There’s a theme to The Mystery of Mrs. Christie and it’s, “Maybe don’t fuck with your wife when she invents unsolveable ways to murder people for a living.” In a lot of ways this book is a historical Gone Girl, which normally would be my jam, but I found the suspense disrupted by the fact that this is based on a real event and I already knew what happened. Add to that, we spend a … Continue reading The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict→
Jane Eyre is in my top ten favorite books and I’m very protective of it. I wrote a short book called Pride Prejudice and Popcorn: TV and Film Adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre, in which I concluded that any adaption can work as long as it stays true to the themes and characters of the source material. The Wife Upstairs is hard to review because how it works on its … Continue reading The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins→
As I sat down to draft my review of Pretty Little Wife I realized it was going to have to be somewhat brief. It wasn’t that I didn’t have a lot to say about the book (I do!), it’s that this thriller is so beautifully plotted and executed that saying too much about the book would ruin the reading experience for other people. It’s one of those frustrating situations where I just want to shove … Continue reading Pretty Little Wife by Darby Kane→
Tara: When I’m looking up f/f titles for Hide Your Wallet posts, I occasionally come across a blurb that sounds so full of crazysauce, I immediately show Shana. The latest was for Queen of Humboldt. Check this out: Marisol Soltero’s life is built on big scores and fast women. From her nightclub she rules over the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago with ruthless calculation. Though everyone knows her as the Queen of Humboldt, Marisol lives … Continue reading Queen of Humboldt by Tagan Shepard→
Vanishing Falls is one of my few DNF’s of the year, and it’s extremely unusual for me to DNF a mystery at all (I need to know what happens!). This book pretty much failed on all counts, though, and I couldn’t force myself to finish it. First of all, I picked up this book expecting a Gothic mystery, but that’s not what this is. The book is set in the Tasmanian town of Vanishing Falls. … Continue reading Vanishing Falls by Poppy Gee→
Through reading (and loving) The Silence of Bones I’ve realized something about myself as a reader: I can tolerate a lot of dark, violent content in a book if the prose is pretty enough. And while the poetic prose is a definite selling point, the fact that The Silence of Bones is also an impeccably crafted mystery with amazing character work and an arc of profound hopefulness cemented its place in my heart as the … Continue reading The Silence of Bones by June Hur→
I should couch this review with the admission that I am the biggest scaredy cat. I don’t usually read romance thrillers, let alone straight ahead thrillers with only a little bit of lovin. Not only do I need to be promised a happy ending, I also want the beginning and middle to be fairly cheerful and absent of conflict. I am, admittedly, a bit ridiculous, but yes, I would prefer to be wrapped up in … Continue reading When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole→
A woman has been stabbed on the hike and bike path around Ladybird Lake in Austin, Texas. Detective Jacob Merritt is on the case, but he and his partner Kendra are convinced there’s more to it than the opportunistic attack it appears to be. It doesn’t take long for the Feds to swoop in and take the case off their hands – confirming suspicions that there’s something big going on – but Jacob does not … Continue reading Hidden by Laura Griffin→
TW: rape I really wish I could write a full review of The Lion’s Den and how utterly fantastic it is, but to do so would require spoiling a lot of the book and I want readers to go in fresh. When I picked up this thriller I thought it would be a locked-room mystery set on a yacht with fancy people murdering each other, which sounded fine. It is not that at all. Despite … Continue reading The Lion’s Den by Katherine St. John→
I love the Kat Holloway series. Not only is it cracking good reading, start to current installment, but it’s become one of the gifts I reach for when someone I know is experiencing bereavement and mourning. This is a very short list: the books have to be transporting and diverting to give the person a respite from the exhaustion of grief, with enough heft to be engaging, but not so much as to be nonstop … Continue reading Murder in the East End by Jennifer Ashley→
Bronze Gods is a steampunk mystery/urban fantasy by married couple Ann and Andre Aguirre (writing as A.A. Aguirre). I loved the world and the main characters, but I was disappointed by the mystery. The plot is very simple in essence but very complicated in detail. James Mikani and Celeste Ritsuko are inspectors with the Criminal Intelligence Division. They have to work together to stop a series of murders. They have been partners for three years, … Continue reading Bronze Gods by A.A. Aguirre→
