Suspense

INVISIBLE GIRL by Lisa Jewell

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Ring the bells, everyone, because LISA JEWELL HAS WRITTEN A NEW BOOK AND IT’S AWESOME!

Lisa Jewell is an amazingly talented suspense writer, often focusing on families and usually taking place in England. I love her books, her plotting, her pacing, her characters.

This book is no exception!

Here’s the overview:

Description

“I absolutely loved Invisible Girl—Lisa Jewell has a way of combining furiously twisty, utterly gripping plots with wonderfully rich characterization—she has such compassion for her characters, and we feel we know them utterly… A triumph!” —Lucy Foley, New York Times bestselling author

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone returns with an intricate thriller about a young woman’s disappearance and a group of strangers whose lives intersect in its wake.

Owen Pick’s life is falling apart. In his thirties and living in his aunt’s spare bedroom, he has just been suspended from his job as a teacher after accusations of sexual misconduct—accusations he strongly denies. Searching for professional advice online, he is inadvertently sucked into the dark world of incel forums, where he meets a charismatic and mysterious figure.

Across the street from Owen lives the Fours family, headed by mom Cate, a physiotherapist, and dad Roan, a child psychologist. But the Fours family have a bad feeling about their neighbor Owen. He’s a bit creepy and their teenaged daughter swears he followed her home from the train station one night.

Meanwhile, young Saffyre Maddox spent three years as a patient of Roan Fours. Feeling abandoned when their therapy ends, she searches for other ways to maintain her connection with him, following him in the shadows and learning more than she wanted to know about Roan and his family. Then, on Valentine’s night, Saffyre disappears—and the last person to see her alive is Owen Pick.

With evocative, vivid, and unputdownable prose and plenty of disturbing twists and turns, Jewell’s latest thriller is another “haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read” (Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author).

I read this book straight through the day I got it from Net Galley (months ago) and I loved it!

Highly Recommended!! Thank you for my ARC kindle copy.

Access Point by Tom Gabbay

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Author Tom Gabbay sent me a mobi of his new thriller, Access Point. Mr. Gabbay is well-known for his Jack Teller spy series. This was an almost sci-fi story — about a woman accessing her dead roommate’s memories in order to solve her murder. Creepy and suspenseful, I couldn’t help but think how this kind of stuff could be possible within the next 10-20 years!

Here’s the overview:

Wouldn’t we all want a second chance at life?

When young American art student Mia Fraser is brutally murdered steps away from her London house she shares with computer genius Ula Mishkin, it leaves the socially inept scientist heartbroken. When it becomes clear that Detective Sarah Boyd is making no progress in solving the crime using traditional methods, Ula creates a software program that allows her to reach into her dead housemate’s memory in order to reveal the identity of the killer. Entering the dead girl’s life through the echo of her memory, Ula learns that sometimes the past is best left undisturbed.

This was super suspenseful! I liked it but will admit that I sometimes struggled to figure out whose mind I was in – real time or memory time – and the chronology of the story. Chapter headings would have helped me, and it’s possible they are in the final edition (I read an ARC).

Thanks for sending me your new read, Mr. Gabbay!

Recommended to those who like a suspenseful story that borders on science fiction.

Harlequin Summer Reads Tour for Stranger in the Lake by Kimberly Belle

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I’m thrilled to take part in the Harlequin Summer Reads tour with Stranger in the Lake by Kimberly Belle. This was a suspenseful read and just perfect for the summer!

Here’s the overview:


When Charlotte married the wealthy widower Paul, it caused a ripple of gossip in their small lakeside town. They have a charmed life together, despite the cruel whispers about her humble past and his first marriage. But everything starts to unravel when she discovers a young
woman’s body floating in the exact same spot where Paul’s first wife tragically drowned.
At first, it seems like a horrific coincidence, but the stranger in the lake is no stranger. Charlotte saw Paul talking to her the day before, even though Paul tells the police he’s never met the woman. His lie exposes cracks in their fragile new marriage, cracks Charlotte is determined to keep from breaking them in two.
As Charlotte uncovers dark mysteries about the man she married, she doesn’t know what to trust—her heart, which knows Paul to be a good man, or her growing suspicion that there’s something he’s hiding in the water.

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Me again! If you follow me, you know I love a good, suspenseful read and I’m always particularly excited if I don’t “figure it all out” in the first half of the book! I did not figure this one out early and I enjoyed Ms. Belle’s writing, pacing, and plot-line.

Highly recommended for a fast, suspenseful read that is great for poolside!

Thank you for my review copy and for making me part of the tour!

About the Author:
Kimberly Belle is the USA Today and internationally bestselling author of six novels, including the forthcoming Stranger in the Lake (June 2020). Her third novel, The Marriage Lie, was a semifinalist in the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Mystery & Thriller, and a #1 e-book
bestseller in the UK and Italy. She’s sold rights to her books in a dozen languages as well as film and television options. A graduate of Agnes Scott College, Belle divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam.

From the Tour (please note that purchasing links are NOT affiliated with BBNB but have been sent from Harlequin):

Social Links:
Author website: https://www.kimberlybellebooks.com/
Facebook: @KimberlyBelleBooks
Twitter: @KimberlySBelle
Instagram: @kimberlysbelle
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/kimberlybelle

Buy Links:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07WNX6ZZS
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/stranger-in-the-lake-kimberly-
belle/1133065677
Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/books/stranger-in-the-lake-original/9780778309819?aid=0
IndieBound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780778309819
Books-A-Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Stranger-Lake/Kimberly-
Belle/9780778309819
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/stranger-in-the-lake
AppleBooks: https://books.apple.com/us/book/stranger-in-the-lake/id1477319023

Harlequin Blog Tour for: This Is How I Lied by Heather Gudenkauf

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I’m thrilled to be part of the blog tour for Heather Gudenkauf’s This Is How I Lied, a suspenseful mystery featuring police detective Maggie O’Keefe (I hope it is the start of a series!).

This was a fast-moving and suspenseful read, focusing on the murder of Maggie’s best friend twenty years earlier.

Here’s the overview:

Description

Gudenkauf proves herself the master of the smart, suspenseful small-town thriller that gets right under your skin.” —Gilly Macmillan, New York Times bestselling author of The Nanny

Everyone has a secret they’ll do anything to hide…

Twenty-five years ago, the body of sixteen-year-old Eve Knox was found in the caves near her home in small-town Grotto, Iowa—discovered by her best friend, Maggie, and her sister, Nola. There were a handful of suspects, including her boyfriend, Nick, but without sufficient evidence the case ultimately went cold.

For decades Maggie was haunted by Eve’s death and that horrible night. Now a detective in Grotto, and seven months pregnant, she is thrust back into the past when a new piece of evidence surfaces and the case is reopened. As Maggie investigates and reexamines the clues, secrets about what really happened begin to emerge. But someone in town knows more than they’re letting on, and they’ll stop at nothing to keep the truth buried deep.

Check out these other riveting novels of suspense by bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf:

The Weight of Silence
These Things Hidden
One Breath Away
Little Mercies
Missing Pieces
Not a Sound
Before She Was Found

Me again!! I had not read any of Ms. Gudenkauf’s books before – I need to look them up! I recommend this one to mystery lovers, especially if you like a strong, female protagonist. The pacing was solid and the characters well-developed.

Thank you for making me part of the tour!

Author Bio:

Heather Gudenkauf is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of many books, including The Weight of Silence and These Things Hidden. Heather graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in elementary education, has spent her career working with students of all ages. She lives in Iowa with her husband, three children, and a very spoiled German Shorthaired Pointer named Lolo. In her free time, Heather enjoys spending time with her family, reading, hiking, and running.

Buy Links: (provided by Harlequin; NOT affiliated with BBNB)

Harlequin

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

Books-A-Million

Powell’s

Social Links:

Author Website

Twitter: @hgudenkauf

Instagram: @heathergudenkauf

Facebook: @HeatherGudenkaufAuthor

Goodreads

Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier

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I heard about this book when I was at my online bookclub with my friend Amy at her site – http://www.momadvice.com – and we were talking about Mary Kubica’s new book (The Other Mrs – reviewed here: https://drbethnolan.com/2020/04/05/the-other-mrs-by-mary-kubica/ ). Ms. Kubica said she had just read Little Secrets and it was very good so I got it from Net Galley (lucky me!).

What a read! It was suspenseful and thrilling and scary but not too graphic or disturbing. I don’t usually read things about missing children as it gives me nightmares, but this was okay for me. I feel that Ms. Hellier (new author to me) did such a great job in describing the main characters feelings and depression while she is caught in a horrific limbo of not knowing what happened to her child.

So glad I picked this one up! Thank you, St. Martin’s Press!

Here’s the overview:

Description

“Unflinching and unforgettable. Little Secrets has everything you want in a thriller” —Riley Sager, New York Times bestselling author of Lock Every Door

Overwhelmed by tragedy, a woman desperately tries to save her marriage in award-winning author Jennifer Hillier’s Little Secrets, a riveting novel of psychological suspense.

All it takes to unravel a life is one little secret…

Marin had the perfect life. Married to her college sweetheart, she owns a chain of upscale hair salons, and Derek runs his own company. They’re admired in their community and are a loving family—until their world falls apart the day their son Sebastian is taken.

A year later, Marin is a shadow of herself. The FBI search has gone cold. The publicity has faded. She and her husband rarely speak. She hires a P.I. to pick up where the police left off, but instead of finding Sebastian, she learns that Derek is having an affair with a younger woman. This discovery sparks Marin back to life. She’s lost her son; she’s not about to lose her husband, too. Kenzie is an enemy with a face, which means this is a problem Marin can fix.

Permanently.

The Final Deception by Heather Graham

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ABOUT THE BOOK:

When criminal psychologist Kieran Finnegan was released from her responsibility of counseling the brutal serial killer known as The Fireman, once he was incarcerated, she was relieved to escape the tendrils of his twisted inner world. The chill she received from her sessions with him has stayed with her despite trying to leave him in the past. And when her FBI agent boyfriend Craig is called to a gruesome crime scene that matches The Fireman’s MO, news begins to spread that he’s escaped from prison.

And he remembers Kieran…

Amid a citywide manhunt, Kieran and Craig need to untangle a web of deceit, privilege, and greed. They suspect that those closest to the killer have been drawn into his evil grasp, or else someone is using another man’s madness and cruelty to disguise their crimes. When their investigation brings the danger right to the doorstep of Kieran’s family-owned safe haven, Finnegan’s Pub, Kieran and Craig will have to be smarter and bolder than ever before, because this time it’s personal, and they have everything to lose.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Heather Graham has written more than a hundred novels. She’s a winner of the RWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Thriller Writers’ Silver Bullet. She is an active member of International Thriller Writers and Mystery Writers of America. For more information, check out her websites: TheOriginalHeatherGraham.com, eHeatherGraham.com, and HeatherGraham.tv. You can also find Heather on Facebook.

*********************************************

The kind folks at Harper Collins invited me to be part of their blog tour for Heather Graham’s latest mystery THE FINAL DECEPTION, and unfortunately I missed signing up in time, but here I am to tell you that this is a great book!

Heather Graham writes lots of really popular mysteries but I had not read many of hers and I hadn’t read the other books in this series. No worries — this title can be read as a stand alone and it’s fine if you haven’t read the other titles in this series. (This is New York Confidential Book 5).

I really enjoyed her fast-paced writing and the complexity of the story line. It was suspenseful but not overly scary/gruesome.

I looked up some info on Ms. Graham and found this bio on Amazon. What an interesting person!

Biography

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Heather Graham, majored in theater arts at the University of South Florida. After a stint of several years in dinner theater, back-up vocals, and bartending, she stayed home after the birth of her third child and began to write. Her first book was with Dell, and since then, she has written over two hundred novels and novellas including category, suspense, historical romance, vampire fiction, time travel, occult and Christmas family fare.

She is pleased to have been published in approximately twenty-five languages. She has written over 200 novels and has 60 million books in print. She has been honored with awards from booksellers and writers’ organizations for excellence in her work, and she is also proud to be a recipient of the Silver Bullet from Thriller Writers and was also awarded the prestigious Thriller Master in 2016. She is also a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from RWA. Heather has had books selected for the Doubleday Book Club and the Literary Guild, and has been quoted, interviewed, or featured in such publications as The Nation, Redbook, Mystery Book Club, People and USA Today and appeared on many newscasts including Today, Entertainment Tonight and local television.

Heather loves travel and anything that has to do with the water, and is a certified scuba diver. She also loves ballroom dancing. Each year she hosts the Vampire Ball and Dinner theater at the RT convention raising money for the Pediatric Aids Society and in 2006 she hosted the first Writers for New Orleans Workshop to benefit the stricken Gulf Region. She is also the founder of “The Slush Pile Players,” presenting something that’s “almost like entertainment” for various conferences and benefits. Married since high school graduation and the mother of five, her greatest love in life remains her family, but she also believes her career has been an incredible gift, and she is grateful every day to be doing something that she loves so very much for a living.

Thank you for sending me an ARC and offering me a place in the tour!

This book published on 3/31/20

Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen

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Description

In this sophisticated, suspenseful debut reminiscent of Laura Lippman and Chloe Benjamin, two young women become unlikely friends during one fateful summer in Atlantic City as mysterious disappearances hit dangerously close to home.

Summer has come to Atlantic City but the boardwalk is empty of tourists, the casino lights have dimmed, and two Jane Does are laid out in the marshland behind the Sunset Motel, just west of town. Only one person even knows they’re there.

Meanwhile, Clara, a young boardwalk psychic, struggles to attract clients for the tarot readings that pay her rent. When she begins to experience very real and disturbing visions, she suspects they could be related to the recent cases of women gone missing in town. When Clara meets Lily, an ex-Soho art gallery girl who is working at a desolate casino spa and reeling from a personal tragedy, she thinks Lily may be able to help her. But Lily has her own demons to face. If they can put the pieces together in time, they may save another lost girl—so long as their efforts don’t attract perilous attention first. Can they break the ill-fated cycle, or will they join the other victims?

Evocative, eerie, and compelling, Please See Us is a fast-paced psychological thriller that explores the intersection of womanhood, power, and violence.

You know I love my mysteries! This was a fast-paced and well-plotted one, focusing on a teen and another young woman in Atlantic City who cross paths and also cross paths with a serial killer. Lily is trying to regroup after a break up but “Clara” is the character that I really liked: a teenage girl who has been deserted by her mother and who makes her living by reading fortunes. She actually does seem to have some sort of “gift”, but is basically taking advantage of people. I liked the character development in this story and the ending as well.

Recommended if you like mysteries. Thank you, Gallery Books, for my ARC through Net Galley!

The Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica

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My good friend Amy runs an online book group through her site “Mom Advice” (look on Facebook for Mom Advice Book Group). She was having an author interview this past week with Mary Kubica. I loved her The Good Girl so I quickly got her new book The Other Mrs. and read it for the meeting!

Here’s the overview from Amazon:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Coming to Netflix!

“Altogether unpredictable.” —Karin Slaughter,New York Timesbestselling author

Propulsive and addictive, and perfect for fans of “You,” The Other Mrs.is the twisty new psychological thriller from Mary Kubica, the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl

Sadie and Will Foust have only just moved their family from bustling Chicago to small-town Maine when their neighbor Morgan Baines is found dead in her home. The murder rocks their tiny coastal island, but no one is more shaken than Sadie.

But it’s not just Morgan’s death that has Sadie on edge. And as the eyes of suspicion turn toward the new family in town, Sadie is drawn deeper into the mystery of what really happened that dark and deadly night. But Sadie must be careful, for the more she discovers about Mrs. Baines, the more she begins to realize just how much she has to lose if the truth ever comes to light.

“Brilliant!” —Liv Constantine, bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish

“Kubica’s best book yet.” —Sarah Pekkanen, #1 New York Timesbestselling co-author ofAn Anonymous Girl

Look for these other pulse-pounding thrillers by New York Times bestselling author Mary Kubica:
The Good Girl
Pretty Baby
Don’t You Cry
Every Last Lie
When the Lights Go Out

What a read!! I LOVE suspenseful books with twists that keep you guessing and this was one of them! I will admit that at 24% on my kindle, I had figured out what was going on with the main character, but I chalk that up to the fact that I have a lot of experience in the field of psychology. I was surprised at some of the other twists, and when Ms. Kubica was speaking with Amy, she said that she tries to put in several different twists so that if you figure out the main one, then you aren’t deflated for the rest of the book.

All the time she was speaking, I was impressed with how friendly and normal Mary Kubica seems. She lives in the Chicago area, so she sets many books there. She has a family. She loves and adopts cats. She seems like the friendly, Midwestern type — not a megastar author!

I will give her credit for “doing it again” with The Other Mrs.!

Find this book at a bookstore near you or online. I got mine at Amazon for my kindle.

Find my friend Amy (who is super popular and runs a blog dedicated to budget crunches, crafts, and a few other things at http://www.momadvice.com)

Find Mary Kubica at marykubica.com

Thanks for hosting a fun book group chat, Amy!!

*trigger warning for abuse/child abuse

One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski

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Description

“A subtly but relentlessly unsettling novel.” —TANA FRENCH, author of The Witch Elm

It was the perfect place to disappear…

One sultry summer, Maureen Haddaway arrives in the wealthy town of Opal Beach to start her life anew—to achieve her destiny. There, she finds herself lured by the promise of friendship, love, starry skies, and wild parties. But Maureen’s new life just might be too good to be true, and before the summer is up, she vanishes.

Decades later, when Allison Simpson is offered the opportunity to house-sit in Opal Beach during the off-season, it seems like the perfect chance to begin fresh after a messy divorce. But when she becomes drawn into the mysterious disappearance of a girl thirty years before, Allison realizes the gorgeous homes of Opal Beach hide dark secrets. And the truth of that long-ago summer is not even the most shocking part of all…

I read this novel several weeks ago, but it’s rather haunting so I still remember it! It was well-plotted and suspenseful, moving back and forth in time as it tells Allison’s and Maureen’s stories.

Hard to believe it’s a debut novel! Recommended to those who like a suspenseful mystery. Thank you for my copy!

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

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Description

“Rich, dark, and intricately twisted, this enthralling whodunit mixes family saga with domestic noir to brilliantly chilling effect.” —Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author

“A haunting, atmospheric, stay-up-way-too-late read.” —Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author 

From the New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone comes another page-turning look inside one family’s past as buried secrets threaten to come to light.

Be careful who you let in.

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.

In The Family Upstairs, the master of “bone-chilling suspense” (People) brings us the can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.

I got this one weeks ago and can’t wait to share it with you all! I love, love, love Lisa Jewell. She is an amazing suspense writer!! This novel combines all sorts of suspenseful elements: lost family, unknown history, unsolved murders, to make for a thrilling read, one that is hard to put down! If you regularly read Lisa Jewell you will know that she’s done it again with The Family Upstairs!

Thank you for my review copy via Net Galley!