Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier was a terrific novel by one of my favorite writers. She is so gifted with suspense and if I see a book written by Jennifer, I know I’m going to like it. If you haven’t read her novel, Jar of Hearts, do it right now! You won’t be disappointed. Little Secrets will be out on April 21.
Take a look:
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. Up until the day 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. The only thing keeping her going is the unlikely chance that one day Sebastian reappears. She hires a P.I. to pick up where the police left off, but instead of finding him, she discovers that Derek is having an affair with a younger woman.
Kenzie Li is an artist and grad student—Instagram famous—and up to her eyeballs in debt. She knows Derek is married. She also knows he’s rich, and dating him comes with perks: help with bills, trips away, expensive gifts. He isn’t her first rich boyfriend, but she finds herself hoping he’ll be the last. She’s falling for him—and that was never part of the plan.
Discovery of the affair 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. But as she sets a plan in motion, another revelation surfaces. Derek’s lover might know what happened to their son. And so might Derek.
I loved the glamour of Marin, she owns a high-end salon and is famous for her celebrity clients. She certainly has it all until her son goes missing. The premise, the characters, the whole story came together perfectly and it kept me engrossed from beginning to end.
Pre-order this now and be sure to check out Jennifer’s other books!
A road trip with siblings, what could possibly go wrong? Well, a lot.
Samantha Downing’s new book, He Started It, is a “BETCHES BEACH READ OF THE MONTH” and I know suspense lovers and thrill seekers will devour this story!
Take a look:
Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan haven’t all been together in years. And for very good reasons—we’ll get to those later. But when their wealthy grandfather dies and leaves a cryptic final message in his wake, the siblings and their respective partners must come together for a cross-country road trip to fulfill his final wish and—more importantly—secure their inheritance.
But time with your family can be tough. It is for everyone.
It’s even harder when you’re all keeping secrets and trying to forget a memory, a missing person, an act of revenge, the man in the black truck who won’t stop following your car—and especially when at least one of you is a killer and there’s a body in the trunk. Just to name a few reasons.
But money is a powerful motivator. It is for everyone.
This kept me intrigued but also nervous. And the ending….!!!!!!!!
You can pre-order this book here!
An excellent thriller by D.J. Palmer, The New Husband would make a really good tv movie! I couldn’t help but see this whole story unfold in my mind’s eye like some kind of movie where you doubt every person and don’t know who to trust!
Nina Garrity learned that the hard way after discovering that her missing husband, Glen, had been leading a double life with another woman. But Glen’s gone–presumably drowned while fishing on his boat–so she can’t confront him about the affair or any of his other misdeeds. A year and a half after the accident, Nina considers herself a widow, even though the police never found a body. Following a chance encounter with Simon Fitch, a teacher from her daughter Maggie’s middle school, Nina finds love again and has hopes of putting her shattered life back together.
Simon, a widower still grieving the suicide of his first wife, has found his dream girl in Nina. His charm and affections help break through to a heart hardened by betrayal. Nina’s teenage son, Connor, embraces Simon as the father he wishes his dad could have been, but Maggie sees a far darker side to this new man in their lives. Even Nina’s good friends wonder if Simon is supremely devoted–or dangerously possessive.
But Nina is committed, not only to her soon-to-be new husband but also to resuming her former career as a social worker. Before she can move forward, however, Nina must first clear her conscience that she’s not making another terrible choice in a man. In doing so, she will uncover the shocking truth: the greatest danger to her, and her children, are the lies people tell themselves.
Pre-order here, out on April 14!
I absolutely loved Victoria Helen Stone’s novel, Jane Doe, so I was super excited to read Problem Child, also known as Jane Doe #2. I love a character who is tough and maybe a little crazy. We aren’t sure how much we can trust Jane and in this book, we meet her niece who we definitely cannot trust. I didn’t even want Jane to trust her.
The author did a great job of creating another somewhat evil character and I loved it! Such a fun and suspenseful book.
Take a look:
She’s cold, calculating, and can deceive with a smile. Jane Doe is back in the Amazon Charts bestselling series – and this time she’s met her match.
After a brutal childhood, Jane Doe has been permanently wired to look after herself and only herself. Now, looking next to normal, Jane has a lover and a job. But she hasn’t lost her edge. It sharpens when she hears from her estranged family.
Jane’s deeply troubled sixteen-year-old niece, Kayla, has vanished, and no one seems to care. Neither does Jane. Until she sees a picture of Kayla and recognizes herself in the young girl’s eyes. It’s the empty stare of a sociopath.
Jane knows what vengeful and desperate things Kayla is capable of. Only Jane can help her – by being drawn into Kayla’s dark world. And no one’s more aware than Jane just how dangerous that can be.
This is free if you have Kindle Unlimited, or you can buy it for $4.99!
This book! Definitely one of my favorites of 2020, I already know.
I read it in a single afternoon, sitting in my bed, with my dogs around me and it was the best way to spend four house of my life. Pretty Things by Janelle Brown was a five-star novel that you HAVE TO READ.
The characters pulled me in, the story kept me glued to the pages, the writing is perfection. How much more can I say?
Look:
Nina once bought into the idea that her fancy liberal arts degree would lead to a fulfilling career. When that dream crashed, she turned to stealing from rich kids in L.A. alongside her wily Irish boyfriend, Lachlan. Nina learned from the best: Her mother was the original con artist, hustling to give her daughter a decent childhood despite their wayward life. But when her mom gets sick, Nina puts everything on the line to help her, even if it means running her most audacious, dangerous scam yet.
Vanessa is a privileged young heiress who wanted to make her mark in the world. Instead she becomes an Instagram influencer—traveling the globe, receiving free clothes and products, and posing for pictures in exotic locales. But behind the covetable façade is a life marked by tragedy. After a broken engagement, Vanessa retreats to her family’s sprawling mountain estate, Stonehaven: a mansion of dark secrets not just from Vanessa’s past, but from that of a lost and troubled girl named Nina.
Nina’s, Vanessa’s, and Lachlan’s paths collide here, on the cold shores of Lake Tahoe, where their intertwined lives give way to a winter of aspiration and desire, duplicity and revenge.
This dazzling, twisty, mesmerizing novel showcases acclaimed author Janelle Brown at her best, as two brilliant, damaged women try to survive the greatest game of deceit and destruction they will ever play.
You can pre-order here! Out on April 21
I loved Sue Monk Kidd’s amazing book, The Secret Life of Bees and was happy to see she has a new book coming out! The Book of Longings is coming out on April 21.
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2020 by O, the Oprah Magazine, Good Morning America/ABC-TV, Good Housekeeping, and Marie Claire!
Here’s the scoop (I haven’t read it yet!):
In her mesmerizing fourth work of fiction, Sue Monk Kidd takes an audacious approach to history and brings her acclaimed narrative gifts to imagine the story of a young woman named Ana. Raised in a wealthy family with ties to the ruler of Galilee, she is rebellious and ambitious, with a brilliant mind and a daring spirit. She engages in furtive scholarly pursuits and writes narratives about neglected and silenced women. Ana is expected to marry an older widower, a prospect that horrifies her. An encounter with eighteen-year-old Jesus changes everything.
Their marriage evolves with love and conflict, humor and pathos in Nazareth, where Ana makes a home with Jesus, his brothers, and their mother, Mary. Ana’s pent-up longings intensify amid the turbulent resistance to Rome’s occupation of Israel, partially led by her brother, Judas. She is sustained by her fearless aunt Yaltha, who harbors a compelling secret. When Ana commits a brazen act that puts her in peril, she flees to Alexandria, where startling revelations and greater dangers unfold, and she finds refuge in unexpected surroundings. Ana determines her fate during a stunning convergence of events considered among the most impactful in human history.
Grounded in meticulous research and written with a reverential approach to Jesus’s life that focuses on his humanity, The Book of Longings is an inspiring, unforgettable account of one woman’s bold struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, place and culture devised to silence her. It is a triumph of storytelling both timely and timeless, from a masterful writer at the height of her powers.
Will you read this book?
The Grace Kelly Dress by Brenda Janowitz is a beautifully written story and exactly what you need to read if you are feeling stressed. It’s just lovely!
Look here:
Paris, 1958: Rose, a seamstress at a fashionable atelier, has been entrusted with sewing a Grace Kelly-lookalike gown for a wealthy bride-to-be. But when, against better judgment, she finds herself falling in love with the bride’s handsome brother, Rose must make an impossible choice—one that could put all she’s worked for at risk: love, security, and of course, the dress.
Sixty years later, tech CEO Rachel, who goes by the childhood nickname “Rocky,” has inherited the dress for her upcoming wedding in New York City. But there’s just one problem: Rocky doesn’t want to wear it. A family heirloom dating back to the 1950s, the dress just isn’t her. Rocky knows this admission will break her mother Joan’s heart. But what she doesn’t know is why Joan insists on the dress—or the heartbreaking secret that changed her mother’s life decades before, as she herself prepared to wear it.
As the lives of these three women come together in surprising ways, the revelation of the dress’s history collides with long-buried family heartaches. And in the lead-up to Rocky’s wedding, they’ll have to confront the past before they can embrace the beautiful possibilities of the future.
Sometimes, in the midst of busy and stressful lives, it’s nice to just sink into a story that is charming and heartfelt with some historical elements. The Grace Kelly Dress explores the themes of weddings, families, traditions, mothers and daughters. Its a great book and highly recommend it to everyone who loves to read!
I absolutely love Kate White‘s books. I have read almost all of them and like how easily you can just open the book and get into it from the first few pages. You start reading and never even notice the hours slipping away. The words flow, the plot is always filled with suspense and tension. I am excited to share with you her newest novel, Have You Seen Me?
On a cold, rainy morning, finance journalist Ally Linden arrives early to work in her Manhattan office, only to find that she’s forgotten her keycard and needs to have a colleague she’s never met let her in. When her boss finally arrives, he seems surprised to see her—because she hasn’t worked there in five years.
Ally knows her name, but little else, and it’s only after several hours in an emergency room and multiple interviews with the hospital psychiatrist that she begins to piece together important facts: she lives on the Upper West Side; she’s now a freelance personal finance journalist; she’s married to a lovely man named Hugh. But she still can’t recall what happened to her during the previous two days. When she learns that she’s experienced a dissociative fugue state, Ally tries to think of triggers and remembers that she’d been seeing a therapist about a traumatic event from her childhood, in which she came across evidence for a murder that was never solved.
Desperate to unearth answers, Ally focuses on figuring out where she spent the missing forty-eight hours. As ominous details of the two days pile up, so does the terrifying pressure: she must recover the time she lost before the time she has left runs out.
Imagine showing up at work and discovering you haven’t worked there in years? Or losing all memory of the past several days? I love the premise but hope it never happens to me. This book is a fun read that kept me guessing. Kate is such a great author, each one of her books delivers on the suspense and they are very easy to read in one sitting.
Three Perfect Liars by Heidi Perks was as good as I hoped it would be! After reading and loving Her One Mistake, I was so eager to read the newest book from this author. Heidi Perks is a really great writer and I was not disappointed.
Three women, each have their own reason for wanting the building of Morris and Wood to burn down. The building has completely ruined the beautiful view of Lymington Quay and the residents of the area don’t like it. Many would be thrilled to see it gone…
When a fire destroys the building, there are three glaring suspects:
Laura takes her job and career very seriously and has worked hard to get ahead. When she returns from maternity leave, she feels the tug of leaving her baby behind and is on edge feeling that she has to prove herself all over again. She is upset to find her temporary replacement is now a permanent fixture and might be trying to steal Laura’s job.
Mia was the temp hired to fill in for Laura but she’s doing a great job and is well-liked around the office so she’s been invited to stay on. Does she have a secret reason for wanting to continue her employment at Morris and Wood?
Janie is the wife of the man who runs Morris and Wood, Harry. She’s got her own secrets and burdens that she carries with her.
The story flips between past and presents and leads up to the day of a big party at Janie and Harry’s house. I was guessing to figure out who started the fire and why. The suspense built throughout the book until the very end when I was left looking forward to the next book from this author!
Really good book! Due out on April 30!
If you haven’t read Ottessa Moshfegh’s book, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, do it! The author has a beautiful writing style and I really liked that book especially the last part which left me surprised and bereft.
In Death in Her Hands, you can expect more of a horror element as well as suspense. Plus some unlikable and flawed characters that make the reader cringe. In the best way.
Check it out:
While on her normal daily walk with her dog in the forest woods, our protagonist comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground with a frame of stones. “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body”. Our narrator is deeply shaken; she has no idea what to make of this. She is new to area, having moved her from her longtime home after the death of her husband, and she knows very few people.
And she’s a little shaky even on best days. Her brooding about this note quickly grows into a full-blown obsession, and she begins to devote herself to exploring the possibilities of her conjectures about who this woman was and how she met her fate. Her suppositions begin to find echoes in the real world, and with mounting excitement and dread, the fog of mystery starts to form into a concrete and menacing shape. But as we follow her in her investigation, strange dissonances start to accrue, and our faith in her grip on reality weakens, until finally, just as she seems be facing some of the darkness in her own past with her late husband, we are forced to face the prospect that there is either a more innocent explanation for all this or a much more sinister one – one that strikes closer to home.
This is a dark story, as you can probably tell from the synopsis.
Death in Her Hands comes out on April 21, pre-order here!
I was so excited to get my hands on Something She’s Not Telling Us by Darcey Bell, especially after reading A Simple Favor which I really enjoyed.
The premise of the story captured my attention right away because I love a domestic thriller that includes family secrets.
Synopsis:
Charlotte has everything in life that she ever could have hoped for: a doting, artistic husband, a small-but-thriving flower shop, and her sweet, smart five-year-old daughter, Daisy. Her relationship with her mother might be strained, but the distance between them helps. And her younger brother Rocco may have horrible taste in women, but when he introduces his new girlfriend to Charlotte and her family, they are cautiously optimistic that she could be The One. Daisy seems to love Ruth, and she can’t be any worse than the klepto Rocco brought home the last time. At least, that’s what Charlotte keeps telling herself. But as Rocco and Ruth’s relationship becomes more serious, Ruth’s apparent obsession with Daisy grows more obvious. Then Daisy is kidnapped, and Charlotte is convinced there’s only one person who could have taken her.
Ruth has never had much, but now she’s finally on the verge of having everything she’s ever dreamed of. A stable job at a start-up company, a rakish, handsome boyfriend with whom she falls more in love with every day—and a chance at the happy family she’s always wanted, adorable niece included. The only obstacle standing in her way is her boyfriend’s sister Charlotte, whose attitude swerves between politely cold and outright hostile. Rebuffing Ruth’s every attempt to build a friendship with her and Daisy, Charlotte watches over her daughter with a desperate protectiveness that sends chills down Ruth’s spine. Ruth knows that Charlotte has a deeply-buried secret, the only question is: what? A surprise outing with Daisy could be the key to finding out, and Ruth knows she must take the chance while she has it—for everyone’s sake.
As the two women follow each other down a chilling rabbit hole, unearthing winding paths of deceit, lies, and trauma, a family and a future will be completely—and irrevocably—shattered.
This is a fast read, lots of drama as you can tell from the synopsis. Most of the characters are unlikeable, which I don’t mind because I find a highly flawed character to be intriguing. There is an element of mental health at play here which we’ve seen in other books and can work well in thrillers. I think if you enjoyed A Simple Favor, you will like this book.
Available on April 7, order here!
You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce is a dark and spooky story! It combines many elements to create a family drama-mystery-fairytale mashup. I’m still processing my thoughts on this one.
Check it out:
Cassandra Tipp is dead…or is she?
After all, the notorious recluse and eccentric bestselling novelist has always been prone to flights of fancy—everyone in town remembers the shocking events leading up to Cassie’s infamous trial (she may have been acquitted, but the insanity defense only stretches so far).
Cassandra Tipp has left behind no body—just her massive fortune and one final manuscript.
Then again, there are enough bodies in her past—her husband Tommy Tipp, whose mysterious disembowelment was never solved, and a few years later, the shocking murder-suicide of her father and brother.
Cassandra Tipp will tell you a story—but it will come with a terrible price. What really happened, out there in the woods—and who has Cassie been protecting all along? Read on, if you dare…
I loved the idea of a famous recluse who wrote best selling books and was involved (possibly) in a murder. Then there are fairies and spirits which are typically not my style. There is someone named Pepper-Man who may or may not be real.
I know this will appeal to a lot of readers and the otherworldly elements add something you don’t often see in suspense novels. I think you need to go into this book with your expectations adjusted and know there are both horror and fairytale elements to it.
I’ve long been a big fan of true crime queen Ann Rule and have read almost all of her books over the years. So when I saw that her daughter Leslie Rule had a true crime book coming out, I was excited and nervous, hoping it would be as good as what her mother wrote. And I’m happy to say it is. A Tangled Web is a well researched and solid true crime story about a man who gets involved with a woman who is devious, manipulative, and essentially, evil.
Here’s the story:
It was a bleak November in 2012 when Cari Lea Farver vanished from Omaha, Nebraska. Cari, thirty-seven, was a devoted mother, reliable employee, and loyal friend–not the type to shirk responsibilities, abandon her son, and run off on an adventure while her dying father took his last breaths. Yet, the many texts from her phone indicated she had done just that.
It appeared that Cari had dumped her new boyfriend, quit her job, and relinquished custody of her son to her mother–all by text. While Cari’s boyfriend, Dave Kroupa, and her supervisor were bewildered by her abrupt disappearance, they accepted the texts at face value. Her mother, Nancy Raney, however, was alarmed and reported Cari missing. Police were skeptical of her claims that a cyber impostor had commandeered her daughter’s phone and online identity.
While Nancy was afraid for Cari, Dave Kroupa was growing afraid of her, for he believed Cari was stalking him. Never seen or heard, the stalker was aware of his every move and seemed obsessed by his casual girlfriend, Shanna “Liz” Golyar, often calling her “a fat whore” in the twelve thousand emails and texts he received in a disturbing three-year deluge.
How did the stalker know Dave’s phone numbers immediately after he changed them, the names of his lady friends, even what he wore as he watched TV? He and Liz reported death threats, vandalism, and burglaries, but the stalker remained at large. The threats were vicious, vile and often obscene, sent mostly via text and always in Cari’s name. There was some truth in the messages, but all of them contained one big lie. The culprit was not Cari — but had killed and planned to kill again.
With a style that reminds me strongly of her mothers, Leslie puts together a fascinating look at this crime and the very tangled web a woman weaved in order to gain control of a man. Highly recommended!
Published on April 28! Go here to pre-order.
