Tag Archives: Mystery/Thriller

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The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Here’s the thing. Obviously scary things don’t scare me. I can watch horror movies and not really flinch. In order to have me freaked out, things can’t be obvious.

The Evolution of Mara Dyer had me freaked out. Mara isn’t the most reliable of narrators, even though I knew she wasn’t crazy. She’s still a little bit unstable at times. And I loved that. It makes everything just a little bit unknown. I knew she was telling the truth, but I also knew she didn’t know the whole truth. When things in the novel started to change, I was getting freaked out.

In The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, I felt like the balance between paranormal and romance was off. There was too much romance and not enough paranormal. The Evolution of Mara Dyer found the balance. There’s enough of Noah Shaw being romantic to keep me swooning and smiling, but there was more than enough paranormal to keep me turning page after page.

Noah Shaw was another issue I had with Unbecoming. He was too perfect. Tall, British, rich…it was just a little too much. His perfect exterior started to crack, though, in Evolution. He’s still the same tall, British, rich boy, but his imperfections are starting to break through. They are making me love him a little bit more each time I see one.

Mara. I like her. She does what she has to in order to keep fighting. She doesn’t wait for the guy to swoop in and save her. She knows when to take things on herself and when she needs help, but she does things for herself. She may not always trust what she sees or hears, but she trusts herself to do what she needs to. I wish there had been a bit more explanation of her powers and what in the world is going on, but I get why that wasn’t in this book. And I can’t wait to read it in the next one.

After being a little let down with The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, I didn’t want to expect too much out of The Evolution of Mara Dyer. Hodkin wrote a book I was not expecting, even a little bit. It has that creep factor that had me on edge. It has that sweet teen romance that makes me smile. It has everything I like to read in a book and then just a little more. I’m riveted and after the ending of The Evolution of Mara Dyer, I need 2013 and The Retribution of Mara Dyer to get here now.

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Blink Once by Cylin Busby

This book was both predictable and completely unpredictable. I knew what was coming before I even started reading, and yet I was completely shocked by how much I love this story anyway.

West wakes up, unable to talk, to move, to breathe on his own. He knows he’s in the hospital, but he doesn’t know why or how he got there. And then he meets Olivia.

Olivia understands what he’s thinking, and becomes West’s best friend. Eventually, they start to fall in love with each other. But then things get difficult between the two and where there hadn’t been a wall before, now they can’t get around it to see each other.

Blink Once follows the plot you think it will follow. But what you won’t realize when you start is how much it will pull you in and make you feel as you read it. Sure, I wasn’t flipping through pages anxiously, trying to figure out what the next plot twist was going to be, but that was okay. Not having to know what’s next left the door wide open for me to fall in love with this story, the characters, and their relationship.

If you are looking for a book that knows how to mix a complex enough plot, a love story, some mystery, and just a touch and heartache, then this is a book you need to read. It will grab you by the heart and not let go until the final word.

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Beautiful Lies by Jessica Warman

Beautiful Lies sounded like a book that was right up my alley. Plus, Warman is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. There’s something about the way she writes a real story, one that doesn’t always have a happy ending, that draws me in, even though I always have a feeling my heart is going to be crushed several times as I read.

As a narrator, the main character is completely unreliable. And yet I believed every single word she said. I knew as I was reading that something wasn’t quite right with how she was viewing the world, and I still went along completely with her. She’s so unreliable as a narrator, that she becomes reliable. My heart was aching through the entire book, wanting to make things better for her, to tell her what was going on, to help her.

The plot of this novel had me guessing with every turn of the page. I never knew what was going to happen. I’d think I knew and suddenly there was another plot twist thrown in that had my head spinning is such a wonderful way. I wanted to figure the book out, I needed to, and that only propelled me to read faster and faster.

Beautiful Lies is a completely enthralling, entrancing novel that I couldn’t put down. If you like anything with a good mystery and suspense, read this book.

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The Unquiet by Jeannine Garsee

I do not scare easily. I can watch horror movies, ghost movies, ghost hunt shows…you name it and I don’t get scared. Reading The Unquiet had me scared. I jumped when the wind would come up, I jumped when a tree branch would hit the window and I jumped when I heard anything that sounded like footsteps outside my door.

The Unquiet is scary in a subtle way. It’s not an in your face ghost story, it’s more like a psychological thriller, and for a while, I wasn’t even sure if it was really a ghost story. Then, it got real. And I burrowed into my blankets with the hopes that they would be strong enough to keep out the ghost of the novel come to life. Little things would pop up that made me think and believe. By the end of the novel, I didn’t want to look around the room, fearful of what I’d see.

I think what made this book so intense was the reliability of Rinn as a narrator. She has a touch of unreliability because of her past, and yet you believe every single thing that happens. Soon, her voice is the only one that makes sense, even as she starts to question her own sanity. I started to feel as confused as Rinn and I was questioning my own thinking.

Garsee wrote a fantastic mystery ghost novel that had me afraid of the dark. The twist at the end was a wrench to the gut and I really cannot wait to see what comes next. This is definitely a book for anyone who likes ghost stories, but a word of warning–reading of this book is best done in broad daylight when you can see everything around you and nothing can sneak up to scare you.

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Between by Jessica Warman

I am in love with this book. It’s not a happy book and sometimes it got tough to read, but I love it. Warman created a murder mystery and layered it with an exploration of the different kinds of love people can have. It was intense and meaningful and I loved it.

Liz annoyed me at the beginning of the novel, but she was supposed to. She has everything she could need in life. An almost too perfect boyfriend, friends that love her, parents that just want to make her happy. The only major flaw in her perfect life is waking up on the morning of her 18th birthday as, basically, a ghost.

With the help of Alex Berg, the boy killed in a hit and run less than a year earlier, she gets pieces of her memory put back in place. She’s trying to figure out why she’s still around instead of passing on to wherever it is the dead are supposed to go. She watches her family grieve and her friends fall apart. The secrets that held everyone together start to come out and it’s easy to see that life isn’t always what it looks like on the surface. People aren’t black and white; you can’t judge a person’s character on only what one person sees. People are grey and sometimes you don’t see everything about them.

Alex is on his own journey in this afterlife. He spends time with Liz, helping her with her own discoveries before the truth comes out. I loved him as a character and he really helped Liz’s growth and even though we didn’t see much of his life; it was easy to see him grow as a person as well.

That was another thing Warman did wonderfully in this book. The characters don’t end up the same people they started as. They change and grow. Each one has flaws and strengths. It’s so refreshing to see a book where even the minor characters are people. It made the book even more enjoyable for me.

This book was fantastic and such a wonderful journey to be taken on. So much happened in this book, but it was never too fast or too slow. This is definitely a book people need to read. It will make you think in such a wonderful way.

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The Sausage Maker’s Daughters by A.G.S. Johnson

I’ve got a confession. I tend to judge books by their covers and titles more than I should. And when I first saw this book and its title, I wasn’t really interested. And then I read the description and I was a little interested, but my initial judgment of its cover still clouded my vision a bit.

However, the more I read, the more I loved. Kip is a wonderful character that grows throughout the entire novel and starts out a strong character, and ends an even stronger one. My favorite part about this growth is that is it done by showing Kip’s faults and weaknesses, rather than how she excels in her life. She’s exposed and put out there and by being able to see her own faults, she becomes the strong person she needs to be.

Along that same vein, even though I loathed some of the characters (namely big sister Sybel); they were some of the best written characters I’ve seen. That’s probably why I felt such strong reactions towards them. Even Sybel, while still horrible for what she did to Kip growing up, was still a person. She had strengths and faults and even though it was hard for me to find a sliver of something other than disdain for her, it’s a testament to how well Johnson wrote these people.

I’m not usually a fan of books that involve courtrooms, simply because I can find it difficult to follow and understand. Johnson was able to wrote a courtroom that seemed incredibly realistic, and yet easy to understand. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy read, though. I was focused on this book and nothing else. I didn’t want to miss out on anything by skimming.

This is such an interesting and engaging book and people need to read it. It might not look it from the cover, but it will suck you in and won’t let you go until long after you’ve finished.

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Trial of Tears by Chris Semal

This isn’t the type of book I’m usually drawn to, but I’m so glad I got the opportunity to read it. The writing is excellent and I never felt like there was a dull moment. Something I especially enjoyed was the banter Semal wrote. I love when a book’s dialogue comes across as completely believable and not forced at all. It’s wonderful to read and I found myself laughing along as I read.

The story is written from a few different perspectives and they appear to not have much in common at the beginning, but slowly throughout the novel the character’s lives begin to weave together until the very end. I loved spending time thinking about how these characters were related and tried to figure it all out, but in the end, I wasn’t that close on most of my theories.

I really wish there was more on Alice. I found her character fascinating and would really like to know more of her back story. In order to have such a unique person, she had to have been through some really interesting stuff. I also wish there had been a bit more concerning the music industry instead of some of the more graphic mob scenes.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and found it incredibly hard to put down. It’s not a book for everyone, but for those people that enjoy something in the style of Tarintino, it’s a perfect read.

I was given the opportunity to read this through JKS Communications. Please click below for more info on this book.

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Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

I’m having a hard time coming up with the words I need to describe this book. I loved Never Knowing and was excited to start Still Missing. I’m not sure what I was expecting when I started read it, but I certainly wasn’t prepared for what I went through reading this book.

I love the way Stevens wrote this book as a set of flashbacks, each “chapter” book ended by Annie’s therapy sessions. I think the reason I love it so much is because it makes this a story about Annie and how she deals with the world after this horrible things happens to her.

The one line from the book that really stuck out to me was, “I just wonder why nobody cares much about the after—just about the story. Guess they figure it stops there. I wish.”

It’s one thing to write a moving story about the “during,” but to tackle a novel about the after really got to me. Yes, Annie’s depictions of what happened to her in the cabin were horrible, and there were times I had to stop reading for a little while. But what really made me feel for Annie was her struggle to return to something normal, her fights to eat whenever she pleased, or to sleep on a bed instead of in the closet.

Annie fought in one way to stay alive when she was in captivity, but she was fighting a completely different fight when she returned to her life. That is what made me love this book. Everything is out there and it’s raw and while I have never been through anything Annie went through, I felt a little bit of her pain.

The last line of this book made me cry more than I thought a book could make me cry. This is a book that has made me think and feel and I will tell anyone who will listen to read this book.

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Dark Lake: An Allie Armington Mystery by Louise Gaylord

This was the first of the Allie Armington books I’ve read, and it definitely drew me in right away. The action was very well paced and I really enjoyed the characters. They had a bit of a Nancy Drew feel, but with a much more adult and realistic feel to it.

There were a few loose ends that I’m left wondering about, but I’m wondering if, because this is part of a series, those questions will be answered in a later book. Along the same vein of being just one in a series, having little pieces of her history pop up that are never fully explained, was just a little distracting. Maybe those little tidbits are explained in the previous books, but I was a little thrown off pace when they would creep up.

The characters are all very well developed and unique. While some characters might have the same general tones, their individual personalities are all very different and interesting to read about.

Overall, this was a fantastic book and a gripping mystery that had me guessing until the very end. I will definitely recommend this book to any mystery lovers I know.

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God’s Eye by A.J. Scudiere

I was a little worried when I started reading this book that it would be more on the religious side of looking at good vs. evil and angels and demons. I was happily surprised that this couldn’t have been further from the truth. This was a fantastic look into a woman growing into her own life and how things can be deceptive on the surface.

Katharine lives under the shadow of her family’s wealth. She does what is expected of her without much questioning and lives the life someone else has planned for her. By the end of the novel, she is a strong woman, taking charge of her life and doing things her way. The progression between the two personalities was amazingly well written and seamless. It wasn’t some moment of clarity that didn’t fit with the rest of the novel. Bits and pieces fell into place so that by the time the climax of the book hit, it all made sense.

Margot was perfect as a friend for Katharine. She’s strong and smart and doesn’t turn away from Katharine when she needs someone more, even though she would have every right to turn away and let Katharine handle her problems on her own.

As for the rest of the story, I loved how Scudiere took a pretty common idea, the battle between good and evil, and looked at it in a new way. She really made me think about the differences between the two and how something might seem like it is good and wonderful, but the end result may be just the opposite. It wasn’t thrown in my face, but it was slowly introduced through the character’s actions and words.

The ending of this book was powerful and just like it should be. Everything in the novel led up to one moment and the way Scudiere write the ending couldn’t have been more perfect. It’s empowering and just what a person wants when they read something like this.

I loved this book and am so happy I was able to read it.