The Other Side of the Door - Nicci French

 

This story follows music teacher Bonnie during the summer that she was planning on getting her life together a bit.  Instead, she finds herself disposing of a corpse and hiding evidence from the police. The story is told in alternating chapters of "before" and "after" the discovery of the corpse as we unravel what, exactly, happened that evening.  TW/CW: 2 instances of on-page physical domestic abuse

I really enjoyed the overall premise and structure of the book.  I'm a sucker for dual timelines and it was fun to hop around in time and see how something we find out in one time comes up in the other.  The book opens with Bonnie finding the body but she never tells the reader who it is.  It is always 'him' or 'his' and she doesn't really give away any hints to what her connection with the dead person is.  We then jump back in time and see Bonnie putting together this ragtag band of musicians for her friend's wedding and they are mostly all men.  So we can assume that one of these men ends up dead, but we don't know which for about the first 1/3 of the book.  It was pretty fun to read along and guess which of them would be killed and possible motives for all of these characters.  Even once we do find out who dies, we don't know for sure the how or why behind the death.  The timeline switching continues to reveal pieces of the story that we don't know in a pretty intriguing way.  However, the last 2/3 of the story did take a bit of a downhill turn for me.

As a character-focused reader, I'm really forgiving on the actual plot elements if the character work is superb.  However, I found both characters and plot to be lacking in this story for me.  We spend the first 1/3 of the book meeting all these people in Bonnie's life - first her friends and then all these musicians.  The book does a really good job at grounding these characters in their personalities and other identifying characteristics so I didn't get confused.  However, I was expecting a bit of character growth over the course of the story.  It really felt that the characters started out as a bit of a caricature in order to help the reader keep them all straight but then they stayed that way even after the death of someone in their group.  And even if the side characters maybe weren't as developed as I would have liked, I think Bonnie should have had much more of a character arc than she did.  She found the body of someone she knew and decided to dispose of it.  I would expect something like that to have a much more profound effect on a person.  Bonnie is effected by it, but sort of in a weird way where she's walking around in a bit of a brain fog which didn't feel that different to how she was living her life before.  If Bonnie was super on top of her game really taking charge of her life and then suddenly changed to floating through her days then I think that would be really interesting.  But the character shift we get from her isn't as dramatic as I think it needed to be in order to have the last part of the book be interesting from a character perspective.

As for the plot, I was generally much more interested in the 'after' chapters but even those, eventually, lost my interest.  The 'before' chapters are just a bunch of mediocre musicians practicing together and making little snippy comments at each other.  I didn't really find them engaging or interesting and while they did reveal some pieces of information, I wish they were shorter or possibly cut out the practicing altogether.  Most of the information we need for the investigation is revealed either before or after the band practice.  I understand that the band aspect is needed to push the timeline along but I really think these chapters could have ended right when they started to practice.  The 'after' chapters, after a while, became really boring for me too.  They couldn't hold the tension of the investigation for me and I overall ended up not caring if they ever found out exactly what happened that night.  I think the main issue with the 'after' chapters is that Bonnie thinks she knows what happened (but she doesn't tell the reader) so she isn't concerned with finding out the truth.  There's no amateur investigation or anything like that, she's more concerned about if she's going to get caught for hiding the body.  This story takes place in London which has CCTV cameras everywhere.  These cameras are brought up a number of times throughout the beginning half of the book and I thought they were going to be a bigger source of tension/fear for Bonnie than they ended up being.  I basically wanted the tension turned up to 11 and for Bonnie to be more involved in the investigation elements.  

Overall, I really enjoyed the premise and first 1/3 of the story, but found the back 2/3 to be completely underwhelming and lacking the tension and character development I would have expected from the premise.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow Paperbacks for the ARC

Expected publication date is April 27, 2021 (originally published in 2009 under the title Complicit)

What You Never Knew - Jessica Hamilton

 

 

This story follows June's return to her childhood summer home after the deaths of her mother and older sister in a short time frame.  She hasn't been back since the summer she was 12 when her mother suddenly had them leave the lake house after her father left them.  Now a forty year old divorced mom of twins, she finds out her mother never sold the house on Avril Island like she always said she had done and June goes back in search of answers.  

I found this to be a very intriguing domestic mystery that started off pretty slowly, but had a lot of good reveals that really ramped up my interest.  The lake house is on an island in Lake Champlain, Vermont.  I grew up in Vermont and could immediately connect with the whole situation of out of state people coming up to their vacation homes in the summer and the tensions that can create with the locals. June's emotional journey through this story was really the highlight for me.  She's grieving her mother and sister and goes to the lake house to try and process her grief and get some closure.  But then finding out the truth of what happened with her father and how she had been kept completely in the dark growing up piled more emotions onto June.  June returning to the lake house prompted her to examine and re-examine her memories of her summers there and now, as an adult, figuring out what was really going on with her family.  When the book moved more into the mystery investigation, it would still ground the reader in June's grief which was really interesting to see how the more she uncovered the truth, the more it caused her to confront her feelings around her mother and sister.  I thought the mystery was well crafted, intriguing, and integrated well into June's personal growth arc.

My favorite part of this book was the lake house.  It is the only house on the island and, as such, is very remote so there's an immediate sort of eerie feeling that is contrasting with June's happy memories there.  The house becomes a charter in the story as the plot develops, almost seeming to give June hints of where to look next for her answers.  Not in an explicit supernatural way or anything like that, just by the very nature of being a place with a lot of history that triggers her memories.  When June first arrives to the house, we get a very long and detailed description of the rooms and layout of the house.  When I initially read this part, I did get a little bored because there wasn't much going on besides June walking around and noticing things like the mismatched silverware in the drawer or the quilt on the bed. These were aspects that, at that moment, didn't really mean much to the reader but as we got deeper into the story, I was glad we had that long description to really be able to picture the house and any changes that were going on.  Once some spooky things start happening around the house and June learns how some of the locals feel about the house on Avril Island, it really feels like June and the house become a sort of team to protect the good times that June remembers on that island and find out the truth of what happened almost 30 years ago.

This story is told in dual POV between June and her dead sister, May.  The obvious comparison is The Lovely Bones where the dead character follows the living ones as they navigate their grief and investigation.  In this case, May dies in a car accident (that we get on page in chapter 1) so there's no mystery to her death.  She floats in and out of the story and at the beginning is more of a third party observer to give the reader some perspective.  I didn't love this choice at the beginning where I felt that the few times we got May's POV it interrupted the narrative flow of June's POV.  We didn't get much of May's POV and since it was just another window to watch June through, I didn't really get the point.  As the story progresses, May starts remembering things and we find out that she knew more about their father and the mystery behind his disappearance than she ever said while she was alive.  These revelations did make May's chapters more engaging, but since there was no way for June to talk to May, it really felt like May was just telling the reader a bit earlier than June would find out anyway.  There's also a bit of a supernatural element at play where sometimes June thinks she hears May's voice or smells her soap. But I never felt like this connection was really explored as much as I was expecting it to be. May's story did follow a very standard arc where she died, her spirit finds herself connected to June for some reason, she helps June find answers, then she is able to be free at the end. I could see what Hamilton was going for, I just didn't feel that May's character arc held the same amount of emotional tension and heaviness for me that June's did.  For me, I think the story would have had a much bigger emotional impact if we were just following June and she was finding out these secrets and working through her grief of not only the physical death of her sister but also the metaphorical death of their relationship not being what she thought it was.  I could see this mechanic working for readers who are maybe more spiritual than I am or who have maybe lost someone very close to them.  

I really enjoyed the way June interacted with the locals and how they reacted when they found out who she is.  These interactions are really fantastic, watching June interact with people who have some very strong feelings about her family and seeing her realize that the relationships she thought her family had with the town were not necessarily accurate.  Some were personally involved with her family and others were just the townspeople who were around for the aftermath of June's father's disappearance.  I do wish we would have gotten a bit more of that small town gossip mill going in this story and I was waiting for some sort of big party or something where everyone would get together and there would be some big reveals (like a fourth of July BBQ, for example).  She also mainly runs into people who were friends with her parents but I would have liked more present day interactions with other kids June knew from back then.  I think more interactions or more in depth interactions would have helped flesh out exactly how influential June's family was on the town.  Or, these additional views could give us more of an insight into how June changed from a 12 year old to now and we could get her feelings on some of the ways her life didn't turn out as planned.  We do get some of that when June runs into Ezra - the son of the groundskeeper - but I really wanted more.

The ending and reveals are what can make or break a mystery and I thought this book really stuck the landing.  I did guess the big end reveal pretty early on, but there were still a number of reveals that I didn't see coming and I thought were pulled off well. I found all the twists to have breadcrumbs that, if you picked up on them, you could have guessed the twist but the crumbs weren't super obvious so it wasn't one of those books that really holds your hand through the reveal.  I've skimmed through some other reviews and the ending seems to be a bit hit or miss where some some readers think it is asking for a bit too much of a suspension of disbelief and there were too many twists to be believable.  I didn't find any of the twists to be completely unfounded and thought, overall, that the ending was pretty believable and well developed.  I didn't love how the romance thread wrapped up but I found this story much more to be about June's personal journey than the romance so I wasn't too bothered.  I found this a very isolated story really about June and her connection with this island so I wasn't bothered by the fact that we don't get a whole lot of information about her life before or after the events on the island.  We do get a few glimpses - just enough to know that the events of the story did affect her - but we aren't diving deep into her life. 

Overall, a very satisfying slow burn mystery with some very dramatic twists in the third act.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the ARC.

Expected publication date: April 13, 2021.

The Dinner Guest - B.P. Walter

 

 

This is a domestic thriller following family Matthew, Charlie, and Titus and the year leading up to a deadly dinner with Rachel - a woman they think they met by chance.  Matthew is stabbed at the dinner table, Rachel calls the police and confesses immediately, leaving Charlie and Titus to navigate their new family structure and the murder investigation as everyone tries to figure out why Rachel killed Matthew. Told in dual timeline and dual POV, we follow Rachel and Charlie and slowly find out the truth of their relationship and what happened during the dinner.

The beginning of this book was my favorite part but I know some readers will disagree.  The prologue starts off when the police show up at Charlie and Matthew's home and start processing the scene.  There is a slight hint at the end of the prologue that maybe not all is as it seems and then in chapter 1 we jump to 12 months in the past and pick up the story from there to work forward to the murder. I personally love this structure where we know the ending and then the fun is the journey of how we get there.  However, I know that not everyone feels the same way.  I don't feel like the prologue spoils anything more than the book description, in general, does.  I watched a video from Kate Cavanaugh recently where she discusses why she sometimes skips prologues and I could see why people would skip this type of prologue.  I will say the book doesn't end at the murder, so there is more revealed after the dinner in the overall plot of the book.  Like I said, I just really enjoy this structure where I know what happens but finding how exactly how everything plays out.

I really enjoyed the world building that Walter did in in this story.  The story is set in London, but there are a lot of intricacies that come into play in regards to the different classes the characters belong to and how that informs their world view and actions.  For example, upon meeting Rachel, Charlie feels something is off about her but he can't explain why.  Matthew accuses Charlie of not liking her because she's lower class and a little different from all their other posh friends.  This adds and extra layer of tension to the story because now Charlie is double guessing his feelings but it also a bit put off that Matthew would accuse him of being judgemental like that.  We also see Rachel's home with her father so we get a direct contrast to the very luxurious life she's managed to find for herself in the story and we get a bit of her feelings on the issue.  All the little details really made this upper class group of people that Rachel was infiltrating feel like a whole other world with their own rules and guidelines.  

I thought the overall premise of the book was really interesting and one of my favorite thriller/mystery/horror premises of the stranger infiltrating someone's life.  We know from the beginning that Rachel has some sort of ulterior motive when it comes to getting close to Charlie and Matthew but we don't know the details.  Charlie and Matthew just think they've made a new friend at the bookstore and have no idea that the wheels of disaster have been set in motion.  It is a very suspenseful premise that I think really pays off at the end when all is revealed.  I also think that the structure of having very short chapters and switching perspectives and timelines often help raise that suspense and tension.  This story really put into perspective that adults making friends is pretty difficult outside of school or work so I found the initial meeting very plausible.  I know my partner is routinely striking up conversations with people when he goes out shopping and I could absolutely see him doing something like this (which terrifies me, an avid reader of thrillers and other such murder books). In any case, I'd say this is a really solid example of this trope of the mysterious stranger coming into the main character's life only to turn it head over heels.

The main part I disliked is that at about the 70% mark, all the secrets start to be revealed but it is done mostly by characters simply confessing to other characters.   I think the reveals would have been more impactful for both the characters and the reader if they were uncovered in a more active manner.  Also, the information revealed was very significant to the characters - so much so that I was surprised it didn't show up sooner in the book.  The characters, for the most part, were very polished and put together for the first 70% of the story and then suddenly they had all these big flaws and personal histories revealed.  I would have expected these types of flaws to have shown up in other parts of the characters' lives earlier in the story.  I wanted cracks in the otherwise pristine facade the characters were putting on. Or maybe something like they catch themselves thinking X because of their history with Y and have to talk themselves out of thinking like that. But I didn't pick up on any cracks until everything goes from 0 to 60.  I'm more of a fan of the slow and steady build up and I think if these reveals were to be hinted at earlier in the book it would have upped the tension for me.  I really liked the actual topics of the reveals and I for sure didn't see anything close to that coming (which I know some readers prefer in their mysteries/thrillers).  There was one character, specifically, whose flaw was a pretty significant character aspect that I really thought should be affecting the day to day life of that character more. 

When I initially finished the book, I was mad at the ending.  It wasn't that it was a bad ending, but I was just so emotionally invested in these characters that I ended up rooting for the one that ends up 'losing' in the end so I was a bit upset.  But after a few days of reflection, I did end up on the side of really enjoying the ending and I think it was really the only appropriate way for the story to end considering how all the plot lines were intersecting.  The last chapter picks up about 7 months after the murder where we see the surviving members of the dinner party moving on with their lives.  There's a vague cloud hanging over them about what happened that night, but overall they are going forward with no plans to speak about the events again.  So we have a good amount of closure with a little window that maybe something will happen down the line that will uncover certain truths that are currently buried.  Then we get an epilogue from 3 years in the future that shows just how delicate the situation ends up being and the epilogue leaves  us with a pretty significant cliff hanger-y type ending where we know shit is about to hit the fan but we don't get to see how everything plays out.

Overall, a very solid domestic thriller that pulled me right in at the beginning with the mystery of who Rachel is and what she wants with Charlie and Matthew but lost me a bit at the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and One More Chapter for the ARC.

Expected publication date is April 1, 2021.

Romance Wrap-up 3/1/21 - 3/15/21

 Stud Muffin - Jiffy Kate

This is the first book in the Fighting for Love series which takes place in Penny Reid's Green Valley World.  It follows newly divorced Tempest and new to town Cage.  After Tempest walks in on her husband with another woman, her anger gets the better of her.  After a few too many nights in jail, she finds a friend in Cage - ex MMA fighter and new bouncer at the local strip club.  The two start out as friends and he helps her work through her emotions with a punching bag (as well as her going to anger management classes).  But when the two get closer, Tempest isn't sure how she can trust other people, or herself, after what happened with her ex.  I loved Tempest and Cage together and it was really nice to see a friends to lovers story that didn't have the characters being friends from childhood.  It was interesting to see them both have an instant attraction to the other, but keep their relationship to a respectful friendship because that's what they needed to heal.  I really felt for Tempest when she was dealing with all the gossip and judgement of the small town of Green Valley.  I also thought it was interesting to see our heroine lash out with anger after being hurt as so many romance novels have the heroine turning to sadness and shutting people out.  Also, I loved how we saw her going to an anger management group and how integral that group was with her moving on with her life. I really appreciated how Cage was supportive and always there if Tempest needed backup but he never went super alpha or anything (even though he 100% could of since he is an MMA fighter).  He knew she could handle herself and that she needed to work through some stuff on her own and find her footing so he never overstepped his boundaries.  It was really great that he let her know how he felt but then told her everything was on her terms and her timeline since she had recently gone through all that stuff with her ex.  Big, muscly, alpha guy who loves fresh baked muffins and is super loving and supportive?  Sign me up!

Don't Kiss the Bride - Carian Cole

This is an age-gap marriage of convenience story following 34 year old contractor Jude and 18 year old student Skylar.  They meet by chance and keep running into each other, Jude helping Skylar out when her car breaks down and when she needs a ride the ER, and become fast friends.  After finding out how rough her living situation is, Jude proposes a marriage of sorts only until Skylar gets on her feet after graduation.  However, living under the same roof and pretending to be married isn't helping the growing bond between the two of them.  This book reminded me a whole lot of Birthday Girl by Penelope Douglas - our heroine may be younger but she has an old soul.  Our hero is just trying to be a good guy and is fighting his feelings for as long as he can.  I really liked the give and take of their relationship and how it was built on a pretty steady foundation of wanting to help out another person just because it is a nice thing to do.  There are some pretty heavy topics handled (TW/CW: eating disorders, substance abuse, childhood neglect, hording, bullying) but the book focused so much on Skylar getting help from therapists and multiple doctors.  This wasn't anything close to love fixing mental  health issues which I really appreciated. I really loved Skylar's best friend and how solid their relationship is - there was no friend drama.  I do wish Skylar was out of high school because it was a little weird to read about her being in class all day (it is explained she was held back due to being sick a lot when she was younger so she's 18 going on 19 in her senior year, but still).  I also wish the conflict in the book was a bit more either stretched out or varied.  It felt like most of the book was just a cycle of Jude and Skylar being friends, then flirting, then giving into their attractions, then Jude pushing her away because she is so young, then them making up and promise to go back to friends.  Of course, there were a lot of outside opinions on their relationship, but it always came back to Jude letting those comments get under his skin and push Skylar away.  So I wanted this age issue to either be more slowly built over the book to one big blow out or for them to get past the age issue fairly quickly only to be confronted by a completely new issue that comes up.  I'm a big sucker for romantic gestures in my books and this one was so sweet and a perfect representation of their relationship that I had tears in my eyes while reading.

Out of Nowhere - Roan Parrish

This is the second book in the Middle of Somewhere series and follows Colin and Rafe.  The two meet in an alley outside a bar where Rafe saves Colin from getting beat up.  Rafe convinces Colin to volunteer at a youth group he runs and the two strike up a relationship.  However, they both have a lot of baggage and troubled history to overcome and as much as they want to work together as a couple, they both push each other away at times.  Colin is the brother of Daniel from the first book and is the villain of Daniel's story.  We find out at the end of the first book that Colin is gay but constantly bullied Daniel growing up for being gay.  Out of Nowhere is sort of Colin's redemption arc where we see him come to terms with who he is and have a chance at being happy.  I don't love the trope of the homophobic character being gay themselves but I know that is reality for a lot of people.  This is a very heavy book that involves a lot of heavy topics (TW/CW: suicide, disordered eating, self harm, alcohol abuse, sexual assault, drug abuse, obsessive tendencies).  Colin is a real wreck for honestly the first 70% of the book and being in his head while he's trying to stuff down his feelings and deal with keeping the facade up did make me empathetic to his character.  I also, personally, could really relate to his inability to articulate how he was feeling and I loved how Rafe worked with him so they could still communicate but in different ways so Colin could feel comfortable while he was working through his feelings.  This story also played a bit into the idea that love can fix everything because we see Colin slowly relax some of his self-destructive behaviors.  I will note that they go away when he is relaxed (which Rafe helps him be calm) but any time Colin is stressed or anxious, they come back up so I don't think he has been 'fixed' by being in a relationship with Rafe.  Their relationship does feel rocky and a bit toxic at times, but they do take breaks from each other after they fight and it is obvious they are both working through their own personal baggage in order to be together. I really loved Colin and Rafe's relationship and how supportive they were of each other.  I thought they complemented each other's personalities well and seemed like they are very comfortable just hanging out and being around one another.  I really love when romance books have great domestic scenes of the couple just making dinner together or hanging out and watching a movie and we got a good amount of those scenes in this book which really deepens the romance for me and make them feel like a down to Earth couple.  I really prefer light rom-coms so this book was a bit outside my comfort zone but I still enjoyed the amount of heart and sincerity this story brought to some really difficult topics and how even if you are struggling with those things you are still worthy of love.

No More Secrets - Lucy Score

This is the first book in the Blue Moon series and follows farmer Carter and journalist Summer.  Summer is writing a story about Carter and spending a week away from Manhattan to envelope herself in the farming life in upstate New York.  Carter is a bit of a loner and a grump, but after returning home from Afghanistan with PTSD it took time to get his life back on track and he doesn't want some city girl poking around to ruin all he's worked for.  Everyone in town sees their connection right away and hopefully the country boy and city girl find a way to work things out between them.  After a couple heavier romances, I was really in the mood for a lighter rom-com and this book delivered.  I loved how the town of Blue Moon is a separate character in the book and we meet so many of the quirky townsfolk (it reminded me a whole lot of Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls). I really loved Carter's whole family and how integral they are to the story.  I thought Carter and Summer were a really great pair and I enjoyed how easily they just clicked.  I was expecting this to be a bit more of a grumpy vs sunshine but Carter wasn't nearly as grumpy as I was expecting and Summer won him over almost instantly.  I also wish we got a bit more of a lead up to the main conflict.  It was hinted at a little bit but it really felt like it went from 0 to 60 all of a sudden and then Summer was running away and we the reader didn't know what her secret was so we couldn't really understand why she would leave Carter like that.  I loved how supportive Carter was of Summer's career aspirations and how he never asked her to choose between her job and him.  I can't wait to read more in the Blue Moon series and watch the whole strange small town fall in love. 

This story follows CEO Grady and new college graduate Blair.  After a hot one night stand, Blair goes to interview at her dream company as the CEO's Executive Assistant - and Grady is the CEO.  The two decide to put their one night of passion aside and work together but Grady is distant and cold in the office and Blair doesn't know if he actually wants her to work there or not.  Tensions grow as feelings develop when they try to work together and give into the sexual tension.  On paper, this book had a lot going for it - office romance, grumpy vs sunshine, strong heroine, good supporting cast.  But these pieces just really didn't come together at all for me.  I almost DNF'd this book a few times, but there would be scenes where the chemistry or character development was great so I'd keep reading and then everything would fall flat for me again.  For one example that I think really sums up my feelings - there was a scene at about 60% where Grady and Blair order takeout for dinner at Grady's apartment and after they place the order, they sleep together.  We get a few sexy scenes in a row (including shower sex the next morning) and I was so disconnected and uncaring about these characters that I kept wondering where the takeout they ordered was.  It wasn't that the writing was bad or the characters were poorly developed - quite the opposite really - but they just didn't connect in my brain.  I was very hot and cold on this book while I was reading it and overall found it to be pretty tepid.

The Drowning Kind - Jennifer McMahon

 

 This story follows social worker Jax as she returns to her grandmother's estate after her sister, Lexie, is found dead - drowned in the pool in the backyard.  When she arrives at the house, she discovers Lexie had been researching their family history and the history of the property.  We also follow a second timeline starting in 1929 where Ethel and her husband visit a newly built hotel and on the hotel grounds is a natural spring rumored to grant wishes.  The two timelines intertwine as Jax and Ethel come to find that the truth behind the mysterious properties of the spring may be darker than they could ever imagine.

(TW/CW: self harm, mental illness)

My absolute favorite thing about this story was the tone.  This had an overall creepy vibe, but I never found it to be horror or even very thriller-y (although some other reviews I've read disagree with me on that point).  The main plot revolved around Jax dealing with the grief of losing her sister as well as the guilt of how distant she'd been from her family over the past few years.  The house is full of memories - good and bad - with further prod Jax's feelings on these issues.  It really felt similar to Stephen King's Pet Sematary with the overall exploration of grief that was very grounded in reality but with a strange supernatural element on the fringe that amps up the creep factor.  As the story progresses, the tone gets darker and more sinister as we find out more truths behind what, exactly, is going on with this spring.  In the past POV of Ethel, we get this same tone which enhances the idea of how this house and spring is connected through these different generations and how entwined people's lives can be. I also liked how the tone of the story contrasts with the theme of wish fulfillment which most people would think of as a really happy thing but we consistently see these characters technically get their wishes but at a great cost that they weren't expecting.  

I thought the characterization and character relationships were really well done.  We are introduced to a number of characters pretty quickly as Jax comes back into this small town for the first time in a while.  However, we quickly establish relationships as well as individual tension points between the characters which helps immediately immerse the reader into this world.  Then, the longer we stay in this small town, the more layered the connections get.  I would characterize this book as being character driven and I wasn't necessarily expecting that based on the description.  I was expecting a bit more of a supernatural thriller with a more direct threat to our protagonist.  While there was a good part of the book that revolved around figuring out the mystery that Lexie supposedly found answers to, I feel like the story kept coming back to the tension between characters.  I did enjoy the way all the characters were connected - it felt very realistic for small town nosiness. I also liked how Jax viewed her relationships through two different lenses - her emotions and her social worker side.  It was an interesting way for the reader to see how these relationships were unsettling her and how she would talk to herself to remind herself to keep calm or to drop a subject that was obviously upsetting someone.  When they were younger, Lexie was formally diagnosed with "schizoaffective disorder of the bipolar type" which would cause her to have extreme bouts of mania sometimes accompanied with hallucinations.  A big part of Jax coming back into this house and going through Lexie's research was figuring out if what she was seeing was real or if it was just her disorder as well as Jax pushing through her own personal judgements of her sister and her illness to find the truth.

My main negative point for the book was that there was one loose thread that I felt never got tied up in the end (or maybe it did and I just didn't quite understand what was going on).  This thread is was one of Jax's patients - a young boy - who started having dreams about fish who turned into monsters right before Lexie died.  He then starts having what Jax's co-worker described as a full psychotic break while Jax is away at the house. While Jax is dealing with her sister's funeral and all the other weird stuff happening, she keeps forgetting about him (and so did I, to be honest).  She would suddenly remember and then try to call his house only for it to go to voicemail. He comes back up toward the end where Jax is talking to him on the phone but then her aunt listens on the line and says no one was on the phone with her.  And that was the last we see of the boy.  I was never quite clear on if he was connected to the spring in someway or if he was having these nightmares because he was close to Jax or what, exactly, was going on.  There were other mysterious phone calls that occur throughout the story so maybe it wasn't really the boy calling and then it was just a coincidence that he had nightmares about fish monsters before Jax left?  Everything else gets tied up so nicely that I was a bit confused about the boy's thread feeling so unfinished.

Split timelines are usually a win, but this one didn't hit 100% home for me.   Overall, I think it was necessary and I really enjoyed getting to read the 'real time' events that Jax finds out about in the future.  I also think the past timeline does a good job setting the tone specifically when it comes to the spring and how the sort of lore around it began.  However, I did find myself not really caring about Ethel and her problems.  She always came across as detached from the rest of the story which tracks considering she does self harm to ground herself when her emotions get out of control.  She then would remind herself who she is, where she is, and what she's doing at that moment.  So in that way, I can appreciate her characterization but some of her chapters weren't as exciting as I think they could have been if she was a more active character.  I did like how much longer the past timeline was (decades) compared to the current day timeline (a weekish) because we got to see so much of the set up behind the house where Jax was staying in the current day.  I think being able to see the progression does make the reveals later in the book hit a little harder and makes the accusations Jax makes more believable because the reader has all this emotional backstory to back Jax up.  However, having that many years scrunched into half of the book again made things feel a little more surface level than I would have liked. 

The ending was bittersweet, but I overall thought it was the most appropriate ending there could have been.  I appreciated how we got a definite answer to if the supernatural element was read or imagined which I wasn't exactly expecting.  I would have expected a book like this where the supernatural elements were almost pushed to the side to have a more ambiguous ending in that regard.  I had to re-read the first few pages of the last chapter because I wasn't sure exactly what happened but once I caught on, I was pleasantly surprised.  It had a similar structure of an ending to a book I read last year which was the first time I'd come across that particular style of ending and I think I really enjoy that technique in these 2 books.  I found that the plot threads were tied up by the end (the above example as an exception) so the reader did get closure on a number of side plots as well as answers to the main mystery.

Overall, a very atmospheric and creepy book that explores themes of grief, guilt, and how wishes sometimes aren't better if they come true.  I'd also like to note for any fellow Vermonters (or New Englanders in general) that this book has some fantastic little gems that I think readers from other areas of the country might just skim right over.

 336 pages.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the ARC.

Expected Publication Date: April 6, 2021. 

Mexican Gothic - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

 

 

Set in 1950s Mexico, this story follows debutante Noemí as she travels to a house in the Mexican countryside after receiving a mysterious and somewhat cryptic letter from her cousin who had recently married.  When she arrives, she meets the English family her cousin has married into who try to convince Noemí that her cousin is sick but getting better with the help of the family doctor from town.  However, Noemí is not one to let a matter remain unsettled and the more time she spends in this house, the more she uncovers about the family, their history, and the dark secrets the walls are hiding. **CW/TW for the book are at the end of the review**

I absolutely loved this book and it is pretty much my perfect gothic horror book.  I took a Gothic Literature class in college and this book would be perfectly at home in the syllabus for that class.  I loved that it was set in the 1950s in a rural area which really heightened the isolation elements of the story.  The majority of the story is a very atmospheric build-up as Noemí tries to help her cousin and at the same time is doing her best to abide by the strange rules in this home.  Everyone at the house feels off and the rules, such as no talking at the dining table, add to the mysterious vibe of the whole situation.  Noemí, to her credit is not one to shy away from the situation and she tries her best to take control and advocate for her cousin (and herself).  As the story progresses, Noemí learns more and more about the family's history and the horror elements ramp up as she learns more details.  There are spots of more pronounced horror in Noemí's nightmares that she has while staying at the house but the book goes full-tilt at about the 25% mark when we find out all the information and the book doesn't hold back.  I've seen some reviews that say this book felt more like a suspense rather than a horror and I could see how if they were expecting a more intense or visceral sort of horror experience that this isn't the book they were expecting.  However, I went in expecting a gothic horror and I got exactly what I wanted (plus a little extra I wasn't expecting).

The character work in this book was really fantastic.  I found all the main players to be really well developed and complex - especially our protagonist, Noemí.  The summary from Goodreads describes her as "a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid".  She's wonderfully complex and I love that the book starts out with her in her element in Mexico City's social scene.  We see the glamorous side of her but almost immediately after, we see her drive to follow her own path in life when she tries to explain to her father why she wants to go to university.  Many of her interactions with other characters have them not exactly underestimating her, but they obviously expect her to act in a certain way and she does act that way until there's a reason for her not to.  Our other significant characters are just as nuanced.  I really liked how the characters all have their main facade they use for most interactions and slowly those fronts crumble as the story progresses.  I really like complicated and nuanced characters and I found these characters fascinating even during the quieter build up of the story.

 The one part of the book I was a bit irked by was one specific part of the ending.  I obviously don't want to go into too much detail but, in general, there were a few too many situations where one character would sort of out-maneuver another character.  They they would say "you thought you would do X without me knowing?  I knew all along and I laid this trap for you to fall right into!".  Once is a good twist, but it happened two or three times at varying degrees of significance and by the end I was just waiting for someone else to pop up from behind a couch or something to surprise the other characters.  I've heard some people express that the ending dragged on a bit too long for them after the big reveal and I'm wondering if this type of repetition of plot twists could have been a factor for those readers.  

I really enjoyed the amount of agency Noemí has in the book.  I was expecting, based on the time period and general gothic horror tropes, that she would be much more of a passive character bordering on victim.  However, she shows pretty much from the beginning that she is not going to let other people decide what she is going to do.  And we see this part of her personality come through in multiple facets of her life including her university studies, romantic relationships, trying to help her cousin, and ultimately discovering the truth behind what has been happening in the village.  There's a plot point that comes up as part of the big reveal that very easily could have taken away Noemí's agency and she would have easily ended up being a broken victim.  However, she takes all the spirit and resolve that we've seen developing throughout the whole book and fights back against the big bad - not only for herself, but for the people she cares about as well.  I think the balance between her acting 'properly' and then her standing up for herself is really well done.  There are multiple occasions where Noemí uses her family's status in society and her knowledge of delicate social situations to her advantage.  She tells the reader that she needs to act this way in order to accomplish X and Y later and every time it happened, I just found myself thinking "go get 'em, Noemí, they won't know what hit them".  There's a larger discussion that I think would be interesting to look at in regards to the racial differences between Mexican Noemí and this English family who has been living in this Mexican town for generations and how that impacts Noemí's agency but I think that would quickly veer into spoiler territory.   

I talked about the general horror aspects earlier, but I wanted to mention the way the house is used in this book.  The house, like many gothic horror novels, is a character.  We are told in the book summary that the house is invading Noemí's dreams and turning them into nightmares.  It reminded me very much of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the way that there's a bit of a blurred line in most of the book on if the house is alive or if the characters are going a bit mad.  The main house feels stuck in time, almost like the people living there are trying to hold onto the past, but Noemí notes the general decay and run-down status of the house.  It was an interesting comparison to the glamorous life Noemí was leading in Mexico City.  My favorite part of gothic horror is the atmospheric dread that settles over the story as the characters try to figure out what is going on.  In this story, the house is consistently reminding Noemí that something is not quite right here.  It seemed like every time Noemí would do something fun or a bit lighthearted, as soon as she walked back into the house, there was a portrait or stain or strange noise that would bring her back to reality.  The house played a much larger part in the story than I was expecting and, in the end, we got answers and explanations to the overall state of the house and what had been happening to Noemí while she was there.

Overall, this was a fantastic gothic horror that had a nice slow build-up of weird and creepy things happening only to really kick into gear in the last 25%.  Really great character building and agency for the protagonist throughout the book.

 301 pages.

 **CW/TW: suicide, body horror, incest, sexual assault, cannibalism, gaslighting

 

Romance Wrap-up 2/16/21 - 2/28/21

 No Broken Beast - Nicole Snow

 This is the third book in the Heroes of Heart's Edge series and follows Leo and Clarissa on their second chance romance.  They were young and in love eight years ago before tragedy struck the town of Heart's Edge and Clarissa left.  Leo is now the town legend and outcast called Nine who many people in the town blame for what happened.  When Clarissa's sister goes missing, Clarissa returns to Heart's Edge with her 8 year old son who has the same striking eyes as Leo.  While this is a standalone as far as the romance pair is concerned, the suspense plot is a continuation of the events from the first two books so I would recommend reading these books in order.  Snow does a good job giving a quick synopsis of the past events that we learned about in previous books and then this book dives deeper into Leo's backstory.  I'm not usually a fan of second chance romances because I never find them to be detailed enough in the couple overcoming what previously broke them apart, but in this case it was really outside forces that kept Leo and Clarissa apart.  They do end up explaining, apologizing, and forgiving for their own actions but the overall threat to the relationship was exterior.  Because of this, I do feel like the reader missed out on a good portion of their romance since it happened in the past (although we do get some flashbacks).  It really felt like they basically picked back up where they left off but I was left a bit in the dark.  There's a pretty big emphasis on found family in this story and I liked the focus on Leo's mental recovery after his very rough upbringing.  

Sweatpants Season - Danielle Allen

This story follows Akila and Carlos - they meet during a photography class and have instant chemistry.  Only problem is that Carlos is 1/3 of a podcast called Date Night which gives dating and relationship advise that skews misogynistic.  Akila, a loud and proud feminist, wrote an article lambasting the podcast and the culture it promotes.  When she finds out that Carlos is involved, she immediately labels him as trash but the more the two work together, the more Akila can't help but develop feelings for him and the more she struggles with following her own moral code.  I thought the premise was interesting - feminist vs alleged playboy podcaster - but I didn't find it as complex as I would have liked and I think the main reason for that is Akila.  I really liked her as a character - super driven, smart, witty, strong - but she was super judgemental when it came to the podcast and Carlos.  I understand her being disappointed in him and I would have hated it if she pushed her values aside to be with him, but she barely ever gave him a chance to explain his perspective on the situation.  She also often devolved quickly to name calling and being mean instead of having genuine conversations about these topics.  She came across very much as someone who has their mind 100% made up and anyone who doesn't agree is a moron and should be told as much.  For most of the book, I was convinced Akila and Carlos wouldn't end up together (which is a shame because their chemistry was off the charts!) despite me knowing better considering this is a romance so of course they'd end up together.  I really loved Akila's friends and Carlos for calling her out on her judgements but also respecting her feelings - they basically helped her look at the issue from different sides and consider what some nuances might be.  I really liked the plot and their relationship build up, just that any time the podcast was brought up I would brace myself for some comment from Akila and I just wanted her and Carlos to get back to the sexual tension already.

Bittersweet - Sarina Bowen

 This is the first book in the True North series and follows aspiring chef Audrey and grumpy farmer Griff.  The two shared a few nights together in college and never thought they'd see each other again until Audrey shows up at Griff's farm offering to buy his apples for the fancy Boston restaurant group she works for.  Despite the time that had passed, the chemistry between the two is still sparking and they quickly pick up where they left off.  But Audrey has big plans to own a restaurant in the big city and Griff is heading up his family farm in Vermont so their future isn't so easily figured out.  This is a really good grumpy vs sunshine book which is one of my favorite tropes.  I think it was really great that these two had a bit of history which helped them start off on the right foot together. It was super obvious that they had chemistry for days and I was happy they embraced it instead of trying to fight against it for most of the book. I loved Griff's family and how Audrey fit right in with them.  I thought the conflict with Audrey's mom and how she grew up was really unique for a romance since most of the ones I've read usually have the hero's family be distant.  I also appreciated how Griff knew about Audrey's insecurities about their relationship and he went out of his way to not only tell her how he felt, but made sure he showed everyone around them how much he cared about her.  They were super cute together and I loved the slight teasing they would give each other.  I do wish Audrey had a friend that we could see her talking about Griff with to get some outside perspective on her side.