Recent Reads

                              

When The Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy

Synopsis - One night, Jess, a struggling actress, finds a five-year-old runaway hiding in the bushes outside her apartment. After a violent, bloody encounter with the boy's father, she and the boy find themselves running for their lives.
As they attempt to evade the boy's increasingly desperate father, Jess slowly comes to a horrifying understanding of the butchery that follows them―the boy can turn his every fear into reality.
And when the wolf finally comes home, no one will be spared.

Thoughts - I don't generally read horror. So I was a little apprehensive picking this up. I listened to the audio and at the beginning in the author's note the author warned against numerous triggers and my apprehension increased. I thought I'd listen to a bit and see how it goes and I'll just stop if it becomes too much. This book was A LOT! But I still enjoyed it. The audio was amazing. The narrator Helen Laser, who also narrated The Wedding People was superb. The story was wild, extremely gruesome and just so heartbreaking. The ending was a bit interpret it as you like which I don't love but I you like horror then this one's for you. If you do read it read the authors note at the end. It was very good. 

Look Closer by David Ellis

Synopsis - Simon and Vicky couldn't seem more a wealthy Chicago couple with a stable, if unexciting, marriage. But with these two... absolutely nothing is what it seems. When a beautiful socialite is found hanging in a mansion in a nearby suburb, Simon and Vicky's complex web of secrets begins to unravel. A whirlwind affair. A twenty-million-dollar trust fund about to come due. A decades-long grudge and an obsession with revenge. Both Vicky and Simon are liars--but just who exactly is conning who? Prepare to question everything you think you know in this wickedly clever novel of greed, revenge, obsession--and quite possibly the perfect murder.

Thoughts - This was a very clever story. I did not see most of it coming. It's easier to right gory and violence but smart is hard and this was very smart. 

The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

Synopsis - On a beautiful summer night in a charming English suburb, a young woman and her boyfriend disappear after partying at the massive country estate of a new college friend.
One year later, a writer moves into a cottage on the edge of the woods that border the same estate. Known locally as the Dark Place, the dense forest is the writer’s favorite area for long walks and it’s on one such walk that she stumbles upon a mysterious note that simply reads, “DIG HERE.”
Could this be a clue towards what has happened to the missing young couple? And what exactly is buried in this haunted ground?

Thoughts - This was my second Lisa Jewell book. I did not love her first so I went in with mixed expectations. It was better than 'Then She Was Gone.' It had a few good twists. The story jumped around to a year ago and present day. Nothing wrong with the book but I may forget about it in a couple of months. I may pick up another Jewel book though. 

Monsters of Verity series by Victoria Schwab

Synopsis - There’s no such thing as safe in a city at war, a city overrun with monsters. A young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains, friends or enemies, with the future of their home at stake. The first of two books.
Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city, a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent, but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.

Thoughts - I think I need a Schwab break. This is my third Schwab series. I very much enjoyed Shades of Magic. I am growing to enjoy the Villains series.. final book coming out later this year. But this one, I unfortunately had to DNF the second book in the duology. It was maybe too YA for me. The stakes didn't seem high enough. I was being told it was life and death, the monsters were scary and dangerous but I did not feel the peril. Life happened and I was unable to pick up the book for several days and then when I finally did have the chance I just didn't feel like it. 

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