Review: Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew J. Sullivan

★★★

Scribner | 2017

Filed Under: Gonna need to go to the bookstore for a boost of serotonin after reading this.

I went into this book pretty blind. I wasn’t totally sure what it was about. Maybe a bookstore called Bright Ideas? Something to do with suicide? But it kept popping up on my feed, and when a mystery novel has “bookstore” right in the title, how can a genre-lover like me resist? Plus, that cover! Come on!

It’s not often that I go into a book without a clear idea of what I’m about to read. I can be pretty particular in my reading criteria, so I’m not necessarily good at the whole “Oh, just surprise me!” thing. My personal levels of neurosis start to kick in when I hear words like go with the flow or spontaneity.

This novel starts immediately. No dicking around. I was pretty hopeful that meant I was buckling in for a cozy little thriller with a side of darkness.

Bookseller Lydia is closing up shop at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. She goes to look for regular “BookFrog” Joseph Molina, who hasn’t left the store yet. She finds him hanging. Suicide. She can’t figure out why Joseph would choose to commit suicide in her shop. But even more curious is why he died with a picture from her 10th birthday party in his pocket. The mystery becomes too much to ignore when she inherits Joseph’s belongings and finds coded messages directed to her inside his books.

Lydia’s attempt to unravel the mystery of just what was going on with Joseph leading up to his death, and what the hell she has to do with it, forces her to reexamine a tragedy from her childhood — a household massacre that only she survived.

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Review: The Walls by Hollie Overton

“Love blinds us all…”

★★★

Century | 2017

Filed Under: Had a point but lost it halfway through.

I’m on the fence about this one.

It feels like it doesn’t know what it wants to be — a domestic thriller? A contemporary drama?

It touches on a lot of heavy subjects — domestic abuse, the justice system, the morality of the death penalty, wrongful convictions, motherhood and family, and guilt and self-preservation. But it lacks meaningful analysis of all of those things, so it ends up feeling shallow and gimmicky. And it’s missing the suspense and sinister atmosphere to be a thriller. Ultimately, it leaves a lot of things exposed, but unexamined.

For a story about a single mother who has to plan a murder in order to save her family from her abusive new husband, this was exceptionally slow and, at times, straight-up boring.

The first 40% is all build-up, focusing on the story of Kristy and Lance — how they met, following the progression of their relationship from dating to marriage. I was not expecting this much emphasis on the romantic element. I experienced a cloud of confusion lingering around my reading experience. I kept thinking, do I keep reading this? I didn’t want to read a romance? Is anything going to fucking happen?!

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Review: Tideline by Penny Hancock

★

Plume | 2012

Alternate Title: Kept in the Dark

Ugh, what the fuck did I just read?

This missed the mark on being a psychological thriller in a big way – it’s basically borderline pedophilia fiction.

*shivers*

I just can’t EVEN with this shit.

I was so uncomfortable my entire reading time, beginning to end. I’m still uncomfortable thinking about it to write this review.

A quick synopsis: Middle-aged Sonia – unhappily married with a grown daughter – plies 15-year-old Jez with drugs and alcohol in order to make him compliant so she can hold him captive in her home, because he reminds her of her first real love, Seb, who died when they were teens ( and also another thing that I won’t spoil, but really, it’s disgusting. I won’t say it, but you probably know somewhere deep down what I want to say. I won’t say it. But I’m saying it without saying it. Like telepathically. You get it.)

So, you know…gross.

Sonia gave me the worst case of heebie-jeebies I’ve ever had. She 👏 is 👏 so 👏 fucked 👏 up.

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Review: LoveMurder (Valerie Hart, #2) by Saul Black

★★★★

Orion | 2017

Filed Under: Hannibal Lecter’s psychotic sister.

I’m not the religious type, but give me a book like this and I suddenly start worshiping the Gods of Literature. You know – Stephen King, Agatha Christie and… I don’t know, who else do you guys like? Ugh, whatever.

Six years ago Katherine Glass abducted, heinously tortured and killed young women all over San Francisco until Det. Valerie Hart caught her and put her away for life. *cue the sound of prison gates slamming shut*

But Katherine didn’t commit her crimes alone, and her partner — The Masked Man, who is probably even more deranged than Katherine — was never caught.

Now, the murders have started again. The Masked Man is back on his bullshit. Left with each body is an envelope addressed to Valerie containing complicated clues and ciphers that will point the police to the next victim. Figure out the puzzle fast enough, save a life. But only Katherine Glass has the personal insight to decode the Masked Man’s clues, forcing Valerie to work with a killer.

Katherine promises she only wants to help – she’s never forgiven the Masked Man for leaving her high and dry. She just wants time out of her cell, maybe some mental stimulation. But can Katherine really be trusted? (I mean, obviously, the answer is “probably not”, but let’s just go with it.)

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My Top Five Favourite Villains in Crime Fiction

Omigod, you guys, it’s Friday! I can’t believe I made it. Honestly, I almost fell asleep at work numerous times. Anyone else feel like this week dragged on foreverrrr?

Whatever, now IT’S FRIDAY!!! As if I’m going to party or something. No. You should know me better than that by now. I went to the Foo Fighters concert last Thursday and it took a LITERAL WEEK for me to recover from being up until 3:30 in the morning. That is not even a joke. I wish it were.

Welcome to your 30s.

Even if I did have a quicker recovery time like I used to, I’m an introvert. I don’t want to party. Ugh, what a nightmare!

busy bel powley GIF by Carrie Pilby The Movie

A blissful Friday to me looks more like laying in bed, eating cheese and crackers and not worrying about how late I read or watch TV because I don’t have to be up for work the next day.

Paradise.

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Review: Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

“People turned a blind eye, though, didn’t they? No one liked to think about the fact that the water in that river was infected with the blood and bile of persecuted women, unhappy women; they drank it every day.”

★★★½

Riverhead Books | 2017

Filed Under: Troublesome women for the win.

My favourite book of 2016 was The Girl on the Train. And yes, I know that’s such a cliché thing to say in starting this review. And it’s such a shit thing to do — to compare these novels. It’s not like I want to compare them. I’m trying really hard not to, but I read this novel because I wanted to consume The Girl on the Train in order to have it inside of me, I LOVED IT SO MUCH (shit movie though.)

So, honestly, I’m going to try to divorce myself as best I can from my previous experience with Paula Hawkins, and just focus on the merits of this novel as a standalone piece of fiction.

That said, I did like this. But I didn’t LOVE IT.

Quick synopsis: Small UK town. Nel Abbott is writing a novel about the many deaths in a local river nicknamed The Drowning Pool. Then Nel dies in The Drowning Pool. Was it suicide or murder?

“Beckford is not a suicide spot. Beckford is a place to get rid of troublesome women.”

I got off to a shaky start with this because of the sheer volume of characters and changing POVs. I think there are 10 different voices, as well as excerpts from Nel’s manuscript that are essentially quick POVs of each of the women who have died in The Drowning Pool. Bringing the grand total up to 14 voices (if I’ve not forgotten anyone.)

I settled in about 50% of the way through, finally getting a handle on whom each character was and why their POV was important. There wasn’t a single time I thought a character’s chapter was useless, but I still have to question whether there was a way to write this novel by cutting some of them out? Just to un-muddy the waters, no pun intended.

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Review: All the Beautiful Lies by Peter Swanson

“People hate to see other people happy. Remember that.”

★★½

William Morrow | 2017

Filed Under: Wears polo shirts for the fashion, and eats oatmeal because he thinks it tastes good.

For someone who has never read Peter Swanson before and casually likes to pick up a psychological thriller every now and again, this book will probably seem like a win.

But for someone (ya girl) who has read Peter Swanson before and been blown away but how he weaves a story, and also spends a lot of her time reading this particular genre, All The Beautiful Lies was a big ol’ *fart noises* letdown.

I’m coming away from the reading experience wondering, “what was the point of this?” To be thrilling? To be thought-provoking? To be emotionally stirring? To be a commentary on inappropriate relationships?

It seemed to have aspirations to be all of those things, but the execution was sub-par, leaving the ideas underdeveloped and abandoned on the page.

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Review: And The Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich

“Rotting in your skin, rotting in your mind. You are rotting in this house. In this house you’ll die.”

★★★★

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers | 2016

Filed Under: Stay out of the forest.

This book is a love story between sisters. It’s a love story about a boy who can’t love. It’s a story about a teenage girl trying to decide what decisions are best while carrying guilt and confusion and stumbling through her reality, unsure and uneasy.

But mostly it’s creepy AF.

Silla Daniels, and her mute sister Nori, arrive at their aunt’s decrepit mansion, La Baume, after having escaped their abusive father. They are looking for peace, for a place to call home, and they have pessimistic hopes that La Baume will be that for them.

But, you know, it’s not.

Because something is off. Their aunt is odd. The house makes noises that fill Silla with dread. And the woods surrounding the property seem to be moving closer to the house; woods where something dangerous lurks, something that won’t let them leave. Could it be the Creeper Man?

As the food supply runs dangerously low, Silla starts to lose her mind. Because at La Baume, nothing is what it seems.

“He’s out there,” I say, turning back to the window. “Always watching. Getting stronger.”

I read this on audio, and I have to say it’s probably the most interesting, engaging, well-done audiobook I’ve ever listened to. I almost felt like I was back in the days when there was no TV and families gathered around the radio to listen to shows. The narration was beautiful and bold, and the production value filled my ears with so much tangible setting that I felt like I was there, an unseen observer.

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Female Sleuths You Need To Know! (Other Than Nancy Drew)

Most of us ladies who are obsessed with crime fiction, likely got our start reading Nancy Drew when we were young girls in pigtails; young girls who didn’t really want to play the games our friends were playing. We liked puzzles and being observant and maybe kids thought we were weird or awkward. We watched Goonies and Ghost Writer and read The Babysitters Club. We wanted to go on a mystery adventure and solve a crime!

So we played at being Nancy Drew with our Sailor Moon “casebooks,” watching from our windows and writing down the neighbours’ activities as if we were going to catch them doing something sinister, like rolling a body into a carpet.

calm down bruce campbell GIF by Ash vs Evil Dead

And as we got older, we moved on to more adult crime fiction mysteries but always gravitated towards Nancy-like characters – Veronica Mars, Olivia Benson, Clarice Starling. Because Nancy had taught us it was okay to be into what we were into. We’ve never forgotten Nancy even though we have grown up. She’s frequently cited as an inspiration by writers and readers alike. I, myself, have been working on a collection of her books for a few years, picking them up from antique markets and used books stores. (Only the ones originally published by Dunlap & Grosset, thank you.)

But let’s be real for a moment – in hindsight, Nancy was kind of tame. A true basic bitch. She was rich and white and polite, doing her sleuthing in sweet collared dresses and Mary-Jane pumps with a perfectly coiffed flipped bob. Of course, the series started in the 1930s, so what do you expect? There wasn’t really any room for Nancy to change societal norms drastically, nor was there a market for it.

Really, if you go back to those original books, you’ll find them to be racist and anti-feminist in a lot of their elements. Again, what do you expect from the time? Context is everything.

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Review: In A Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware

“It was growing dark, and somehow the shadows made it feel as if all the trees had taken a collective step towards the house, edging in to shut out the sky.”

★★★

Gallery/Scout Press | 2016

Filed Under: The first time Reese Witherspoon lied to me.

This is an atmospheric oddball suspense mystery novel that I liked, and at the same time, I fucking hated? Like I’m so torn. Save me.

Here’s the problem. The main protagonist, Nora, is a fucking loser. I’m just going to put it out there. She’s a loser.

She’s 26 years old and still pining away for the boyfriend she had when she was 16. That’s weird to me. Ok, sure, it was a messy breakup, he broke her heart into a million tiny teenage girl-shaped pieces and she never got closure. But how does someone never move on, like at all? Has she ever had sex with someone else? Gone on a date? It’s just so pathetic to me.

How many grown-ass women are out there decidedly becoming Bridget Jones-esque spinsters because their high school sweetheart peaced out during a difficult time in their life? SHOW OF HANDS PLEASE. I won’t judge, despite what this review might suggest. I just need a headcount and to tell you to get over it. Find a man (not a boy) that knows how to work a G-spot and make you dinner, and you’ll be over that high school flake in no time. Goddammit, NORA!