Category: mystery

Book Review: Beautiful Ugly

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney is a 320-page thriller set on the Isle of Amberly, a tiny Scottish island. Author Grady Green has everything he wants in life when his newest book makes the bestsellers list, and he just wants to celebrate the milestone with his beautiful wife Abby. He calls her to share the exciting news as she’s driving home, but then he hears Abby…
Book Review: The Last Thing He Told Me

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave is a 307-page thriller mystery novel. This is the blurb from the publisher: Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers—Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who…
Book Review: The Honeys

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! The Honeys by Ryan La Sala is a 344-page Young Adult horror novel. Mars has always been the shadow to his twin sister Caroline’s radiance. However, when Caroline dies under horrific circumstances, Mars must learn all he can about his once-inseparable sister who’d grown distant in the months leading up to her death. Mars’s genderfluidity means he’s often excluded from the traditions and expectations of his…
Book Review: Assistant to the Villian

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer is a 342-page fantasy novel and the first book in the series by the same name. Evie Sage is in a predicament with her being the sole provider for her younger sister and ailing father. When she is between jobs, she encounters Rennedawn’s infamous Villain, resulting in a job offer to be his assistant, which naturally she takes.…
Book Review: Improbably Yours

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! Improbably Yours by Kerry Anne King is a 345-page mystery novel with a romantic element as well. Blythe Harmon finds herself with a high-powered job and a marriage proposal that she feels she can’t say no to in order to have a “successful” life. However, she doesn’t feel fulfilled by these situations, and she receives a treasure hunt from her late grandmother Nomi, offering an escape…
Book Review: The Coincidence Makers

This post contains mild spoilers. The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum is a 304-page magical realism novel where the Coincidence Makers—Guy, Emily, and Eric—work for a secret organization dedicated to creating and carrying out coincidences. They pretend to be ordinary people, but each have a notebook with assignments to orchestrate events designed to spark significant changes in the lives of their targets. Any coincidence people have ever had was thanks to people like them, who seem to be borderline angels or other supernatural entities. I adored this book; it was such a cute story and a unique idea. It’s hard…
Book Review: The Lost Apothecary

This post contains spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner is a 301-page historical fiction/mystery novel. The story is about a female apothecary who secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from men who have wronged them. She has two rules: 1. The poison must never be used to harm another woman and 2. The names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in the apothecary’s register. The story…
Book Review: She’s Not Sorry

This post contains major spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! She’s Not Sorry by Mary Kubica is 330-page mystery thriller. Meghan Michaels is a full-time nurse in the ICU, juggling her job with being a single mom to a teenage daughter. A patient named Caitlin arrives in a coma with a traumatic brain injury from jumping off a bridge and landing twenty feet below on the train tracks. It looks like attempted suicide to everyone,…
Book Review: The Woman in the Library

This post contains mild spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill is a 292-page mystery novel set in the Boston Public Library. The library is quiet until it’s shattered by a woman’s piercing scream. Security guards tell everyone to stay put until they investigate the origins of the scream. While waiting, four strangers who happened to sit at the same table pass the time with conversation. Each has…
Book Review: The Guest List

This post contains mild spoilers. This post also contains affiliate links. If you buy through Bookshop.org, I may earn a small commission—at no extra cost to you. Thanks for supporting the blog and indie bookstores! The Guest List by Lucy Foley is a 319-page locked-room murder mystery that takes place on a small island off the coast of Ireland. The story centers around the wedding of Julia (Jules) Keegan, publisher of a popular online magazine called The Download, and Will Slater, rising TV star for Survive the Night. What should be a happy celebration turns dark when a body is…