Daphne - Josh Malerman

 

This horror story follows Kit Lamb during her last summer before college. She's on her school's basketball team and on the night before the big game, one of the other players tells a ghost story about Daphne to the team.  There are different versions of Daphne's story - some say she was murdered, some say she was a murderer - but the main theme is that if you think about her, she will come and kill you.  After hearing this story, Kit can't stop thinking about Daphne.  And once her teammates start dying one by one, Kit begins to suspect Daphne might be real after all.  Now, Kit is determined to find the truth behind the legend and learn to face her own fears before its too late. 

TW/CW: child abduction, child murder, cannibalism, suicide, anxiety, body horror

I've really enjoyed all of my past Malerman reads, but this one started out a little rough.  Looking back, I just think the point he chose to start the story at was not the most interesting and ended up making the pacing feel really disjointed.  However, once the kills start, they don't stop and this turned into a really great read.  I did read an ARC copy, so there's a chance some of this could change in the final version.  The story opens at the end of the big game and has Kit thinking about Daphne and her inner monologue does a great job at showing the reader how nervous and anxious she is about Daphne.  Only one problem: the reader doesn't have any context to who Daphne is or why Kit is thinking about her.  Now, of course, if you read the book description, you would have an idea but the lack of story context was really throwing me off.  The reader then gets filled in via flashback but this pacing and structure just didn't work for me. Once we get past this awkward beginning, I really enjoyed the pacing and structure for the rest of the story.

I really loved the Daphne myth and how it evolved over the course of the book.  Having it be a ghost story at a sleepover really made it feel universal because I think many people will have a similar ghost story in their area.  I also enjoyed having the main characters be older and having this play between them thinking ghosts aren't real but also all sort of believing in them.  At first, I thought this would just be a regular sort of vague ghost story, but I was really pleased with how detailed the story got and how we could see it change as it was told.  Daphne's myth also got a lot darker than I was expecting which I appreciated.

Anxiety is a big theme in the book and I thought making Daphne be a sort of mirror for that worked really well.  In the acknowledgements at the end, Malerman talks a bit about his own anxiety journey and how some of that is reflected in Kit.  We see a wide range of Kit's anxiety and her coping strategies and the narrative style in these sections really reflects her mental state.  These sections, especially her journal entries, feel very stream of consciousness but there's this constant reminder of Daphne that comes through and it really feels like she pops up in Kit's mind.  I struggle with anxiety at times, but not at the level that Kit does and I think the narrative style choices do a great job of letting readers into that struggle who might not otherwise understand the feeling. There are one or two brief moments where Kit thinks that if she committed suicide that she wouldn't have to live with this anxiety anymore so that may be upsetting to folks who

 Despite these characters being in high school, I don't think they necessarily read like they're that young.  This book really has Malerman's voice in the prose and I really enjoy his writing style.  However, for readers who really like the characters to feel very realistic and have distinct voices, I don't think this would necessarily fit that category.  Because Malerman's voice is so present, it feels like the story is being told by someone watching these characters from above so there is a level of disconnect.  While we do get some inner monologue and some of Kit's journal entries, I didn't feel like these differed enough from character to character and they had the same tone as the overall description narration. This is 100% a personal preference thing and while I do normally prefer when the author sort of disappears and lets the characters shine, I do think Malerman is one exception for me.

The kills in this were great and we get a good number of them on-page.  There's a slight escalation with each death in either timing, place, or brutality that works really well to up the tension.  As the story progresses and more bodies drop, there's this frantic aspect to the police investigation and town overall and it was such a great way to keep up the pacing. 

The ending was a bit abrupt, which I normally don't like, but in this case, I didn't mind.  It felt like the puzzle pieces came together early enough that there was sufficient time for the resolution to play out.  I also think the main questions got answered enough that the usual post-climax reflection/info dump wasn't necessary. There were a few details that, at first, I thought didn't get fleshed out enough but upon reflection I could answer all the questions I had. There are a number of threads that come together really well at the end and I think they wrap the whole story up nicely.

Overall, this was a fantastic read.  Got off to a bit of a slow start, but once the story picked up, it really went full speed ahead.  Great myth, great kills, and excellent building of tension as the story went on.

Thanks NetGalley and Del Ray books for the ARC

Expected publication date is September 20, 2022

Romance Wrap-Up 9/1/22 to 9/15/22

 The Rivals of Casper Road - Roan Parrish

 This M/M romance is the fourth in the Garnet Run series and follows Bram and Zachary.  Bram is new to town and is renting a house on Casper Road across the street from Zachary.  When Bram finds out that Casper Road hold an annual Halloween decorating contest and that Zachary is the reigning champion, the two strike up a prank war that gets increasingly flirtatious.  When one prank turns into a kiss that turns into more, the two men have to decide how to handle this relationship that neither of them was expecting. I've read the first book in this series and loved it.  The others are on my TBR but when this came across my NetGalley page, I couldn't pass it up!  I've read other romances with the decoration competition plot but they've all been Christmas-themed.  I'm not much for Halloween, specifically, but I really loved all the autumnal vibes of this book. I really loved both Bram and Zachary as their own characters and thought they had some really developed characterization for a somewhat shorter romance (288 pages).  Their pasts do play a role in their current relationship but they aren't some big dark secrets which I appreciated.  However, as much as I liked each of them, I didn't quite buy into their relationship and I think that's more to do with the way these two sort of just fell together.  So much of their relationship felt a little overly coincidental and I wanted to feel them both having a bit more initiative on the page. I love a good slow burn but this didn't quite hit that mark for me in that way.  I did find that in the later stages of the book and their relationship, they both had a much more active role in their decision making and then I was completely on board.  I loved the side characters and we do get to see all of the couples from the other books in the series.  This was pretty low angst and just all around a cozy fall romance. 

Thanks to NetGalley and Harlequin for the ARC.  Expected publication date is September 27, 2022

Spoiler Alert - Olivia Dade

This is the first book in the Spoiler Alert series and follows Marcus and April.  Marcus plays the lead on the biggest TV show - Gods of the Gates - and he writes fanfiction for the same show under a fake name.  April also writes fanfiction as well as crafts cosplays based on the show. After one of her cosplay pictures goes viral on Twitter, Marcus invites April out to dinner.  They both expected this to be a one time dinner, but they didn't expect the chemistry to be working out quite so well.  But when Marcus finds out April is his fanfiction best friend, he is stuck between his two lives and trying to figure out how to not lose April. I really enjoyed this read and loved Marcus and April.  I'm not the biggest fan of celebrity romances unless both partners are involved in the celebrity world which was part of the reason I put off reading this book for so long.  However, I've recently read a number of Dade's backlist and I loved them so I finally gave this a chance.  I did appreciate how the celebrity aspect was not really the central conflict in the story (although it was related) and a lot of the typical 'celebrity romance' scenes were included but much less of a focus in the story (like a run-in with paparazzi).  I also never really got into fanfiction (I didn't know it was a thing until my 20s, lol) so I wasn't entirely connecting with that aspect either but I think Dade does a great job of introducing/explaining it in a way that still allowed non-fanfiction readers into the story.  April and Marcus are such well developed and deep characters that I was completely on board with their romance.  I loved how they each had their own struggles and the other person never tried to fix the issues, they were just supportive.  I did like how both characters would have moments where they would have a knee-jerk reaction to something the other said and immediately assume the worst but then would talk it out and realize they were jumping to conclusions - I just really loved that level of communication. 

TW/CW: fatphobia

Decker: Changing the Play - Kayley Loring and Connor Crais

 This USA Football romance follows NFL quarterback Decker and the new owner of his team, Hannah.  After Hannah's estranged father dies unexpectedly, she finds out he left his football team to her.  She's determined to learn about the business before making any snap decisions.  However, leaning the ropes is made harder with the entire city of Boston watching (and commenting). Decker is the city's golden boy and while he has left his "Decker the Panty Wrecker" ways behind him, he isn't going to let Hannah walk all over this team no matter how much he likes seeing her walk in her tight pencil skirts.  This has a great balance of fun and flirty banter with some super steamy scenes. I really liked how both of our characters are a bit older (upper 30s) so they are generally confident in what they want and are both at a turning point in their careers. I did feel like most of the book was Hannah and Decker acting on their physical attraction and I do wish we had a few more scenes with some emotional connection between the two of them.  I loved the side characters and hope Loring and Crais team up to write more romances following the other players.  I also really enjoyed how much football was in this football romance.  Since Hannah is learning how to manage an NFL team from the ground up, she has to learn about the game as well as the business side.  I think the authors do a great job of incorporating those details in a way that would be accessible even if you've never watched a single football game.  It also doesn't hurt that some of these football lessons end up with Hannah and Decker falling into bed together.  It was refreshing to have the conflict be something other than he's her player/she's his boss

 TW/CW: grief, loss of a parent, estranged parent relationship

 

When in Rome - Sarah Adams

 

This small town, celebrity romance follows Amelia and Noah.  Weeks away from an international tour, pop star  Amelia needs a break.  Taking a cue from Audrey Hepburn classic Roman Holiday, she heads out to the nearest Rome to her - Rome, Kentucky. Her car ends up breaking down on Noah's front lawn and the grumpy baker offers his guest room for the night.  An unexpected long wait to get her car fixed leaves Amelia staying with Noah longer than both expected.  They both are guarded at the beginning, but as they spend more time together, their walls come down and they both see different sides of the other as their feelings grow.  But with Amelia leaving on tour and Noah's past history with bad long distance relationships, the two might just be doomed from the beginning.  This was perfection!  I absolutely loved every aspect of this romance - the slow burn tension, the small town setting, the grumpy/sunshine balance, the character development, the sizzling chemistry, and especially the communication!  This was a lot lower angst than I was expecting but still had great emotional depth and I felt like when these two finally get together that they'd be together for the long haul. I mentioned above that I don't love celebrity romances but since Amelia was trying to escape from her celebrity life, most of the book was not focused on her pop star status.  This might just be my favorite grumpy/sunshine romance because the characters had so much more depth besides just being grumpy or sunshine.  I really hope Adams writes more stories focusing on this town (maybe Noah's sisters?) because I loved the full cast of characters and this little community of Rome, Kentucky. 

TW/CW: death of a parent, infidelity (in past relationship, not MCs)

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Ballantine for the ARC. 

Expected publication date is September 20, 2022

The Butcher - Laura Kat Young

 

This general fiction/horror follows Lady Mae as her 18th birthday approaches.  On that day, she'll take over from her mother as the Butcher of Settlement Five and be responsible for dismembering people as punishment for their crimes. But when her mother refuses to butcher a child, the settlement leaders - the Deputies - come to their home and murder her mother. Six years later, Lady Mae has become the Butcher and generally accepts her role in the settlement with little pushback.  But when a new Deputy comes to town, the one that murdered her mother, Lady Mae must choose if she continues on the path chosen for her or if she'll choose something new.

 TW/CW: blood/gore, medical procedure, death of a loved one, law enforcement corruption

I think I went into this read with a little bit of a misconception about the genre.  From the title, cover, and description I was expecting this to be a bloody revenge story.  However, this is much more of a story about people and community.  The About the Author at the end of the book says that Young's "works seek to explore a deeper understanding of human behavior" and I think this is an accurate description of the focus of this story.  That isn't to say the story isn't bloody at times - it certainly is - however it does feel like the main focus is a character/community study.  I still really enjoyed this read but I was a little confused at first before I readjusted my mental expectations.  We absolutely do get into a bit of a revenge story in the last 30% or so but I was expecting that to be the majority of the story.

I really loved the setting of this settlement and how almost timeless it was.  There isn't any explanation of what time this is set - it could be an alternate past or it could be a dystopian future - and I really enjoyed that choice.  We don't get much history of this place other than that certain roles, like the Butcher, are passed down generation to generation. Despite the lack of history, Young does a fantastic job of giving the reader enough details of the ins and outs of the settlement that I felt really grounded in this setting.  Since we are focused on Lady Mae, we get details on the job of the Butcher as well as a bit of the court system since that's how people get sentenced to the Butcher.  However, we don't see a whole lot of how the rest of the settlement is run or what the other people who live here are doing. But since we got all the details for Lady Mae's story, these extra details would have just been extra ways to flesh out the setting.

I loved the characters and I wasn't expecting to get so attached.  Again, I think due to me going into this read expecting it to be horror/revenge heavy I was expecting a certain type of read and this ended up being much more emotional than I was prepared for.  I didn't expect to cry reading a book called The Butcher but I sure did cry.  I also thought the character development was well done.  There's a pretty significant time jump in the middle of the book and all the characters read very differently after that jump.  I do wish we had gotten some scenes during that time jump because certain events are then mentioned and I think those events would have been more impactful if we had seen them on page instead of just being told about them years afterward. I enjoyed the way the characters were developed and there were numerous times where we're told X or shown X about a character only to have some other details added on after or shown a slightly different side of that character.  When the story opens, there are very clear lines drawn in this society that separate certain types of people and by the end, those lines get blurred.

The ending was absolutely fantastic and I think really hit home that Young's focus was more of a character/community study rather than a bloody horror story.  It is a little bit of a bittersweet ending, but I liked how it generally ends on a positive note and ends up being a bit of an uplifting read.  Sure, there's a lot of death and dismemberment that we had to read to get here, but I liked Young's choice to have this end on a high note.  This same premise could have been a super bloody and dark read with a few changes (and I think that would have been a fun, but very different reading experience). I also like how the ending is just a bit open and reminds the reader that while this one situation might be finished, there's always the chance of something else bad could happen later. It isn't so open ended that I would consider it a cliffhanger or anything, just a gentle nudge to the reader to remember that this settlement is not alone and there could be outside threats coming in at a later time.

 Overall, I really enjoyed this read.  While it wasn't the bloodbath revenge story I was expecting, I still enjoyed the ride and was surprised at how emotionally invested I became. 

Thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books for the ARC.

Expected publication date is September 27, 2022

The Last to Vanish - Megan Miranda

 

This mystery follows Abby, a manager of The Passage Inn located in Cutter's Pass, North Carolina. The town is close to the Appalachian Trail and is a destination for hiking and other outdoor activities.  Abby has lived in this small town for the past 10 years and has integrated herself into the town especially after the latest disappearance.  Cutter's Pass has a handful of unsolved disappearances that has made the town notorious for more than just the gorgeous waterfall.  The latest was journalist Landon who was researching the previous disappearances.  When Landon's brother Trey shows up at the Inn looking for clues or answers about what happened to his brother, Abby starts to notice the cracks in the facade of this idyllic mountain town.  And when the life-long townsfolk start to close rank and see Abby as an outsider, she has no choice but to push on and find the truth.

I loved the premise for this story and the way the different disappearances were integrated into the current plot line.  This story is separated into parts with the focus of each part being a specific one of the disappearances.  This way, we get the details of each case spaced out nicely throughout the story.  Of course, we get some details early on so we can understand the town and the set-up for the plot, but the details aren't all info-dumped onto the reader at the beginning.  There also isn't much downtime at the beginning of the story for the reader to slowly be introduced to the town or the people here - we get Trey showing up very early on and that starts the rumors/memories/investigation to start early on as well.  I do think that, initially, there isn't much of a mystery vibe because it does feel more like Trey is just grieving and trying to connect with his missing brother in some way.  However, once the plot points start developing and certain information is unearthed, the mystery investigation starts in earnest. 

The setting of this small mountain town was absolutely perfect.  I really enjoyed the line in the sand between the tourists and the people who live there all year.  I also enjoyed the different members of the town reacted to these disappearances in their own way - some folks don't want to talk about it at all and others are integrating them into their businesses.  I also thought the choice to have these be disappearances and not other crimes was really interesting because it allowed multiple characters to sort of shrug off the implications or heavy reality by reminding other characters (and the reader) that these people might have continued hiking on the trail and gotten hurt elsewhere or maybe they wanted to start a new life and they're completely fine.  The disappearing gave just enough wiggleroom that these sorts of theories couldn't be 100% discounted. I was expecting the town setting to become a bit more sinister as the book went along and it did get a bit darker but far from what I was expecting.  I was hoping for a Hot Fuzz type twist in this small town setting but it didn't hit that level of twist in my opinion.  

The characters in this story were interesting and I liked how Miranda played with the idea of how much we actually know the people around us.  There's a great mix of people in this town who have grown up together as well as a mix of new people coming in.  The new folks are also a mix of seasonal workers and people who end up staying for a long time (like Abby, our main character).  It is mentioned multiple times that between the Trail and the town, there are many people who find something their looking for in their lives here and then decide to stay for a bit.  However, many people are very private about their pasts or their personal history so the other characters (and the reader) don't know much about their pasts.  The main example of this is Abby's co-worker.  Miranda does a fantastic job of giving the reader just enough character details that the people in this town feel real but also holds back enough details to really deepen that sense of mystery.  This is highlighted even more as the investigation picks up toward the end where Abby starts to question these people around her that she's known for 10 years because that might not actually be enough time to know someone (and they start to push her out using the same logic). 

I enjoyed the mystery aspect and thought it was well plotted but it ended up falling a little flat for me.  There were numerous times where the mystery plot would come to a sort of fork in the road where it could go one way and get darker and more sinister or it could go the other way and sort of stay the same.  I felt like every time there was one of these turning points, Miranda took the safer option.  Which, of course, is her right as the author.  However, I was expecting a story about a string of missing hikers and a town closing ranks on outsiders to be more sinister than what we end up getting. I was fine with what the mystery solution ended up being, but I wanted the tone and path getting there to be much darker.  I also think having the lead up to the ending reveals be darker would then make the ending a bit more impactful.  As it stands, there's a little bit of a disconnect for me because the investigation ramps up super quickly and the pieces fall together pretty much all at once and a bunch of town secrets get revealed at the same time.  It was just a lot all squeezed in at the end and I wish those points were spaced out a bit more and also having the build up to the reveal be darker in tone. 

Overall, this was an entertaining read with a solid mystery.  I do wish the town was darker, but that is a personal preference that I know not everyone shares. I loved the setting and premise of the book and thought Miranda was able to balance characterization and the plot implications of those characters really well.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC.  Publication date was July 26, 2022

Gallows Hill - Darcy Coates

 

This supernatural horror follows Margot Hull as she returns to her childhood home for the first time in a decade.  After the death of her estranged parents, Margot inherits the family home and world-famous winery on Gallows Hill.  Margot, with the help of the winery employees, starts to learn about Gallows Hill's dark and bloody history as she tries to decide what to do with this new life she wasn't expecting.  But when she's alone in the house at night, Margot is forced to confront that past history face to face and she realizes she may be the next victim of Gallows Hill.

TW/CW: parental abandonment, death of a parent, animal death 

This might be the scariest book I've ever read and I absolutely loved it.  There's something about these gothic haunted house horror stories that just gets into my brain and hits my overactive imagination just right.  This is my first read by Coates but it 100% will not be the last.  I absolutely loved her writing style, descriptions, and the way they came together to really sink me deep into the story.  Coates has my absolutely favorite writing style where it feels like the words melt away and a movie starts playing in my head while I read.  And for someone with medium-severe level aphantasia is really saying something. I also know that this writing style seems, on the surface, as very simple and easy but there's significant skill involved in crafting the sentences and scenes so it doesn't even feel like I'm reading.  

I really loved the setting and lore behind Gallows Hill.  I feel like for these gothic/haunted house stories, the setting is foundational to setting up the rest of the story.  The name alone is absolute perfection as far as simply setting a certain mood.  The name, along with the cover art, made me picture a sort of Tim Burton-esque set up with this creepy house at the top of a hill that the whole town whispers about.  I loved the way the history of this location was sprinkled in throughout the first 50%ish of the book so we didn't have one big info dump.  Margot learns new details about Gallows Hill as each of these new strange events occurs.  We do have a pretty well developed cast of characters that help Margot get answers to some of her questions (but for most of the tense moments, Margot is alone). I loved the way we get pieces and layers of the lore throughout the story and they all come together perfectly at the end. 

The horror elements in this were fantastic and I loved the way they were balanced and paced throughout the book.  I was expecting this to be more of a slow burn gothic horror but we get some really great build up very quickly in the story.  But these moments are well balanced with the outside narrative of Margot trying to figure out this new situation she finds herself in when it comes to this new business and figuring out if she wants to live in this new house permanently. There are also some really great internal logic of the horror elements that allowed the story to have these natural ebbs and flows of the tense moments which really helped the overall pacing. Coates also knows exactly when to drop those particular lines that immediately jack up the tension and scares 200% (I almost threw the book across the room at the doggie door line - iykyk).  I read this book at night when my boyfriend was out of the house and I had to turn on a podcast in the background so I wouldn't feel so alone because I was getting so freaked out. 

As with many haunted house stories, there's a bit of a mystery element to this one where Margot is trying to figure out what really happened in this house hundreds of years before and how that might connect with what is happening now.  I really enjoyed how the mystery investigation was handled and how well it was mixed in with the escalating horror scenes.  I also appreciated that the ending was not a Scooby-Doo type ending where the ending deflated the scares and horror that had been building throughout the story.  Instead, we do get answers and the answers elevated the horror elements for me.  I do wish the mystery was introduced a little earlier because it did feel a little rushed at the end and I think if the same plot points were just spread out a little more it would have worked a bit better. 

I do wish Margot was a more developed character when it came to her life before coming to Gallows Hill.  We get some details about her life but it felt more like a bullet point list of facts about Margot rather than a well-rounded character shown to us on page.  Since Margot has some pretty intense family stuff intertwined with suddenly dealing with this creepy house, I think some of the reveals later on would have hit way harder, emotionally, if we had a better sense of who Margot was before.  Maybe if the story was a little slower burn in the beginning so we could really spend some time with Margot settling into this new life while processing her complicated family background. 

Thanks NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC.  Publication date was September 6, 2022

Other People's Secrets - Meredith Hambrock

 

This small town mystery follows Baby in the days following her mother's death.  Baby has spent the past few years living and working at Oakwood Hills - a crumbling lakeside resort.  Now Baby's life is turned upside down with her mother gone, a notorious drug dealer back in town, and the owner of Oakwood leaving.  Oakwood Hills is being sold to Amelia, the twin sister to Baby's casual hookup/boyfriend. Baby is desperate to stop Amelia from implementing the changes to Oakwood and between attempts to sabotage Amelia, Baby also plans to look for a safe rumored to be filled with casino chips from the bottom of the lake.  However, when the drug kingpin finds Baby sneaking around, he wants in on the money and he isn't taking no for an answer.

TW/CW: death of a parent, alcoholism, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, drug overdose, domestic violence, suicide, financial struggles

The pacing was a bit of a slow burn, which I wasn't expecting.  From the description, I thought this would be a sort of treasure-hunt story where Baby and her friends would be out looking for this safe and uncover town secrets in the process.  However, the very existence of the safe doesn't come up until a bit past the 25% mark and then it plays a much smaller role in the story than I was expecting. The first 1/2 of this really read more like a general fiction book where Baby is struggling with the sudden changes in her environment and personal life. The mystery and tension to pick up in the second 1/2 of the book (really mostly in the last 1/3) and I think a lot of the plot points and reveals we get in those later moments have so much more emotional weight because of this longer set-up period.  

I really think Baby is going to be the make or break aspect of this book for readers (for the record, I absolutely loved her).  She's stubborn, a bit spoiled, and her life is pretty messy all around.  She certainly fits the unlikable narrator criteria and there were times when I wanted to reach into the book, grab her by the shoulders, and just shake some sense into her.  Thankfully, she does have some character development and growth during the story that felt very believable.  When we meet Baby at the beginning of the story, she isn't in a great place with her mother recently dying, but then she's dealt blow after blow and we eventually get to the low point of the story with Baby literally in the dirt by the side of the road.  Seeing Baby at this low point after following her and seeing all the decisions that led up to this point was really more of an emotional weight than I normally expect with my mysteries. 

The whole cast of characters was really well developed and I loved seeing them interact with each other.  They had a fantastic group dynamic as well as very well-defined individual personalities.  Of course, we get a lot of time with Baby and her friends but also we see a good number of the other townspeople interacting as well.  I loved the town as a character on its own and how well the history was integrated into the story.  As a side note - I do wish there was a map included (maybe there will be on in the finished copy) because I did have a hard time picturing the layout with Baby going to all these different locations. I really like books set in these sort of seasonal tourist towns where there's often a very clear divide between the locals and the (usually) rich visitors.  In this case, I thought Baby's relationship with one of these out of town people was a really interesting way to play with this tension and natural divide.

The plotting of the mystery was interesting, but really felt like it was secondary to the plot following Baby's attempts to get Oakwood Hills away from Amelia.  Of course, the two plots do intersect at certain points in the story but overall this read to me more like a general fiction book with a solid mystery subplot.  I do think because of this, the pieces fell together pretty quickly in the end and the mystery investigation didn't have a whole lot of twists in that plot string.  However, I did like where we ended up overall and I think Hambrock does a great job of weaving in smaller details that didn't seem important at the time but end up being important in the overall scheme of the mystery.  While we do get the conclusion to the mystery in the end, there were some other details that were left a bit too open ended for my liking and almost felt like the door was being left open a crack for a potential sequel.  I would love to keep following Baby and her friends but I do get irked with endings that are left a little open like this. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this read.  I loved Baby's character and development over the course of the story.  And although the mystery came in much later than I was expecting, I did find it satisfying in the end.  I do wish the mystery played a bigger role in the overall story and that we got a bit more closure at the end, but those are more personal preferences I have. 

Thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the ARC.

Publication date is September 6, 2022

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke And Other Misfortunes - Eric LaRocca

 

This is a collection of 3 stories from LaRocca including the viral-sensation Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.  The descriptions of the stories below are taken directly from the book's description:

"A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s—a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires.

A couple isolate themselves on a remote island, in an attempt to recover from their teenage son’s death, when a mysterious young man knocks on their door during a storm…

And a man confronts his neighbour when he discovers a strange object in his back yard, only to be drawn into an ever-more dangerous game."

In general, I really enjoyed LaRocca's writing style and story craft.  All of these stories are trimmed down to the perfect amount of backstory/plot/characters that it doesn't feel like a single part of the story could be cut as unnecessary.  These three stories are all very different lengths but each one feels perfectly complete as a story.  Of course, I could see how some of these could be expanded into longer works, if LaRocca wanted to, but they all work really well at their current lengths. I'd be very interested in reading more from LaRocca again.

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke 

It feels like everyone I follow has read this by now and I've been seeing consistent praise for this story all around my social media.  I'll be honest, I was intrigued but then it was gaining so much traction and so much buzz that I felt like it was maybe getting over-hyped.  When this happens, I usually tend to avoid those stories for a number of months (or years, sometimes) to give the hype time to cool off and my brain time to let go of some things I'd heard.  However, when the ARC of this collection came up on NetGalley I tossed my usual rule aside and requested it.  As a result, I do think this first story was a little too over-hyped for me and so I was a bit let down overall.  Folks weren't giving away many details of the actual plot, but there were so many visceral reactions I saw overall and so many people talking about how gross and twisted this story was.  

And to be clear, this story was 100% gross and twisted and pretty fucked up in some parts.  However, I was expecting more from it based on the buzz I was seeing online.  Now I don't often read a lot of 'gross' horror and tend to lean more toward the psychological/medium body horror level of horror.  Also, this story includes my #1 irrational fear (that is pretty specific) that hasn't come up often in the horror I read so this had all the ingredients to be a really visceral reading experience for me. However, it just didn't get me there in the end. I do think the story deserved the hype it got - I just wished I had given enough time for my expectations to go back down to a normal level before jumping in.

I think, aside from the over-hyped stuff which is no fault of the author, the main part that did lessen my engagement was the format of the story.  We are reading emails and instant message exchanges between these two women and that became a sort of wall for me.  It was the epitome of telling, not showing, because we really only get the characters telling each other the facts of what they did.  This would be a completely different book if the emails/IMs were only a part of the book and then we follow the women in their day to day lives actually doing these acts so we can experience them 'first hand' as opposed to being filtered through their correspondence to each other. I really loved the framing around this whole story and, again, think following that portion in a full-length novel would be really interesting.  

I did find the ending a bit abrupt and confusing because we get told right at the beginning how the characters end up but then the end of the story doesn't bring that full circle so I was initially confused on how the characters get to that end point.  But then I slept on it and when I woke up the next morning, I was still thinking about this story and the pieces finally fell into place where (I think) I know what happened after the story ended.

4/5

TW/CW: animal death

The Enchantment

As far as horror sub-genres go, this story was much more of my regular sort of read.  It leaned more toward the paranormal/psychological horror part of the spectrum and it was a really great slow-burn horror.  I loved the isolated island setting and how that naturally escalated an already tense situation. I really loved the mix of threats and how they all sort of ebbed and flowed during certain times in the story.  However, there wasn't a lot of time for the reader to really get settled into any one particular state of the story so sometimes these changes in focus just felt like they were coming a little too quickly.  I was really impressed with the amount of character exploration and character development we got in this story. I think LaRocca did a great job of showing the reader exactly enough information of these characters and their previous lives so that the reader could tell how much of a change they were going through. 

This is a very religion-focused story but as someone who didn't grow up in that environment, those themes didn't really impact my overall reading experience.  However, for other readers with different types of faith, I could see how this might be a really different reading experience.  In the Authors Note at the end of the book, LaRocca talks a bit about his own religious upbringing and how that fit into writing this story.

5/5

TW/CW: religion, suicide, animal death, pregnancy, miscarriage

You'll Find It's Like That All Over

 This was the shortest story in the collection and I normally have a hard time settling into short stories.  However, I really liked how this story had such a small cast and a very small environment that it was really easy to get into the story. I'd call this story more suspenseful than horror because there is this constant sense that something is 'off' about this neighbor.  I really liked the framing of this story where these two almost-strangers are drawn together and there's a really great dynamic where they're figuring each other out through this game. I do wish there would have been a more gradual increase of the stakes over each phase of the game because the last phase really seemed to jump to super serious out of nowhere.  As much as I think the story was positively impacted by having a small cast/setting, I really liked how the ending sort of opened the rest of this world up to the reader.

 4/5

 

 Thanks to NetGalley and Titan Books for the ARC.  Expected publication date is September 6, 2022

Romance Wrap-Up August 2022

 Just when I finally came out of a 6 week reading slump I ended up coming down with Covid for the first time.  Thankfully, it was relatively mild but I did end up just laying on the couch for a week straight with very little mental energy to do anything other than re-watch Criminal Minds for the 10th time.  But then right when I was feeling better, my job implemented mandatory overtime so that further cut into my reading time. I got back into the groove right at the end of August so I'm really hoping I can get back on track for September!

Outside of the books below, I also read Smartasses: A Sexy Nerd Romcom Anthology - linked here. 

Booked on a Feeling - Jayci Lee

This is the third book in the A Sweet Mess series and follows friends Lizzie and Jack.  Lizzie is a lawyer in LA working her way up the ladder and Jack works in the office at the family brewery in Weldon.  After Lizzie wins a big trial for her firm, she's burnt out and needs some time to figure out what's going on with her career so she drives to Weldon.  She's staying for 3 weeks and when Jack runs into her in town, he can't believe his luck.  He's had feeling for Lizzie for years and now that she's in town with nothing on her agenda, he's going to make the most of their time together.  But he knows that he can't risk their friendship for his feelings - but maybe if she had feelings too, that would be a different situation.  I overall really liked this story but felt the relationship pacing was a little odd.  I loved Lizzie and Jack as their own characters but I didn't quite feel their friendship on the page.  Maybe it was because they were living hours away from each other, but they felt more like acquaintances than good friends.  We do see how their families are intertwined and how much history they have with each other but it never quite felt like Lizzie and Jack had a deeper emotional connection like I expect with a friends to lovers romance.  Friendship aside, these two had chemistry flowing off the page.  I absolutely loved when they started getting together.  I also really enjoyed how the main conflict for both of them is wanting to be in charge of their own lives and neither of them needed to give up on their dreams for the relationship.  They both made their own career and life choices and then were able to come together stronger in the end.  

Thanks NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.  Publication date was July 26, 2022

 

 Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake - Mazey Eddings

This is the second book in the A Brush With Love series and follows Lizzie and Rake. Lizzie has ADHD and is struggling with her day-to-day due to it being uncontrolled.  One thing that always settled her mind and body is sex - and Rake is on board with having a quick hookup.  Only one night turns into a weekend and, a few weeks later, that turns into a positive pregnancy test.  Lizzie decides she wants to be a mom and when she tells Rake, the two end up moving in together to platonically co-parent.  Or, at least, as platonic as they can while sharing a studio apartment with only one bed.  I really enjoyed this read and Eddings is now an insta-read author for me.  I'm not into babies or having kids so I generally stay away from most pregnancy-centered romances.  However, I really liked Lizzie from Eddings's first book and I was seeing so much praise from early reviewers that I requested an ARC.  I love Lizzie and Rake with my entire heart and thought their journey together was so fantastic.  The steamy scenes come in real early but the emotional connection is a slow burn.  I loved how both of them were emotionally guarded for different reasons, but were both able to slowly let their walls down. The side characters were great as well and we do get the friend group back together for a little bit - which is always nice. 

As a note, I did see some discussions on Twitter as well as in some reviews where reviewers didn't appreciate the comparison between Lizzie choosing to stay pregnant and another character's choice to get an abortion.  I personally felt like the discussions around both of those choices was well done and I didn't feel like it was a true comparison where Lizzie was 'better' because she kept the baby like I saw some other folks were feeling.  However, maybe my expectations were skewed by seeing those comments before I read this book so I was expecting more of a buildup than what I actually read.  Also, I am reading an ARC so maybe something with change in the final copy.

TW/CW: pregnancy, abortion (not MC), toxic family

Thanks NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.  Publication date is September 6, 2022

The Make-Up Test - Jenny L Howe

This academic rivals (and exes) to lovers second chance romance follows Allison and Colin as they start their Ph.D. program. The two dated 2 years prior in undergrad before breaking up and not only are they in the same program, they were selected to be co-TAs for the same class.  The two have an icy relationship, at best, that centers around trying to 'win' every possible competition.  But when their advisor says she has to pick one of them to stay under her at the end of the semester, the real competition begins. However, as the two spend more time together and finally start to talk about their shared past, they both realize the feelings they had never went away and there might just be a future together if they don't let their competition get in the way.  I really enjoyed this debut and thought the whole set up was great.  I really liked getting the school setting with older (mid-20s) characters and slightly higher stakes than a typical college/new adult romances. Both Allison and Colin were so interesting and complex with their own journey as well as their shared past.  This is only told from Allison's POV and I really wish this was dual perspective because of their shared past. There was a ton of fun banter back and forth and I really enjoyed the whole group of grad students.  If Howe writes more in this series, I would be so interested to follow the other people in this group.  I'm a little bit of a hard sell on second chance romances, especially when the initial breakup was for very valid reasons (as is the case here).  I think Howe did a fantastic job of showing us how much both Allison and Colin had changed during the past 2 years as well as showing them working through any hurt that they still had and actively choosing to move forward together.  The 3rd act conflict in this, for me, was a little too much of a communication issue that literally could have been cleared up with 1 conversation but it was on-brand enough with the characters that I wasn't put off too much by it. Overall, I really enjoyed this read and I would love to read more of Howe's romances in the future.

TW/CW: discussions of food/bodies, fatphobic language by family member, death of a parent

Thanks NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.  Publication date is September 13, 2022

In a Dark, Dark Wood - Ruth Ware

 

This isolated mystery follows Nora as she's invited to a bachelorette party of a friend she hasn't spoken to in years.  Nora, usually a reclusive crime writer who doesn't like to leave her apartment, reluctantly agrees and finds herself in an isolated house deep in the English countryside.  Soon, a series of strange events start to unnerve Nora and as interpersonal tensions rise and bubble over - she finds herself in a hospital bed injured but alive.  However, she isn't wondering "what happened" but rather "what did I do".  As Nora tries to piece together her memory of the past weekend, Nora must reach into her long buried past to figure out the truth of what happened. 

TW/CW: alcohol use, drug use, abortion, suicide

This was Ware's debut thriller and I think it had some good bones, but I didn't love the overall execution.  I know she's a very popular author and I have most of her other books on my TBR and I'm looking forward to getting to them.  I read this during jury duty and it was an entertaining way to spend a few hours that day.  

These isolated, closed-circle mysteries are one of my favorite types of mysteries and I did like the time we spent in the house with the characters.  However, the dual timeline aspect took away some of the tension for me because I do prefer these to be completely isolated from basically start to finish.  The fact that Nora is in the hospital and thinking back over the past few days really took me out of the immediacy of the situation in the house.  In the sections where we are in the house with the characters, Ware does a really good job creating interpersonal tension and the sort of awkwardness that comes with groups of somewhat strangers coming together. I also thought Ware did a great job of giving the reader the lay of the land (literally) through various situations that had the characters exploring or going out to different areas of the house.  I do wish we had more of that creeping dread built up before the climactic scenes start, but since the characters were only at the house for a long weekend, I know Ware could only fit in so many details.  

I didn't love the use of dual timeline in this and after letting the story sit in my brain for a bit, I think this is because I felt it gave too much away.  I can see that Ware was trying to use this as a way of building tension and letting the reader know a big event was going to happen.  I didn't guess what, exactly, was going to happen, but I felt my guesses being steered in certain directions based on the information we find out in the 'present' timeline. This might just be because it was Ware's debut, but it sort of felt like the dual timeline was a bit of a crutch to insert some artificial tension or intrigue into the story.  Almost like Ware felt that the story wouldn't be as interesting as a single timeline and instead of working on the plotting or mystery reveals, this was sort of a 'quick fix' for that problem.  I did enjoy that the past timeline caught up with the present at about 75% mark and then we were able to finish up the book in one linear direction which I think was a strong decision for the last act.

The characters and their relationships were really interesting and I loved being a fly on the wall for this celebration.  I loved the mix of personalities that felt natural for each character and, thus, naturally created conflict.  For example, we had a free-spirit type of person who just wanted to have fun and then a type-A personality who wanted everything to be done exactly how they'd planned it. I did find Nora the blandest character in the bunch, which was a bit disappointing since we were following her for the story.  However, this did make her an easy way for the reader to sort of insert themselves into the story. We know from the beginning that Nora used to be friends with the bride-to-be but they have since grown apart.  We see Nora pretty consistently judging or making comments about the relationships she's seeing during this weekend and I think it would have been more interesting to see some flashbacks of the friend group dynamic in the past. I've seen a number of reviews that really disliked Nora and I do think she's not meant to be a very likeable narrator.  I personally really enjoy unlikable narrators, but I want them to be unlikable in interesting ways which I didn't find the case with Nora.

As far as the mystery plot and the reveals, I really didn't like the way they were presented.  I thought the points worked okay on paper, but there was something about the way the reveals were executed that didn't work.  It was a little hard to put my finger on why exactly they didn't work and I think it came down to Nora's character and a bit of the lack of backstory/history we get.  We find out certain information about Nora a little too late in the book and then it felt like we didn't get enough time to see how that information impacted her/the story.  Also, it seemed like most of the reveals were for the reader only and it was information that the characters already knew which also made it feel a less impactful.  I think this mystery had all the potential to be a really twisty and fun ride but ended up taking the more simple route and thus was a pretty standard read.

Overall, this had some elements I really enjoyed, but I didn't quite like the way the pieces came together in the end. This was a real solid middle of the road mystery and maybe my perspective is a bit skewed because I gave my copy to my mom and she really enjoyed it (she isn't much of a mystery reader).