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The Winter Sister by Megan Collins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Much of Sylvie’s adolescent and adult life is defined by the shocking murder of her older sister Persephone when they were teenagers. The crime plunged Sylvie’s mother into abject alcoholism and propelled Sylvie to flee her hometown and never look back. Now 30, she returns to care for her cancer-ridden mother, and almost immediately crosses paths with Ben Emory, who was Persephone’s boyfriend, and in the family’s opinion, the prime suspect at the time of her death. This run-in stirs up old frustrations and anger within Sylvie over the lack of answers, resolution, and retribution for Persephone’s death. There were a lot of things to like about this book — the mystery was compelling enough. It’s unfortunate that Persephone was the most interesting character of all in that she was no longer around to bring some life to the rest of the cast; Sylvie, as a narrator, wasn’t very interesting, or analytical enough to on her own drive the central whodunnit plot. And her mother was downright awful — kind of a chemo-thrashed Mrs. Havisham with an added undercurrent of nastiness. Anyway, if you like mysteries, this would suffice for a vacation read.



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Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Another riveting page-turner from Michael Robotham; I’m really a fan of the clipped and stripped-down tone of his storytelling; it brings a kind of spare and forlorn feeling, a loneliness, that works well amid the harsh circumstances and tragedies that are the backdrops to his narratives. This novel really contains two parallel stories that eventually intersect more obviously. First, our antihero is Cyrus Haven, a solitary psychologist with his own tragic backstory. We briefly met him in one of Robotham’s other novels. This book launches his own series.

Cyrus is asked to help learn more about Evie. Evie is maybe 18, and has been a ward of England in a high-security facility since she was discovered several years earlier, malnourished and abused and living in the secret room of an old house, where a man’s corpse was fund decomposing after a torturous death. She has refused to tell anyone her name, her birthday, who her parents are, where she is from — but she insists she is 18 and she wants to be set free. Caregivers are concerned she’s a danger to herself and others due to her suppressed trauma and occasional violent outbursts.

Meanwhile, Cyrus is called to support a murder investigation: a body is found of a teenage girl, an up-and-coming figure skater. She’s apparently been sexually assaulted, her body partially covered with foliage on a dark footpath. What was she doing out, alone, at night? At first glance, she’s a blameless, high-performing and disciplined athlete. But there’s more here than meets the eye.

As Cyrus tries to connect with Evie and learn the truth about the murder, this book raises questions of how damaging it can be to apply assumptions to the people around us, the danger of filling in blanks and how quickly that can lead to misunderstanding, and desperate things people will do and suffer to protect people they love. It’s a story in itself but leaves just enough on the table for the next Cyrus book. Can’t wait!



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The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This was a page-turner! And the slow-burn reveals of deceptions and inner demons were so wonderfully peeled away that I hesitate to say too much about the plot, so I’ll keep it simple: what we know when the book begins is the two alternating narrators, Agatha and Meg, are both pregnant. Agatha’s baby’s father is in the Navy and deployed; Meg seems to have an ideal life, married to an up-and-coming sports broadcaster with two young children and a lovely home. The initial pages suggest they are friends: Agatha, from within the grocery where she is employed, and pregnant, watches Meg through the glass. She knows Meg’s name. She knows she’s come from yoga. She knows the names of Meg’s children. But Agatha doesn’t actually know her, we quickly learn. How has she come to learn so much about her, how and why will their lives cross and crash together, and what are the secrets hinted at by the title of this London-set thriller? Read it and find out! I burned through this book, and thoroughly enjoyed it!



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In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Nora, a somewhat solitary London writer in her mid-20s, is surprised to receive an invitation to a hen do (bachelorette party) for her old high school friend Claire; she hasn’t seen Claire for 10 years, because Nora — for some mysterious reason not disclosed for some time, so be patient — up and abandoned her teenage life after something went horribly wrong with her first and true love, James. Mutual friend Nina is attending the hen, and after she reaches out to Nora, Nora decides to go too. The “party” isn’t quite what either imagined; they arrive at an isolated ultra modern glass house surrounded by forrest, not a cell phone tower in site. The only other hen guests are Claire, her obsessively supportive and emotional college pal Flo, playwright Tom, and new mom Melanie, who leaves soon after finding out the lack of reception will isolate her from her back-home hubbie and infant. Soon after arrival, Nora learns Claire asked her here because she wanted to tell her in person, she’s marrying James. This admission launches a downward spiral of a weekend that sides from uncomfortable to super creepy to downright deadly as one unlucky soul ends up dead. Whodunnit, and why? A satisfying page-turner.



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Say You’re Sorry by Michael Robotham

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A whirlwind page-turner with last pages that literally had my holding my breath! It’s been a while since I read a good mystery and this one did not disappoint. I understand it is the sixth novel by the author with core character Joseph O’Loughlin, a British psychologist often called upon the help crack crimes by the most sinister and intellectually complex criminals. This book had a thrilling plot: three years ago, two teenage girls vanished from a village outside of Oxford, never to be seen again, presumed by many to have run off to London, despite assertions from loved ones that this was highly improbable. In present day, a couple is brutally killed at a home where one of the girls, Tash, once lived; and after three years vanished, Tash herself is found a mile away, dead and frozen beneath the surface of a pond. Could the other girl, Piper, still be alive? Where as Tash been all this time? How did she die, and who killed the farmhouse couple? A fast, smart, exciting book. I can’t wait to read more Robotham!



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Our Dark Duet by Victoria Schwab

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


An exciting sequel to “This Savage Song” finds familiar characters darkened by layers of trauma and complexity yet still striving in a fractured way toward a shared goal: safety, security, validation, and victory. So many YA stories are oversimplified romances whose plots drive toward romantic outcomes, and I love that this one is not, though there are great amounts of love in endless (and subtle) quantities. Schwab packs a tight one-two punch in her two “Monsters of Verity” books.



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<a href=”https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40642172-this-savage-song” style=”float: left; padding-right: 20px”><img border=”0″ alt=”This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity, #1)” src=”https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1529942103l/40642172._SX98_.jpg” /></a><a href=”https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40642172-this-savage-song”>This Savage Song</a> by <a href=”https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3099544.Victoria_Schwab”>Victoria Schwab</a><br/>

My rating: <a href=”https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3263371667″>4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />

Imaginative, dark tale about a future world where monsters live alongside humans, where humans are divided, and where two teens from each of the warring and ruling families find their lives collide and escalate into a struggle for survival and answers. I really liked the protagonists in this story; Kate is the daughter of Callum Harker, the corrupt mastermind who’s made a fortune off his people’s fears and his monsters’ loyalty; August is the son of Henry Flynn, the idealistic doctor who rules the other half of a mega-city called Verity. August is also a Sunai, a rare and powerful monster that is born out of great human suffering and tragedy and whose gift is the ability to steal sinners’ souls (and therefore their lives) with music. But what is a “monster,” and what does it mean to possess humanity? And in a tenuous world where peace remains a concept, what mysterious forces are poking and cutting at the fragile threads that are preventing another great war? First of two books. Excited to read No. 2!

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