them really have been driven to kill?


Review:

Sophisticated, riveting, and suspenseful!

The Woman Inside is an ominous, character-driven thriller that takes you into the life of a handful of people, including Bill Olsson, an unemployed widower who will do whatever it takes to keep the roof over his daughter’s head but has an unfortunate addiction to gambling, and Karla Larsson, a young law student trying to live as frugally as possible while working a part-time job as a maid for some unusual clients and by renting just a single room in a stranger’s apartment.

The writing is tight and intense. The characters are complex, secretive, and distressed. And the plot, told using a mixture of narrative, police interviews, and alternating timelines, before-and-after the murders, is a sinister tale full of twists, turns, loneliness, insecurities, lies, obsession, manipulation, violence, infidelity, troubled pasts, and murder.

Overall, The Woman Inside is a tortuous, addictive, unnerving tale by Edvardsson that kept me guessing from the very first page and was deliciously relentless, surprising, deceptive, and bursting with misdirection.

 

This novel is available June 13, 2023.

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

        

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About M. T. Edvardsson

M. T. Edvardsson is an author and teacher from Trelleborg, Sweden. He is the author of multiple novels. A Nearly Normal Family is his first published in the United States. He lives with his family in Löddeköpinge, Sweden.

#BookReview If We’re Being Honest by Cat Shook @CeladonBooks #IfWereBeingHonest #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner

#BookReview If We’re Being Honest by Cat Shook @CeladonBooks #IfWereBeingHonest #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner Title: If We're Being Honest

Author: Cat Shook

Published by: Celadon Books on Apr. 18, 2023

Genres: General Fiction

Pages: 304

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 8/10

For fans of We Are the Brennans by Tracey Lange and All Adults Here by Emma Straub, Cat Shook’s debut novel If We’re Being Honest is the snappy, smart, heartwarming story of the Williams family, and the sweltering summer that rewrote their history.

When Gerry, the beloved Williams patriarch, dies suddenly, his grandchildren flock from across the country to the family home in Eulalia, Georgia. But when Gerry’s best friend steps up to the microphone to deliver his eulogy, the funeral turns out unlike anyone expected. The cousins, left reeling and confused, cope with their fresh grief and various private dramas. Delia, recently heartbroken, refuses to shut up about her ex. Her sister Alice, usually confident, flusters when she spots her high school sweetheart, hiding a secret that will change both of their lives. Outspoken, affable Grant is preening in the afterglow of his recent appearance on The Bachelorette and looking to reignite an old flame with the least available person in town. Meanwhile, his younger brother Red, unsure of himself and easily embarrassed, desperately searches for a place in the boisterous family.

The cousins’ eccentric parents are in tow, too, and equally lost—in love and in life. Watching over them all is Ellen, Gerry’s sweet and proper widow, who does her best to keep her composure in front of the leering small town.

Clever and completely original, If We’re Being Honest reminds you that while no one can break your heart like your family can, there’s really no one better to put you back together.


Review:

Complex, heartfelt, and absorbing!

If We’re Being Honest is a tender, hopeful, multi-generational story that delves into all the emotional bonds and intricate ties that exist between family members and immerses you in a tale about confronting the past, accepting the things you cannot change, following your heart, learning to heal, and embracing whatever comes next.

The prose is well-turned and fluid. The characters are flawed, troubled, and bitter. And the plot is a captivating tale about life, loss, heartache, grief, guilt, love, secrets, resentment, revelations, acceptance, familial drama, friendship, hope, forgiveness, and introspection.

Overall, If We’re Being Honest is a nuanced, uplifting, character-driven debut by Shook that was a good reminder that family can be frustrating, messy, secretive, and sometimes hard to love, but they can also be surprising, supportive, loyal, and the only true place that feels like home.

 

This novel is available now.

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

         

 

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Cat Shook

Catherine Shook graduated from the University of Georgia in 2016 with degrees in Creative Writing and Mass Media Arts. Born and raised in Georgia, she now lives in Manhattan. IF I WERE BEING HONEST is her first novel.

Photo Credit: MurphyMade

#BookReview Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash @LauraSpenceAsh @CeladonBooks #LauraSpenceAsh #BeyondThatTheSea #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner

#BookReview Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash @LauraSpenceAsh @CeladonBooks #LauraSpenceAsh #BeyondThatTheSea #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner Title: Beyond That, the Sea

Author: Laura Spence-Ash

Published by: Celadon Books on Mar. 21, 2023

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 368

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 10/10

A sweeping, tenderhearted love story, Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash tells the story of two families living through World War II on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, and the shy, irresistible young woman who will call them both her own.

As German bombs fall over London in 1940, working-class parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make an impossible choice: they decide to send their eleven-year-old daughter, Beatrix, to America. There, she’ll live with another family for the duration of the war, where they hope she’ll stay safe.

Scared and angry, feeling lonely and displaced, Bea arrives in Boston to meet the Gregorys. Mr. and Mrs. G, and their sons William and Gerald, fold Bea seamlessly into their world. She becomes part of this lively family, learning their ways and their stories, adjusting to their affluent lifestyle. Bea grows close to both boys, one older and one younger, and fills in the gap between them. Before long, before she even realizes it, life with the Gregorys feels more natural to her than the quiet, spare life with her own parents back in England.

As Bea comes into herself and relaxes into her new life—summers on the coast in Maine, new friends clamoring to hear about life across the sea—the girl she had been begins to fade away, until, abruptly, she is called home to London when the war ends.

Desperate as she is not to leave this life behind, Bea dutifully retraces her trip across the Atlantic back to her new, old world. As she returns to post-war London, the memory of her American family stays with her, never fully letting her go, and always pulling on her heart as she tries to move on and pursue love and a life of her own.

As we follow Bea over time, navigating between her two worlds, Beyond That, the Sea emerges as a beautifully written, absorbing novel, full of grace and heartache, forgiveness and understanding, loss and love.


Review:

Captivating, absorbing, and beautifully written!

Beyond That, the Sea is an emotionally-charged, moving tale that takes you into the lives of two families, Thompson and Gregory, as their worlds intertwine and collide after eleven-year-old Beatrix Thompson is sent to Boston to live with the Gregorys for the duration of the war causing unlikely friendships to be forged, loyalties to be stretched, heartache to be inevitable, and the meaning of home to be irrevocably changed forever.

The prose is vivid and expressive. The characters are multi-layered, vulnerable, and torn. And the plot is a moving, coming-of-age tale about life, loss, friendship, heartbreak, guilt, grief, courage, hope, war, romance, regret, first love, and complex familial relationships.

Overall, Beyond That, the Sea is the perfect blend of historical facts, evocative fiction, and palpable emotion. It’s a bittersweet, affecting, tender tale that made me smile, make me cry, and resonated with me long after I finished the final page.

This novel is available March 21, 2023.

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

            

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Laura Spence-Ash

Laura Spence-Ash’s fiction has appeared in One Story, New England Review, Crazyhorse, and elsewhere. Her critical essays and book reviews appear regularly in the Ploughshares blog. She received her MFA in fiction from Rutgers–Newark, and she lives in New Jersey.

Photo Credit: Beowulf Sheehan

#BookReview The Angel Maker by Alex North @CeladonBooks #alexnorth #alexnorthauthor #theangelmaker #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner

#BookReview The Angel Maker by Alex North @CeladonBooks #alexnorth #alexnorthauthor #theangelmaker #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner Title: The Angel Maker

Author: Alex North

Published by: Celadon Books on Feb. 28, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 336

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 8/10

A dark, suspenseful new thriller about the mysteries of fate, the unbreakable bond of siblings, and a notorious serial killer who was said to know the future.

Growing up in a beautiful house in the English countryside, Katie Shaw lived a charmed life. At the cusp of graduation, she had big dreams, a devoted boyfriend, and a little brother she protected fiercely. Until the day a violent stranger changed the fate of her family forever.

Years later, still unable to live down the guilt surrounding what happened to her brother, Chris, and now with a child of her own to protect, Katie struggles to separate the real threats from the imagined. Then she gets the phone call: Chris has gone missing and needs his big sister once more.

Meanwhile, Detective Laurence Page is facing a particularly gruesome crime. A distinguished professor of fate and free will has been brutally murdered just hours after firing his staff. All the leads point back to two old cases: the gruesome attack on teenager Christopher Shaw, and the despicable crimes of a notorious serial killer who, legend had it, could see the future.


Review:

Dark, gritty, and spine-chilling!

The Angel Maker is a layered, unsettling, psychological thriller that delves into all the devastating emotional, psychological, and physical effects caused by violence on its victims, as well as their families, and highlights just how easily the most heinous of evil can often live comfortably amongst us merely hidden behind masks of normality.

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 Angel Maker is, ultimately, a story of lies, revelations, jealousy, obsession, familial drama, mental illness, depravity, guilt, manipulation, violence, and murder. It’s a tight, clever, disturbing thrill ride by North that had just the right amount of twists, turns, and surprises to keep me thoroughly engrossed from start to finish.

 

This novel is available now.

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

         

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Alex North

Alex North is the internationally bestselling author of The Whisper Man and The Shadows. He lives in Leeds, England, with his wife and son, and is a British crime writer who has previously published under another name.

Photo by Charlotte Graham.

#BookReview Locust Lane by Stephen Amidon @CeladonBooks #LocustLaneBook #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner

#BookReview Locust Lane by Stephen Amidon @CeladonBooks #LocustLaneBook #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads #partner Title: Locust Lane

Author: Stephen Amidon

Published by: Celadon Books on Jan. 17, 2023

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 320

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 8.5/10

For fans of Mystic River by Dennis Lehane and Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng, Stephen Amidon’s Locust Lane is a taut and utterly propulsive story about the search for justice and the fault lines of power and influence in a seemingly idyllic town. Can anyone be trusted?

On the surface, Emerson, Massachusetts, is just like any other affluent New England suburb. But when a young woman is found dead in the nicest part of town, the powerful neighbors close ranks to keep their families safe. In this searing novel, Eden Perry’s death kicks off an investigation into the three teenagers who were partying with her that night, each a suspect. Hannah, a sweet girl with an unstable history. Jack, the popular kid with a mean streak. Christopher, an outsider desperate to fit in. Their parents, each with motivations of their own, only complicate the picture: they will do anything to protect their children, even at the others’ expense.

With a brilliantly woven, intricately crafted plot that gathers momentum on every page, this is superb storytelling told in terse prose—a dynamic read that is both intensely gripping and deeply affecting.


Review:

Compelling, tragic, and suspenseful!

Locust Lane is a tortuous, simmering thriller that delves into the complex dynamics between family members and friends and highlights just how dependent, toxic, and deadly some of those relationships can ultimately be.

The prose is taut and intense. The characters are arrogant, troubled, and self-indulgent. And the plot, told from multiple perspectives, unravels and intertwines effortlessly into an ominous tale filled with suspicious personalities, shocking revelations, malicious behaviours, deception, manipulation, secrets, lies, power, corruption, privilege, and murder.

Overall, Locust Lane is a sinister, atmospheric, twisty whodunit by Amidon that does a wonderful job of highlighting just how vulnerable and susceptible technology and social media makes us and reminds us just how far some people are willing to go to keep deep dark secrets hidden away forever.

 

This novel is available on January 17, 2023.

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

            

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Stephen Amidon

STEPHEN AMIDON was born in Chicago and grew up on the East Coast. He lived in London for twelve years before returning to the United States in 1999. He now lives in Massachusetts and Torino, Italy. His books have been published in sixteen countries and include two works of non fiction, a collection of short stories, and seven novels, including Human Capital, adapted as a film directed by Marc Meyers in 2019, and Security, also adapted as a film and released by Netflix in summer 2021.

Photo Credit: Celeste Amidon

#BookReview Bad City: Peril and Power in the City of Angels by Paul Pringle @CeladonBooks #BadCity #PaulPringle #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads

#BookReview Bad City: Peril and Power in the City of Angels by Paul Pringle @CeladonBooks #BadCity #PaulPringle #CeladonBooks #CeladonReads Title: Bad City: Peril and Power in the City of Angels

Author: Paul Pringle

Published by: Celadon Books on Jul. 19, 2022

Genres: Nonfiction

Pages: 304

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Celadon Books

Book Rating: 9/10

For fans of Spotlight and Catch and Kill comes a nonfiction thriller about corruption and betrayal radiating across Los Angeles from one of the region’s most powerful institutions, a riveting tale from a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who investigated the shocking events and helped bring justice in the face of formidable odds.

On a cool, overcast afternoon in April 2016, a salacious tip arrived at the L.A. Times that reporter Paul Pringle thought should have taken, at most, a few weeks to check out: a drug overdose at a fancy hotel involving one of the University of Southern California’s shiniest stars—Dr. Carmen Puliafito, the head of the prestigious medical school. Pringle, who’d long done battle with USC and its almost impenetrable culture of silence, knew reporting the story wouldn’t be a walk in the park. USC is one of the biggest employers in L.A., and it casts a long shadow.

But what he couldn’t have foreseen was that this tip would lead to the unveiling of not one major scandal at USC but two, wrapped in a web of crimes and cover-ups. The rot rooted out by Pringle and his colleagues at The Times would creep closer to home than they could have imagined—spilling into their own newsroom.

Packed with details never before disclosed, Pringle goes behind the scenes to reveal how he and his fellow reporters triumphed over the city’s debased institutions, in a narrative that reads like L.A. noir. This is L.A. at its darkest and investigative journalism at its brightest.


Review:

Fast-paced, insightful, and comprehensive!

Bad City is the explosive, eye-opening investigation of one of the biggest scandals to rock the University of Southern California that started as a tip involving an unconscious woman, a hotel room littered with drug paraphernalia, and the Dean of its distinguished Keck School of Medicine, Carmen A. Puliafito and ended with the unearthing of an unimaginable amount of corruption, abuse of power, and exploitation that eventually led to the removal of several key figures in both the top echelons of the university’s administration as well as The L.A. Times.

The writing is detailed and precise. And the novel is an absorbing, compelling tale of one man’s dogged determination to uncover and expose the dark, dangerous, depraved secret life of one of the esteemed members of the USC faculty.

Overall, Bad City is a fascinating, disturbing, exceptionally descriptive novel by Pringle that is a scary reminder that often a rotten core can easily be masked by a shiny facade, and is without a doubt a prime example of investigative journalism at its best.

 

This novel is available now.

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

                

 

 

Thank you to Celadon Books for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Paul Pringle

Paul Pringle is a Los Angeles Times reporter who specializes in investigating corruption. In 2019, he and two colleagues won the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for their work uncovering the widespread sexual abuse by Dr. George Tyndall at the University of Southern California, an inquiry that grew out of their reporting the year before on Dr. Carmen Puliafito, dean of USC’s medical school. Pringle was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009 and a member of reporting teams that won Pulitzer Prizes in 2004 and 2011. Pringle won the George Polk Award in 2008, the same year the Society of Professional Journalists of Greater Los Angeles honored him as a distinguished journalist. Along with several colleagues, he shared in Harvard University’s 2011 Worth Bingham Prize for Investigative Reporting. Pringle and a Times colleague won the California Newspaper Publishers Association’s Freedom of Information Award in 2014 and the University of Florida’s Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Award in 2015. Pringle lives in Glendale, California.

Photo by Joanna Pringle.