The Lost Village - Camilla Sten

In 1959, all the residents in a small town in Sweden disappeared. Everyone, that is, except the woman murdered in the town square and a baby crying near by. Now, decades later, a small film crew wants to make a documentary about the tragedy in hopes of finding the truth of what happened.  When they arrive, the town is frozen in time.  Not long into their stay, however, mysterious things begin to happen and it would appear the team is not as alone as they originally thought.  

The first thing I'd like to address is that there are some really heavy topics/tropes used in this book that center around disability and mental health (my list of other content warnings is at the end of this post).  Most reviews I've seen mention these in some way, but I thought Alexa Donne's review was particularly in depth.  Here is her video review (link) and her Goodreads review (link).  Both have general content warnings and then go more in depth with spoilers (which she warns about ahead of time).  I know this content may be divisive for readers, but in my reading experience I thought they were handled well.  In both cases, the characters involved were treated with empathy and had other characters advocating for them.  However, both cases did have the characters being blamed for bad things happening and in one case are treated pretty horrifically because of this.  I highly recommend checking out the above links if you'd like more spoiler-y details.

The pacing of this book was phenomenal.  I would categorize this as a straight-up thriller and it has been a while since I've read one of those (most of my reads end up being mystery with a bit of thriller at the end).  Once you get past the set up, creepy stuff starts happening pretty much immediately.  There's a bit of a question at the beginning as to if there's something supernatural going on but that is quickly rejected once more concrete threats happen.  I was expecting this book to be much more creepy and atmospheric (which is what it started out as) so I was surprised when it took a turn where the characters are focusing on surviving this outside threat until they can either go get help or help arrives.  This book also holds back no punches on the level of danger these characters are in.  There are direct and consistent threats to their lives and I didn't feel like any of them were safe. 

This book is a split timeline with chapters showing us the months in the past leading up to the villagers disappearing.  These chapters in the past are much more quiet and disconcerting once we get an inkling to what is going on.  They work as a nice balance between the more direct threat in the present day.  It was also interesting where the present day characters would find something and then that same thing was discussed in the past.  It was a nice way for the two timelines to feel really connected.  Our main character Alice is the granddaughter of one of the villagers who moved to Stockholm before the villager disappearance.  In the past, we follow Alice's great-grandmother as she tries to understand what is happening to the village and her family.  The chapters in the past are a bit short so the reader is quickly put back into the present timeline but the information we find out in the past really helps ramp up the tension in the book because the reader knows how the village ends up but no one ever figured out why or how almost 900 people just disappeared.  I really enjoy dual timelines in my books as long as both timelines are equally engaging and move the general plot forward and I think this book did that extremely well.

For all the tension and build up, I did find the actual reveal at the end regarding what happened to the villagers to be a bit more basic than I was expecting.  I think the reveal made sense but was the most obvious (at least to me) option.  I was hoping the real answer would be something a bit more unexpected or have a twist on what I was expecting.  I think I feel this way because I guessed the ending about halfway through and thought there's no way that's it.  So maybe if other readers don't guess, then maybe the ending would have been more of a surprise.  I do feel that the ending was well hinted at and developed, I just wanted something a big more surprising at the end.  The reveal about what is happening to the characters in present day was interesting and a bit surprising. This part, I felt does ask the reader to suspend some disbelief which I've seen some reviews feel this part got into plot hole territory.  I personally liked how we didn't get too much detail into the how and why because our main characters weren't concerned with the details since they were busy trying to stay alive so it felt like the reader was in that situation as well.  I think one way of getting the explanation would be to have a sort of info-dump/flashback but that would have felt very heavy handed to me and I think I would have liked that option less than what we got.

I really enjoyed the character building in this story.  We're following a 5 person film crew in present day and the web of connections and relationships was really interesting.  They are all interconnected so when things start to go south on their trip, it really heightened the danger/suspense for me.  I enjoyed how some of the connections we knew right from the beginning but others were slowly revealed over the course of the story which was really fun.  Sten did a great job showing the reader the tension between some characters and hinted at something happening in the past which, again, ended up as a source of tension later in the story when stress levels were high.  I also found the characters to be very well developed and complex.  There's one situation two characters were involved in that they both remember differently and seeing that conflict come to a boil was fantastic.  The characters in the past, as well, had well developed ties to other members in the village and it was interesting to see how those ties were tested once events started to unfold. 

Overall, I found this to be a very engaging and thrilling thriller.  There was good character development and relationships, great use of the split timeline, and while I wish the ending was a bit more twisty it was still satisfying overall.  

**CW/TW: abuse of mentally disabled person (described as likely non-verbal autistic), sexual abuse that results in pregnancy, cults, mental health struggles, depression, suicide. 

 

352 pages

Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the ARC. 

Expected publication date: March 23, 2021.

Originally published in Swedish.  English translation by Alexandra Fleming

 

 

The Hunger - Alma Katsu

 

 The Hunger is a historical fiction horror story following the infamous Donner Party during their 1846 attempt to reach California.  Their whole journey is peppered with continued misfortunes such as depleted rations, interpersonal conflicts, inhospitable weather conditions, and the disappearances and deaths of some of the members.  To top it all off, there's a growing sense of evil that surrounds the party as they dwindle in numbers and strength.  Are the shadows that flit through the forest in the night simply a hungry pack of wolves, or are they something more sinister and perhaps supernatural?

I liked this book while I was reading it.  I really liked it when I finished it.  And the longer I sit and let the story percolate in my brain, the more I really really love it. This story ended up not being exactly what I thought it would be but in the best possible way.  What I was expecting was a book that really focused in on the winter and the cannibalism/survival elements that most people know about the Donner Party.  I was expecting a ton more gore or on-the-page violence and for the supernatural element to be either a figment of the characters' imaginations or super visible and integral to the story.  What I got instead, was a quietly horrifying story that centers mostly on what humanity and civilization mean and how quickly those lines in the sand can be crossed when survival is on the line.  Explorations of humanity like this are my all-time favorite theme to explore and is the main reason why I love psychological thrillers so much.  I'm immensely fascinated by how far humans can be pushed and the sheer horrific actions they can take against their fellow humans for various reasons.  If you were expecting this to be a book where the party bands together in solidarity to fight supernatural creatures in the woods, this is not that book.

 For basically the first 75% of the book it is pretty straight up historical fiction following the Donner Party as they make the move West in their wagon train.  There are some hints at supernatural elements but they are often written off as just Native American stories or figments of imagination. However, the supernatural elements really come into full swing at the last 25% where we learn from multiple perspectives the truths behind the stories and rumors.  The horror elements are consistently ramping up throughout the story as tension, stress, and bad luck plague the travelers.  I'm not usually a big reader of historical fiction because I find a lot of times that the stories feel either overly restricted by needing to match the real events or that the stories rely too heavily on the shock factor that the events really happened. I first learned about the Donner Party in 6th grade and was fascinated that they resorted to cannibalism for survival.  I think that situation is so far removed for most modern-day readers that if this was a 100% faithful retelling of the completely true events, it still would have been interesting for many readers.  However, I'm so thrilled that Katsu went further and took some creative liberties with the story.  In the note in the back of the book, Katsu states that "names, locations, and dates have remained but much else has been changed to fit the story". The best way I can describe it is that this story has a really solid foundation in facts of what happened and then Katsu gives some extra creative flair on top.  This way, even when the supernatural/horror elements are really ramped up in the last 25%, they are still completely grounded in reality which makes them more horrifying (in my opinion).  There are no aliens coming down and abducting the Donner Party, for example.  I could see some people making the argument that the only people who interact with the supernatural elements in the story are either sick, hallucinating, or are otherwise mentally unstable so maybe, just maybe, there isn't any supernatural element to this at all.

What I found really interesting was the balance between outside and inside threats woven throughout the story.  At the start of the story, there are the stereotypical tales of some of the Native American tribes sacrificing people or attacking the white settlers as they pass through.  However, we are shown through multiple interactions that the Native Americans in the area are wary of the settlers but are not outwardly hostile.  In fact, the main threats come from inside the wagon train community.  There are some members of the party who wish to talk to the tribes and learn from them, but most of the members are either actively hostile and racist toward them or at the very least heavily prejudiced.  This tension was highlighted time and time again when Native Americans were shown to be helpful to the white settlers but the settlers themselves couldn't see past their own racist ideas so as soon as something went awry, they were blaming the Native Americans even if a more rational explanation was that someone in their own party was responsible.  Katsu gives an explanation in the note at the end of the book that she was very intentional with balancing the general mindset of the times from the settlers with thoughtful and balanced representation from the Native American side.  I think evaluating this idea of 'us' vs 'them' is always really interesting, but especially so in times of extreme stress.  I attended a guest lecture in college about horror movies and the talk revolved around the idea that the horror genre acts as a mirror for the fears in society at that time and gives society a way to explore and evaluate different outcomes of that fear.  Now I'm not sure if Katsu intended this book to be looked at as any sort of political or societal commentary but it was published in 2018 and as a reader in 2021, it is hard to separate the events of the past 4 years and the current climate from the similarities I saw presented in the book.  Once the sort of 'origin story' of the supernatural elements of the book are revealed this us vs them discussion and exploration takes on a new depth and I was in awe at how well balanced and nuanced the reveals were.

My least favorite part of reading this book most likely stems from me not being a historical fiction reader and it was that I could not read this book for long periods of time.  For some background, I've been a reader since childhood and I was an English major in college so I've gotten very good at reading quickly while still understanding what I've read.  Thanks to this skill, I can regularly finish a 300 page book in an afternoon.  For a more character-driven story, I average 100 pages an hour.  For a more plot-driven story, that number drops to about 60 pages an hour.  The version of The Hunger I read on my tablet was 373 pages so this book should have taken me somewhere between 3.75 and 6.21 hours to read (so, basically, a nice weekend afternoon).  I also prefer to read my books in as few sittings as possible because I like to completely immerse myself in the story. For this story, however, I couldn't read this book for more than an hour at a time and it took me 10 days to finish (so about 10 hours of reading).  Now, this isn't because the book was overly complicated or the writing was dry - quite the opposite, actually.  Katsu packed in so much information and so many characters and character relations that my brain simply could not take in any more information after about an hour.  For that hour of reading, I was completely engrossed in the story and I hung on every word, but I would quickly reach my mental limit and had to put the book down for at least a few hours to let all the new information sink in.  Now this might not be a detriment for readers who only read in short bursts anyway but this was the first book in a long time that I had to put down because of the actual story and not because it was time to get dinner started.  I've found this sort of pattern to be true with the few other historical fiction books I've read in the past, but most of those other ones also didn't hold my interest so I would put them down after a bit and found myself never picking them back up.  The Hunger was a book that I wanted so badly to cuddle up on the couch with and get lost in and I was frustrated that I had to keep putting it down when I wanted to just keep reading.

I've said it before in other reviews, but I'm 100% a character-driven reader and Katsu is masterful at characters in this story.  We bounce between multiple characters in the party as well as back and forth in time.  Plus, there are multiple other characters who we see a lot even if we are never directly following them.  There were about 90 members in the Donner Party so Katsu had a lot of characters and interpersonal relationships to build (we obviously don't get introduced to all 90 characters, but still).  Now despite being a character-driven reader, I'm absolutely horrible with remembering names.  If a story has two characters with names that start with the same letter, I'm most likely going to get them confused (I'm horrible with names in real life as well).  Of all the different characters we interacted with, by the end of the book I could only recall 3 of them by name.  However, I could still keep track of all the different relationships and connections between characters which I find more important in the long run.  Katsu also did a great job at reminding the reader of character relationships when a character we hadn't seen in a while popped up on the page.  Just a little reminder like "her daughter" or "his employee" was enough to trigger my memory so I had the context I needed for the upcoming chapter. Katsu also develops really extensive backstories for the characters that we learn as the book progresses which helps explain some of their actions in the present situation.  These backstories also serve to show the reader that none of the people on this wagon train are perfect, a lot of them are escaping their pasts with this move to California.  Getting to know these characters in such detail when you know what they're eventually going to endure is heartbreaking and I found myself rooting for them despite knowing what was going to happen.

Finally, I want to talk about the writing style which, in my opinion, can really make or break a historical fiction book.  I found the writing style to be the perfect balance of literary flowery language and matter of fact bluntness and this contrast in the language worked perfectly with the subject matter. It was really interesting to see how the beauty and awe of the landscape descriptions contrasted with the harsh realities of life in a wagon train.  The writing was very engaging which is exactly what I, personally, need in order to enjoy a historical fiction.  Then, in the later parts of the books where the horror comes into the forefront, the writing isn't overly descriptive of the events which makes it almost more horrific.  We were back to more matter of fact descriptions which left the reader no wiggle room for misunderstanding the enormity of what was happening.  By the end, the characters were facing a brutal truth of the need to survive and the writing didn't shy away from that fact which I really liked.  As I said before, we don't see a lot of detailed gore on page but it is explicitly discussed multiple times.  I think this story does such a good job playing the majesty of the idealized wagon train experience with the harsh realities of the actual journey and the writing style is a big factor in that for me.

Overall, this was a fantastic read even if it wasn't exactly what I was expecting when I started.  Great character development, horror elements were used expertly and not overdone, good balance between factual historical fiction and more flowery story.  I had to slow down my reading to make sure I could absorb all the information that was on the page, but I always wanted to come back after I put the book down.  

373 pages.

 

 

 

 

Romance Wrap-up 2/1/21 - 2/15/21

Badd Motherf*cker - Jasinda Wilder

 

This is the first book in the Badd Brothers series and follows eldest brother Sebastian and runaway bride Dru.  Dru finds her fiance cheating on her with a bridesmaid 10 minutes before their wedding ceremony.  She drunkenly runs away to the first place a plane can take her - Alaska - where she goes into Sebastian's bar and proceeds to get drunk again.  I was all in on the premise of this book, but the execution really was not for me.  This was insta-love central. I'd even go so far as to say it was just lust that brought the two together since I didn't get a whole lot of meshing personalities or life plans or anything like that.  They just thought each other were really hot, the sexual chemistry was off the charts, and they both said they've never felt this way about anyone else before. The whole book takes place over only 3 days but the plot runs through all the normal points of a standard romance plot (they meet, flirt, get a little close then pull away, sleep together, have a falling out, have some emotional growth, get back together, happily ever after).  This book was over 300 pages long but the plot was rushing by at breakneck speeds.  I loved all the individual plot points, but I needed them more spread out to be believable.  I couldn't suspend my disbelief as much as the book was asking me to.  I did really like the dynamic of all the brothers and while I do wish some of their names were less similar to each other, I did feel like all of them had their own distinct personalities.  I also loved Dru's dynamic with her father and his cop buddies.  I thought the emotional arc both Dru and Sebastian went through would have been really fantastic if it was built up more and was a bigger issue in their relationships with each other and their families.  I'm interested in reading more of the series, but I'm not sure if the pacing and structure of these books is what I'm looking for in a romance book since I tend to favor the slow burn side of the spectrum.

A Very Friendly Valentine's Day - Kayley Loring

 

This story follows best friends Birdie and Eddie.  They've been friends for six years but everything changes after one accidental nip slip and a three day train journey from LA to Chicago where they have to share a room.  This book was pure rom-com, friends to lovers, zero angst, fluff in the absolute best way and is a perfect feel good book for Valentine's Day.  I didn't love that Eddie was an actor only because I have absolutely no interest in Hollywood or celebrities but it didn't play too big of a role in the story.  Eddie is Declan's little brother from A Very Bossy Christmas and Eddie was a fairly big point of conversation in that first book so it was interesting to see the other side in this book. I would have liked the jump from friends to lovers to be a little slower, but we did get a good idea of how each of them felt as friends at the beginning of the book.  I loved how once they got together, Eddie was 100% all in and he made sure Birdie knew it but also respected her need to have space to process.  Eddie and Birdie really felt like best friends and it seemed like they knew each other so well that they wouldn't have any bad surprises when getting into a relationship.  Neither had any sort of real baggage or any emotional issues to work through like a lot of romance books so this is a true 0 angst book.  Once they get together, its full steam ahead!

The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob - Pippa Grant

This is the fourth book in the Bro Code series and follows pop star, Levi, and single mom, Ingrid.  There are a lot of cameos from the other books in the series so I would highly recommend reading the books in order.  I'll be honest, I don't love romance stories where one person is famous and the other is just a regular person.  It is completely a personal taste thing and the only times I don't mind it is if the two have known each other since before they were famous (see A Very Friendly Valentine's Day above) or if both are somehow in the same industry and understand the unique circumstances being in that life brings (see Bro Code #2: America's Geekheart). This book was neither of those so I wasn't totally loving it at first.  I loved how down to earth Ingrid is about her situation and what she wants out of life.  Her ex-husband traveled a lot for work and she is determined that the next man she dates should be around more for her and the kids.  Levi is still a big time performer and had no intention of settling down any time soon so I really didn't see this having a satisfying resolution.  But boy, was I wrong. Levi winning Ingrid over and proving to her that he's around for the long-haul, not just for a fling was some of the sweetest scenes I've read in a long time.  I'll admit - I teared up more than a few times.  This book had all the typical Pippa Grant fun and humor that I wanted, but I was surprised at the amount of heart at the end.  I do wish we would have gotten more scenes with just Levi and Ingrid and seen them talk one on one more but other than that, I really adored this story.  There are two members of Bro Code left and I really hope we get their books sooner rather than later.

In the Middle of Somewhere - Roan Parrish 

This is the first book in the Middle of Somewhere series and follows college professor, Daniel, and carpenter, Rex. Daniel moves to a small town in northern Michigan from his home of Philadelphia.  He is convinced he's going to be the only gay man in 100 miles but it pleasantly surprised when the large, burly, lumberjack-esque Rex kisses him after Daniel wrecks his rental car.  Daniel doesn't expect to see Rex again, but in small towns, nothing gets left alone for very long.  I absolutely adored this book, all 400+ pages of it. Daniel and Rex had such an honest, loving, down to earth relationship.  The build up is a little slow and I did find myself skimming over Daniel's memories of all his past issues in Philadelphia but I still couldn't put the book down. I also would have preferred if we had dual POVs in this book, but that's just a personal preference with all romance books.  I do think we get a good idea of Rex's character and his inner thoughts through his interactions with Daniel and, by the end, Rex is very vocal and explicit about his feelings so it really cleared up any grey areas in that regard. Both heroes are emotionally distanced in their own way but they complement each other so well that they know exactly what to say to get the other to open up.  This was a lot more emotional than I was expecting but, in the end, it gave me the exact warm-fuzzy feeling I was craving. Parrish does a great job fleshing out the side characters and I'm glad we met the heroes of the next two books in the series already.  

The Bribe - Willa Nash

This is the first book in the Calamity Montana series and follows local sheriff, Duke, and country music star on the run, Lucy.  After escaping from a bad situation in Nashville, Lucy is looking to hide away in the small town of Calamity, Montana.  After trying to bribe the sheriff to let her out of a speeding ticket to protect her identity, Duke is invested in figuring out what Lucy is running from.  As the two fall in love, they have to face the trouble following Lucy from Nashville together.  This is a romantic suspense that was a little too light on the romance and the suspense for my personal tastes.  Duke and Lucy fall for each other pretty quickly and immediately start officially and publicly dating.  It was a bit too insta-love for my tastes and I didn't get a good idea of what they actually saw in each other besides their chemistry.  I did really like the amount of cute date scenes we got and Duke is just a real solid good guy that is doing his best to protect his town.  I think if we would have gotten a bit more relationship lead up in the beginning before they fell into bed together then I would have been happier.  Also, the outside threat never really felt like a real threat until it was suddenly at the front door.  Once the threat was right in their face, I really liked the way everything was resolved and came together in the end.  The investigation wasn't picking up any clues or leads so it really felt like it wasn't a real issue so I think more tension could have been built up if there were breadcrumbs that the characters could pick up on that the threat was closer than they were expecting.  I really loved Lucy's friend Everly and their relationship and I'm excited that she's the heroine in the second book.

Ego Trip - Tabatha Kiss

This book follows assistant, Paige, and her temporary boss, Oliver.  They had a one night stand 4 years ago and now Oliver got promoted and Paige is accompanying him on a 2 week long business trip to support him in his new role.  Only problem is they never talked about what happened before and the sexual tension is high when you're spending days and nights at hotels together. This is a standalone story, but characters from the Heartthrob Hotel series by Tabatha Kiss make brief appearances. This was a pretty solid office romance, but I was expecting a little more from it.  The summary makes it seem that Oliver has a huge ego and maybe Paige is going to  need to knock him down a few pegs before he realizes what a jerk he is, but he's actually really sweet right from the get-go.  There's mention of him not wanting an assistant because he thinks he can handle the workload on his own but we never see these conversations and he never gives Paige any issues when she does assistant-y things for him.  Their past history and the 4 year time skip right at the beginning of the book left me a little confused as to what their exact relationship is (we do eventually get filled in on how things were left off 4 years ago, but not until like 50% of the way through).  Because of this, I just felt like a good chunk of the romance was off the page and we didn't get to see as much as I would have liked.  I did love how they traded books and read each other's favorites and I loved how once they talked out their past issues, they were solid.  The 'bad guy' wins at the end which was a bit disappointing, but Oliver and Paige get their happily ever after so I can't complain too much.

Kiss Kiss Fang Fang - Penelope Bloom

 

This story follows grad student, Cara, and vampire, Lucian. Cara accidentally frees Lucian and his friends after 100 years of imprisonment and finds herself in the middle of a vampire turf war.  The only way to keep her safe is for Lucian to temporarily bind them together by giving her some of his blood.  The two are drawn together but if they sleep together, Cara will turn into a vampire and Lucian promises he would never let that happen.  As tensions rise amongst the vampire clans and Cara finds herself more endeared toward Lucian's band of vamps, the idea of separating after a few weeks seems impossible.  This is my first paranormal romance and I really liked it.  It was heavy on the rom-com elements and I found myself laughing out loud a number of times.  I did like how the romance was developed with them being drawn to each other initially simply because of the vampire blood but as their bond lessened over the coming weeks, they did develop feelings outside of any supernatural attraction.  I did find there were some plot holes that didn't make sense if you thought about them for more than a few seconds, but overall it was a really fun read.  I loved Cara's roommates and Lucian's vamp buddies.  The overall tone of the story was also really great and reminded me of the TV show iZombie.  I also found the vampire lore a nice mix of the traditional and more modern aspects.  The ending was left fairly open with the main plot points resolved but very obviously open for a sequel or series down the line.  There was also a nice add-in of romantic suspense elements with the clashing vampire clans. 

The Billionaire Book Club - Max Monroe

This is the third book in the Billionaire Collection and follows playboy lawyer, Cap, and law student, Ruby.  The two meet by chance at a library and Cap is instantly interested and manages to track her down.  However, he doesn't expect for her to not immediately fall for his charms and offers her an internship with his law practice instead.  Ruby is a lover of romance books and even narrates them as a side job and Cap sees this as his opportunity to use the tropes in books to woo her into sleeping with him.  Cap enlists his friends - the heroes of the other Billionaire Collection and Billionaire Bad Boys series - to help him overcome his bad habits and convince Ruby to take a chance on him.  I loved the amount of guy-time this book had - seeing the heroes all interacting with each other and their different views on relationships now that most of them are happily paired up was super fun.  I did wish we would have gotten more of Ruby and her friends or at least Ruby on her own away from Cap. I did like the amount of scenes with Ruby and Cap building their friendship up and they had some great witty banter back and forth.  Overall, this was a pretty slow burn romance given that Ruby knows all about Cap's after work activities and was determined to not be just another notch on his bedpost.  That being said, this is the shortest book in the series by about 40 pages and I would have liked to get a little more of Ruby and Cap actually being in a relationship together.  I did cry twice during this book when the emotions hit me in just the right spot but overall this was the typical rom-com experience I expect from a Max Monroe book.

Every Last Fear - Alex Finlay

 

Four people are found dead in a vacation home in Mexico, leaving only NYU student, Matt, and convicted murderer, Danny, as the surviving members of the Pine family.  Danny was the subject of a documentary series investigating if he was wrongfully convicted of killing his girlfriend in high school.  Matt returns to his hometown in Nebraska for the funeral and is faced with hostility from the townspeople who were villainized by the docu-series as well as a fresh round of media attention.  As the deaths in Mexico start looking less and less like an accident, Matt must unearth the truth about what happened with Danny years ago and how it could be connected to the current deaths.  

The first thing I want to address is the language used in this book when describing Mexico/Mexican people.  I did read an ARC so there's a chance that some things may change in the finished copy but in the copy I read, I found the language negative, condescending, and judgemental.  The town is Tulum, Mexico and is first described as a destination for celebrities because it isn't as crowded as the usual tourist spots. That description lead me to expect that when our protagonist, Matt, goes to Tulum that the beauty of the area would be in direct contrast with his grief.  However, the descriptions that Matt gives to the reader are very negative to the point where I didn't understand how celebrities would be going to this place and the different images the book was giving the reader about Tulum didn't really make sense to me. Again, I was expecting Matt to not like it there because of the reason for his visit, but I didn't expect so many descriptions about how run down and corrupt everything was.  As a white reader, these descriptions made me take pause so I looked at other reviews and there were a number of readers of color who explicitly called out the language in these scenes as problematic and offensive. There's a chance that these descriptions could be changed in the final copy of the book, but I wanted to point it out now so readers are aware going in.

This book had a lot of potential to be a new favorite but there were a few pieces that fell flat for me and overall this ended up just being an okay read.  My main issue is that this book is being marketed as a psychological thriller but I found it to be a pretty even 50% detective 50% domestic thriller.  I kept hoping the narrative would take a twist to being more psychological but it never did.  I think it did a good job at being a detective/domestic thriller but I was overall disappointed that this wasn't the type of story I was expecting.  When I see a book being marketed as a psychological thriller, I'm expecting some sort of cat and mouse or some other sort of mind games to come into play.  I'm expecting the big bad to be directly influencing the protagonist and making them question what they think is the truth.  I found this to be a lot more straightforward physical thriller where the main character is put in some dangerous situations they have to survive.  The only psychological danger Matt was in was dealing with his grief over losing his family (which I didn't feel as strongly as I think the story wanted me to).  He didn't even seem that invested in independently figuring out what happened to them - it seemed to me he was fine letting the police and FBI do the investigating.  The psychological aspect came in more with the flashbacks to the family before they died but it was such a small part of the story that I wouldn't use it as the main selling point of the plot. 

This story was told in multi-POVs and dual timelines which I usually am a sucker for.  In this case, however, I didn't absolutely love it.  There were a number of chapters that just felt like filler.  It wasn't as if a whole POV was unnecessary, but just the occasional chapter here and there that I didn't think was necessary.  I can stand back and look at the chapters from a structural or plot standpoint and say "that chapter established X relationship" or "that chapter showed how Y changed" so I think all the chapters were technically needed for the plot, but I sure didn't care when I was reading some of them.  There were a number of subplots that I really didn't care about but I knew that if they were in the book then they must be important to the ending so I had to read them.  I think the best multi-POV stories are the ones where all the POVs are entertaining to the reader so even when the POV changes, the reader shouldn't ever feel disappointed.  I thought the dual timeline was very well done and it was really interesting for the reader to know one thing from timeline A but then see the characters find out about it in timeline B a few chapters down the line.  I also think showing the lead up of the family before they died made their on-page deaths really emotional because we've gotten to know them over the past 300 pages and we're hoping for a different outcome even though we know exactly how this is going to end.

Detective thrillers are one of my favorite types and I think the FBI investigation portions of this book were really well done.  Looking back, I would have preferred if this same plot was handled as a pure detective story since I didn't really enjoy the domestic side of the story as much with Matt grieving and going back to his hometown. My favorite character was FBI Agent Keller and I would read more books following her specifically.  I found her to have the most well-rounded characterization in the book.  Everyone else I felt like we know one or two main aspects of their personality and that's it.  For example, we know Matt likes movies.  He's going to NYU to study film and he is constantly making movie references and his friends make comments about how he is constantly making movie references.  And since Matt seemed to be content at letting Agent Kelley do her job, I didn't really feel a need to follow him around at all.  There were a few thrilling scenes in Matt's chapters, but they were the minority and when I think back over the story as a whole, those scenes don't stick out in my mind.

This story did finish really strongly which I think is one of the most important parts of any thriller.  The last 20% or so was really great and when the puzzle pieces started falling into place, I couldn't read fast enough to figure out all the different connections.  From a plot perspective, the big reveals were pretty standard for a domestic thriller but it was still a satisfying conclusion.  The ending was a little bittersweet for reasons I can't go into because of spoilers but the chapters in this last section were very short and we were jumping in between POVs very quickly which really ramped up the tension as well. There were two sort of epilogues at the very end after a time jump so we do see all the plot strings tied up by the end which is always satisfying.

I really liked how the docu-series was integrated into the story.  There would be some chapters where we would read the script from a scene from the documentary.  We also got different character's perspectives on the documentary and it was interesting to see the after effects especially since true-crime documentaries/podcasts/etc are very popular.  The documentary scenes served as nice little breaks in the narrative so I could get a moment before jumping back into the investigation. I think it was also interesting since the documentary filmmakers also showed up in the current investigation so seeing how people reacted to them now vs how they reacted in the initial filming was cool.

Overall, this story had a lot of interesting aspects that in the end just fell a bit flat for me.  It was a journey to find out how everything is connected and while the ending was solid, the journey getting there wasn't as interesting as I would have hoped. This is a solid debut that had some really strong elements and I'm interested to see what Finlay writes in the future.

368 pages

Thanks to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the ARC.

Expected publication date: March 2, 2021.

The Burning Girls - C.J. Tudor

 

This story revolves around a church in a small town in England.  The book summary starts: "Five hundred years ago, eight protestant martyrs were burned at the stake here. Thirty years ago, two teenage girls disappeared without a trace. And two months ago, the vicar of the local parish killed himself." Color me instantly intrigued.  This book follows multiple characters across two different timelines but mainly focuses on Jack Brooks, the new vicar for the town of Chapel Croft, and Flo, Jack's daughter. As with many sleepy small towns, there are darker things hidden under the idyllic landscape.  

This book packs a heck of a lot into just over 300 pages and the pacing does not let up the whole time.  I was immediately pulled into the story and I could not put it down until I was finished.  There are a lot of moving parts and people to keep track of, but the overall plot I found relatively straightforward.  There were some nice, quiet moments in the book where the characters could think a bit about their situation and the events unfolding, but it wasn't long (maybe a paragraph or two) before we were back in the thick of things.  I found this to be a pretty equal split thriller/mystery/horror which I really enjoyed and all of my favorite elements to those three categories I found in this book. I think Tudor did a fantastic job of cycling through the different aspects of the story at just the right moments for me to never feel exhausted at how fast one plot line was moving.  We skipped around a whole bunch and that kept the pacing up but didn't make it feel like the story was moving unbelievably fast.  The timing for the chapter breaks were really well chosen and the best way I can describe the reading experience is that the back of my brain was chewing over the information we just learned in chapter 6 while the front of my brain was following all the new things in chapter 7.  Then, by the time I would get back to the first plot line, it felt like I had enough time to process what happened and then could continue with the story.  

What I would imagine will be the most hit-or-miss part of this book for readers is the multiple POVs and timelines.  I, however, loved the structure and couldn't imagine this story being told any other way.  We follow a total of 5 characters, but 2 of them only come up every once and a while.  Our main POVs are Jack, Flo, and an unnamed narrator - all taking place in the present day.  The other 2 POVs are the two girls that disappeared 30 years ago and we follow the weeks leading up to their disappearance. Jack's POV is told in first person and the other four are third person, which is the one aspect I found jarring only because in my flow of reading I wouldn't immediately realize that we changed POV with the new chapter.  I'm more used to the chapter headings telling us which character we're following which they didn't have in the ARC I was reading (but that may change with the finished copies, I'm not sure). I really liked how each POV had their own plot line and mystery for the reader to follow. There wasn't a single time the POV switched where I wanted to skim through just to get back to another plot line.  Every time, I was excited to find out more about X or Y now that we're back with this other character.  The plot lines do all converge with the number of reveals at the end so I found the payoff to be satisfying. Some of the reveals were hinted at (pretty strongly in my opinion) earlier on in the book but there were more subtle ones that I didn't see coming.  Even the reveals that I saw coming were still interesting because I didn't count on how that reveal would impact the other characters we're following.

I do wish we had gotten more interaction and politics of the day to day activities of being a vicar in a small town.  There's one main family in the village who is described as being very influential and donates a lot of money to the church which does come up later in the book but I would have liked to see that family using some of that power earlier for somewhat mundane things.  I think this would have helped flesh out Jack's world a bit more and set the town's hierarchy more clearly in my head. Along the same lines, I would have liked to see more community gatherings to see the towns people interact with each other as well as with Jack and Flo to get a better sense of how different Jack and Flo are as newcomers.  We get a bit of this during a pub-quiz night but I wanted maybe an extra 50 pages scattered throughout the book with these smaller sort of scenes and then I'd be very happy.

I really loved how well the historical events and town traditions were integrated into the story.  The titular burning girls are a town tradition to honor the spirits of the martyrs.  They are small figures made out of twigs that are set alight in a ceremony held every year by the village on the anniversary of the martyr deaths.  Over time, they have evolved into a ghost story of sorts where local legend says if you see the spirits of two of the martyrs then danger will befall you. The story of the martyrs gets brought up often throughout the book and at times makes characters question if ghosts are real.  It adds and extra layer to the story overall since the characters and the reader aren't sure what exactly is real or if there's a more logical explanation to what is going on. The story doesn't go full paranormal ghost-hunter but the reader is reminded of the legend just enough to keep it in mind as maybe a possibility of something else going on. This is where a lot of the more horror-leaning elements are integrated into the story and I think it is a really great way of adding an overall spooky atmosphere to the book without having to go with big scares. 

Finally, I found all the characters were really well developed and their personalities so different that I was able to remember who everyone was.  I was a bit worried going into the book that Jack, being a vicar, would have a bit of a superiority complex or be a little too perfect just because of being involved in the church.  However, we learn Jack's backstory and how faith was something learned later in life that Jack chose to pursue.  There was a line toward the beginning about how faith is something that needs to be consistently cultivated and worked on like a marriage and, as a non-religious person myself, I thought that was a really interesting view for Jack to have and be so upfront about it with both the reader as well as some of the people in the town.  There were a lot of characters in this book but I was able to keep all of them straight in my mind because their personalities were so clearly defined and shown to the reader. The personalities weren't detailed in the way that I know everyone's favorite color, but they were detailed in such a way that I know what their place in the story was and their overall connection to the town and history. Again, I would have liked to have seen some more interactions between some of the different townspeople to see how their different personalities would interact in this small town and what tensions would arise.  We did learn a few different connections and personal histories of some of the people in the story, but as a more character-focused reader, I ideally would have had a bit more.  Give me a big town meeting or something where tensions are high and there are a bunch of snide remarks and I'm a happy reader.  

Overall, this was a great, fast paced mystery/thriller/horror that kept me engaged all the way to the end.  Multi-POV and dual timelines really helped develop a rich and complex town mystery and the story had a good payoff in the end.

305 pages.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the ARC.

Expected publication date is February 9, 2021.

Romance Wrap-Up 1/16/21 - 1/31/21

 Office Grump - Nicole Snow

This is an enemies to lovers story that follows CEO Magnus and his spitfire assistant Brina.  After a chance meeting in the park after Brina lost her job where the two exchange some pretty brutal verbal spars, Magnus decides she's just the right type of person to be his new Executive Assistant.  Brina is never one to fail at a challenge and steps up into her new role despite not having any previous EA experience.  As they work together and Magnus sees how Brina handles herself and the extreme workload he gives her, the two start to grow closer but Magnus's past history has made him wary of office romances.  Nicole Snow is my go-to author for romantic suspense novels and this one is a pretty standard office romance so I was initially hesitant to pick it up. However, this book hit just about all my favorite tropes and came together perfectly for me.  The enemies to lovers aspect was pretty light on the enemies part but just enough to have some spicy banter between the two.  The romance was slow burn (considering this book is over 400 pages) and I felt that the relationship really developed based on their personalities meshing well and not just physical chemistry. Hero was grumpy, heroine was strong and sure of herself even in unknown situations.  There was a fantastic cast of side characters and side plot that really enriched the story and showed how our hero and heroine really work well together in multiple situations.  From reading some lower rating reviews, a lot of people seem to not enjoy the ending but I really liked how the hero struggled to make is big love declaration.  He tried multiple avenues but none were quite right and the heroine kept rejecting him.  But, of course, it all works out in the end and he figures out the way to finally explain to her how he feels and they live happily ever after.  This book helped me realize that Snow is fantastic at the slower burn romantic buildup that I really enjoy reading and that her non-suspense books are just as well crafted as her suspense ones.

Sugar Daddies - Jade West

This book was more different from my normal romance picks than I was expecting.  It leans more toward the erotica side of the romance genre but still has a really solid romance plot.  The book follows Katie, Carl, and Rick.  Carl and Rick are bisexual men in a committed relationship and they find Katie on a sugar daddy/sugar baby website.  The initial agreement is for just sex (a lot of sex, very explicit MMF sex) but we see Carl and Rick searching for a potential longer, more serious partner.  Later in the book, they specifically state they are polyamorous and always wanted a woman to join them as a long-term partner.  Katie initially agrees because the arrangement will fulfill a fantasy of hers as well as pay for her to realize her dream of owning her own horse stable and riding school.  I really liked the general progression this book took from starting out as just super fun and sexy times between three consenting adults and then the slowly deepening and developing feelings came in and started to change up the relationship dynamic a bit.  I loved how established and solid Carl and Rick are as a couple and the scenes with just them being domestic or having serious discussions felt so incredibly authentic.  I thought Katie's family problems were a bit boring and I didn't completely buy the personality change that happened when she was around certain family members.  I do wish we would have gotten some other perspectives on Katie's life like a best friend or someone (at one point a friend from school is mentioned, but we never see her).  I really liked the bisexual and poly rep in the book as overall very positive and I liked how it wasn't the main conflict in the book.  The book alternates chapters from Katie's and Carl's POV and I would have liked to get some Rick chapters as well.

Always Enough - Kelly Elliott

TW: suicide, drug addiction

This is the second book in the Meet Me in Montana series and follows eldest brother, Ty, as he falls for the new girl in town, Kaylee.  We see the two meet and interact a bit in the first book in the series, but this book does a good job at catching the reader up in the beginning so reading the first book isn't necessary.  Kaylee came to Montana with her friend Lincoln (heroine in the first book) 3 years after the death of her husband.  Ty was a professional bull rider until a car accident shattered his leg and he was forced into retirement.  Both of them have their own tragic backstories but there's been enough time and they both went to therapy to work through their traumas.  I really appreciated how they were both coping so well with their life experiences that they could make very honest decisions about what they wanted and I didn't feel like either of them was using the relationship to distract from their own internal demons.  I really liked how they went from faux enemies - bickering and teasing each other - to lovers in this book.  I love a good stubborn hero who has his walls crumbled just by being around the heroine.  I do wish we got more character development with Ty.  We get his backstory in pretty good detail but then I wasn't really sure what was going on with him in the current day.  I know he works on the ranch with his parents, but we don't get too much internal dialogue from him and I wanted to know more about what he's thinking about his life in general, not just about Kaylee.  I also wanted more build up and tension between the two of them.  There were multiple points in the book where something would happen (a kiss, an almost kiss, etc) and then the reader is told they went weeks without speaking and completely avoided each other.  I would have liked it more if they were forced to interact and both were trying to just pretend nothing happened.  The two ended up being so disconnected for me that when they finally did get together (with suddenly lots of talks about their feelings) it didn't feel as big of a conclusion as it should have.

Only You - Melanie Harlow

This is the first book in the One and Only series and follows wedding planner, Emme, and divorce attorney, Nate.  The two are neighbors in their apartment building and have built a friendship while living next to each other.  One night, a baby is left at Nate's door with a note saying it is his daughter.  Nate and Emme team up to help adjust to the sudden change in Nate's life and end up falling in love along the way.  This was a pretty cute opposites attract / instant family romance.  I really liked the premise of a wedding planner and divorce attorney getting together.  I'm not really a big fan of surprise babies in romance books and I was expecting the baby to come in close toward the end as sort of this big change up to the status quo.  However, the baby came into the story pretty much right at the beginning so there was a lot of bonding over baby stuff which I couldn't really connect with but that is 100% a personal thing.  I really liked Emme and Nate together and I liked how we got to see them as friends before they became romantically entangled.  I also enjoyed Emme's relationships with her sisters and her business partner but I wish Nate had a friend or someone outside of the situation that we could have seen him with.  This book also was a little on the side of love fixes everything, which I don't really love.  Nate has some really deep emotional blocks and trauma from his childhood that I felt caused realistic issues in the relationship but then he seemingly moves on really quickly and gets over his fear of commitment as soon as he decides he doesn't want to lose Emme.  Overall, not my favorite Melanie Harlow, but if you're someone who likes babies and an instant family trope I think this one is super cute.

Neanderthal Seeks Human - Penny Reid

This is the first book in the Knitting in the City series and follows Janie and Quinn.  Janie loses her boyfriend, apartment, and job all in one day - the same day she finally gets to meet the gorgeous security guard as he escorts her out of the building.  The two end up working for the same company and spend more and more time together as their feelings grow.  Janie is entirely caught up in her own head and is constantly sharing facts about anything when she gets unnerved.  Quinn is the strong and silent type who seems to enjoy unnerving Janie.  I really liked them together and appreciated how slow the relationship got going.  Janie, despite being a genius with a photographic memory, is entirely oblivious to more interpersonal relations so it took her a while to finally understand what Quinn wanted.  This story is told from Janie's POV (except for the epilogue) and I needed more from Quinn.  I usually prefer my romances to be dual POV, but especially so when the hero is like Quinn where we only get little hints of what he's thinking from what the heroine catches.  And since we know Janie isn't good at picking up on social cues, I really wanted to be in Quinn's head.  I also felt that some of the side plot lines were dropped a bit too quickly for my liking or without any real impact on the main plot.  I liked the idea of the knitting group, but there were too many people in it and I couldn't remember who was who.  I don't think it really mattered in the grand scheme of things, but it did bother me when I was reading that I couldn't separate the different women in my head, they all just blurred together.  Overall, I enjoyed the tone and lighthearted humor in the story and I enjoyed Janie and Quinn's romance of two sort of outcasts.  There are 7 main books in the series as well as other novellas or short stories that take place between the main books.  I don't know if I'll read all the books in the series, but there were a few that sounded interesting that I'll be picking up.