Dead Redheads - E.J. Findorff

 

This is the third book following FBI Agent Angel Blondeaux and we follow her as she's assigned to a new case investigating a ritualistic murder of 6 women. When a new woman, Sonja, comes into Angel's life, she initially thinks this is her chance to move on and maybe have a relationship.  But when Sonja's connection to the murders is uncovered, Angel realizes this mystery is darker and more twisted than she realized. 

As this is the third book in the series, there are slight spoilers for books 1 and 2.  Each book does have a standalone investigation, but some of the fallout from those investigations does cross into the other books.  In this case, we get Angel interacting more with some of her family members we saw in book 1 and with a friend we see in book 2.  Being able to see these interactions and get some more details of Angel and her personal life is exactly the reason why I enjoyed this book more than book 2.  And, based on the tease of a cliffhanger ending we got in book 3, it seems like we'll continue to get more family drama development into book 4. 

I really enjoyed the way the investigation played out in regards to reader expectations.  I found it incredibly obvious from the get-go what Sonja's connection to the case would be but the investigation plot hadn't gotten there yet.  I was getting a bit worried that this connection would be the big twist reveal at the end.  And while I think that would have worked pretty well from an overall plot perspective, I would have found it incredibly unsatisfying.  Thankfully, Sonja's connection was uncovered around the 50% mark and from there on I didn't really have any guesses as to how the rest of the investigation would play out.  I did really enjoy the solution to this mystery/investigation and enjoyed all the steps it took to get there.  Sometimes with these police procedurals, the investigation comes to a bit of a standstill until one character (usually the main character) has some sort of epiphany.  In this case, there was a little bit of plot convenience that I'll explain later but overall the investigation was pretty consistently moving from point to point.  It also had a good number of times where the investigation would loop back to a previous person or point with additional information which I think makes for a more engaging read.

The characters were fantastic and I think really shined in this book.  I loved these established relationships and how much of a team they really felt like.  There was some great banter and relationship development in the investigation team that felt more fun to read than a typical police procedural book.  As mentioned above, we do get to see some characters that we saw in previous books and build on those relationships.  There were also some characters we meet in the investigation that felt like they toed the line of being caricatures but I absolutely loved them.  Again, they injected some more fun into this read than I was expecting.  One of these caricature-characters was an FBI agent who we didn't see investigating but would occasionally come in with little tidbits of information that they got from a source and that would prod the investigation along.  I did find that this did feel overly convenient at times, but overall it fit this world we have followed so I wasn't overly bothered. 

Overall, this was another great entry in the Angel Blondeaux series and thanks to the cliffhanger-y ending, I can't wait for book 4.

Thanks to BookSirens and the Author for the ARC.  Publication date was January 1, 2023

All Hallows - Christopher Golden

 

This horror/thriller story follows multiple residents of Parmenter Road on Halloween night, 1984.  In order to distract them from the problems in their lives coming to a head tonight, they head out to enjoy the holiday festivities.  Mixed in with the children of the neighborhood are other children dressed in vintage costumes and makeup.  These eerie kids are terrified of someone they call The Cunning Man and ask other children to keep them safe from him as he hunts them down.

I loved the atmosphere of this read and it really captures that later-autumn feeling.  Halloween is so integral to the plot, setting, and characters that it really permeated the whole story.  While obviously you can read Halloween books all year round, it is a tiny bummer that this wasn't able to be published closer to actual Halloween.  We get so many great autumnal details for all of the senses that I wished I had a PSL while reading.  The beginning of the story leaned toward the more family-friendly fall vibes but as night falls and we start to be introduced to The Cunning Man, these same vibes become increasingly sinister.  

The horror elements were fantastic and leaned into the creepy kid trope in a really fun way.  There's a bit of body horror and gore, but for the most part creepy kids ruled the day.  I've never heard of The Cunning Man before and a quick google didn't come up with him being a commonly known entity and it did feel like a fresh take on this type of set up.  The first half had a lot of interpersonal conflict while these families we're following address some pretty significant situations in their lives.  The second half is where we get into more of the horror and ramps up quickly and we get into the more thriller-y parts.  I loved the supernatural horror elements and how they were introduced to the reader really seamlessly through the plot points. 

I overall enjoyed the pacing, but did find this a bit slow in the beginning.  For the first 1/3, the pacing wasn't at the point that was driving me to turn the pages.  Instead, it read more like a domestic drama.  The pacing does pick up over the course of the story and I found myself much more engaged by the halfway mark. It seemed like all the layers of this story - the interpersonal conflicts, the horror, etc - were all a bit of a slower burn.  Also, while we are getting all the POVs set up, there was a lot of hopping around and following these characters so we can gather basic information which, again, made the very beginning feel slower. 

I didn't love the multi-POV element as much as I normally do and it is because I had a bit of a hard time differentiating the different characters.  I didn't feel like the character voices or characterization details were significant enough for me.  There were multiple times I had to flip back to the beginning of the chapter to remember who we were following.  I do think the choices Golden made about who should be the POV choices were really smart.  I think all of the POVs were interesting in their own way and added a layer to the story.  I also enjoyed how these POV choices enabled us to bounce around the neighborhood to all the various festivities which was fun to see.  

Overall, this was a great atmospheric Halloween read with fantastic horror elements.  I do wish we had gotten to the meat of the story a little more quickly.

TW/CW: infidelity, domestic violence, homophobia, child abuse

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC

Expected publication date is January 24, 2023

The Drift - C.J. Tudor

 

This thriller/horror follows three groups of people who all find themselves trapped during a snowstorm - a bus of students crashed after making a hasty escape from a boarding school, a group of people in a cable car stopped part of the way up a mountain, and a group in an abandoned ski chalet.  Each group has a puzzle to solve in order to survive their ordeal.  But finding these solutions is made more difficult by the snow storm and a deadly virus that threatens not only the individual groups, but the world as a whole. 

The pacing and balance between these three groups was very well done.  We have a main POV character in each group - Hannah in the bus, Meg in the cable car, and Carter in the ski chalet.  There's a lot of other characters in these three scenarios so having one main POV to anchor the reader works out really well.  The pacing for this was phenomenal and Tudor starts each group off at just the right spot for immediate intrigue.  Each storyline is different enough that they are all intriguing in their own way which really made me want to keep turning the pages.  Tudor also does a great job of staying with each group just long enough for some substantial plot or character development before moving to a new group and this really kept the pacing feeling snappy.  

The setting was phenomenal.  I love an isolation thriller and this really delivered on a number of fronts. Each group is isolated inside a structure (bus, cable car, chalet) but they are also isolated because of the weather.  The winter storm is so atmospheric and Tudor dribbles in reminders to the reader about the threat that a snowstorm would pose to these characters.  The close quarters of these different settings also helps amp up the interpersonal tension which is one of my favorite aspects of isolation stories.  As we progress in the story, Tudor really amps up the environmental stakes as well as the interpersonal ones.

The horror elements in this were great and really felt realistic for this story.  There was a good amount of gore/body horror in the absolute best way.  The scenes with the gore were really used to punctuate the story and ramped up the tension really well.  These moments are used to show the reader just how much danger these characters are in. There's also some great creature horror which I was surprised we didn't see on page more.  However, the scenes where we do get these creatures on page are really impactful and don't feel like they've been added in off-hand.  We also get some horror elements related to how this virus impacts infected people and some medical procedure/testing horror.  

I think the make-or-break moment for readers is going to be how they feel about the reveal of how these three groups of people are connected.  I initially wasn't thrilled with the reveal, but as it continued to play out I ended up really enjoying it by the end.  We get the reveal around the 80% mark so then we have the last 20% of the book to see how that information changes our understanding of these situations the characters are in.  I had a pretty strong guess going into this book as to what the connection between the groups would be, and I was way off base.  Tudor does lay out a good amount of breadcrumbs and I think a lot of readers will figure it out earlier than when the book flat out tells us.  I think the implications and how that reveal expands the plot going forward is where some readers might feel it is a little convenient.  This book also uses one of my favorite mystery/thriller tropes that I can't say because it would be a spoiler but it is always fun when I stumble into a book that uses it. 

Overall, this was a fantastic, atmospheric, and bloody read.  I wasn't expecting so much gore/body horror going into this but Tudor really uses those moments for maximum impact and doesn't over rely on them.  The setting and way these isolated situations impact these characters are fantastic and I loved the way the plots all tied together in the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the ARC.

Expected publication date is January 31, 2023

Romance Wrap-Up 1/1/23-1/15/23

 Chick Magnet - Emma Barry

This romance follows Nicole and and Will.  After a disastrous, very public internet breakup, Nicole needs a fresh start.  She moves herself and her flock of chickens across the country to her grandmother's hometown. There, she meets Will - her neighbor and local grumpy vet.  He has certain opinions of Nicole and her chicken YouTube content - specifically about her lack of advocating for vet care.  While the two initially butted heads, they find themselves spending more time together through the coincidences of small town life.  I enjoyed so many parts of this book, but it just didn't come together for me.  I've seen a ton of folks loving this book and I think that's great since most of my issues are entirely personal preference.  My main issue that might just be a me-thing is that Covid is a pretty significant part of this book.  Nicole's internet stardom started when she lost her job due to Covid, she got into backyard chickens, and wanted to share/encourage anyone who was also getting into backyard chickens since Covid.  Also, Will's vet practice is going through some tough financial times due to Covid and the post-Covid economy.  This is the first book I've read where Covid was such an integral part of the plot and I'm just not in the right mood for Covid to become that much of a part of the books I read.  I loved Nicole and Will as separate characters and I thought their initial friction was super believable. They have a bit of a grumpy-sunshine dynamic going on, but both have some pretty significant baggage going on that they're working through with support from each other.  I loved the small town setting and how Nicole's personal connection to the town was played out.  While I liked Nicole and Will as characters, I did find myself not feeling the chemistry between them all the way.  I thought their flirting was fantastic and the chemistry for their makeout sessions was *chef's kiss* but when they actually got together and started a relationship I wasn't feeling it.  I liked their chemistry so much more as friends who sometimes made out for a while and that is so weird.  But, again, I've seen so many folks loving this that I think this just wasn't the book for me. 

Thanks to NetGalley and Montlake for the ARC. Expected publication date is January 24, 2023

Beard in Mind - Penny Reid

This is the fourth book in the Winston Brothers series and follows Beau Winston.  After seeing his twin and older brother happily pair up with their loves from the previous books, Beau is ready to settle down.  But when Shelly, a straight talking beauty who glares at everyone but shakes hands with no one starts working as a mechanic at his shop, Beau is confused at how one woman can infuriate and intrigue him at the same time.  As he and Shelly slowly start to warm up to each other, he starts to catch onto little details about her.  And when those little details bloom into the full complexity of Shelly Sullivan, Beau knows he doesn't want anyone else. But when they both have some unexpected family situations pop up, Beau and Shelly will need to navigate supporting each other while also dealing with their own issues.  I overall enjoyed this read, but it felt different than the other Winston Brothers books so far in the series.  We still get the Winston family dynamic and some small town antics, but I found those aspects to be overshadowed by the more serious topics of mental health and the increases of tension with the local motocycle group. I think Reid did a wonderful job handling these more sensitive topics but it wasn't as light and fluffy as I was expecting from the previous 3 books in the series. I don't think these more serious topics are out of place in a lighter romance like the Winston Brothers series, necessarily, it just wasn't what I had grown to expect over the past 3 books. This is also a long read - around 400 pages - and I don't think it quite found the balance between the romance plot and the other plotlines. It felt like the first 60% of the book was focused on the romance and then the last 40% was focused on these other plots. This split made it read very much like a middle book in a series where we needed to get all of this new information for the overall series story arc to progress but fitting that information into this book felt a little out of place. I did love the romance in this and how much character development we get with Beau and Shelly.  I loved the amount of relationship building in their platonic and familial relationships as well.  This story mainly takes place at the same time as Beard Science, so it was fun seeing some of those scenes from Beau's perspective.  I think Beau and Shelly's relationship felt well-earned and realistic in that they didn't get magically better or their problems magically solved just because they're in love.  The way Shelly's OCD and her therapy journey were woven into the plot was wonderful and didn't feel like just an add-on or afterthought like can happen with some stories.  

TW/CW: self harm (discussions of past behavior), parent death from cancer, infidelity, family estrangement, domestic violence (discussions of past behavior), mental health - OCD.

A Guide to Being Just Friends - Sophie Sullivan

This is the third book in the Jansen Brothers series and follows eldest brother, Will, and Hailey.  Hailey is new to town after a horrible breakup and is focused on making her business a success.  After their initial encounter goes terribly wrong, Will goes into her salad shop to apologize and the two strike up an unlikely friendship.  Neither one are looking for a relationship - each for their own reasons - but they both could use a friend.  As the two spend more and more time together over the following months, they grow closer but also let the other see parts of themselves they normally keep tucked away.  But when feelings inevitably grow, can they become something better than friends or will they end up brokenhearted and alone? I absolutely adored this read.  It is slow burn, friends to lovers perfection! Sullivan spends a good time building up their friendship and developing their characters separately as well as together and it pays off spectacularly at the end.  As this is the third and final book in the series, we do see a good amount of the previous 2 couples which is always fun.  I loved Hailey's friends-and-family support system and how the narrative supported her building her own support system in this new town before jumping into a relationship.  I thought the hurdles in the relationship were realistic and handled well.  I loved the declaration at the end (which made me cry) and how much these characters really came together in the end.  

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martins Press for the ARC.  Expected publication is January 17, 2023.

All the Dangerous Things - Stacy Willingham

 

This mystery follows Isabelle 1 year after her son was abducted from his crib in the middle of the night.  His case quickly went cold, but Isabelle has been spending her time investigating on her own.  Time that she has in abundance due to her insomnia ever since that night.  After yet another appearance at a true-crime convention, she agrees to be interviewed on a true-crime podcast. Isabelle has been sharing her story for a year, but as these interview questions start to expand from her son's case to her personal life, she gets nervous.  As more details come to light, Isabelle starts to doubt her own recollection of that night as well as some uncomfortable memories from her own childhood. As much as the truth may hurt, she's determined to follow the trail to solve her son's case.

I absolutely love the characters in this book - from Isabelle to all of the secondary characters.  Willingham does such a great job of describing these characters in such a way that I immediately got a good sense of them and was able to keep everyone straight.  Since the reader is coming into this story a year after the main event (the abduction), we're sort of playing catch up for the first bit of the book.  For example, we're being introduced to the detective on the case, but he is someone Isabelle has had a lot of contact with over the past year so she and him have an established relationship.  Being able to be plopped into the middle of those types of dynamics without needing a whole ton of backstory info-dumped onto the reader is fantastic.  I love the way Willingham writes these characters that we get an immediate sense of who they are while still moving the plot forward.  There isn't any clunky slow down of pacing for us to get a paragraph of description or backstory.  

I adore unreliable narrators in my mystery/thriller books but often that is a spoiler to mention because we don't find out their unreliable until the midpoint or end reveal.  In this case, we're told right in the description that Isabelle's insomnia is making her doubt her own recollection of the night her son was taken. I think the insomnia is a really great way to handle this type of unreliable narrator trope without it veering into potentially harmful stereotypes that we see somewhat often.  For example - a character has DID (Dissociative identity disorder) but doesn't know it and one of their personalities is violent. I think Willingham set this part of Isabelle's personality and past history up really well and I found myself questioning Isabelle before she starts questioning herself. 

The dual timeline aspect of this read was also really well done.  We're mainly following current-day Isabelle but we are also following the timeline of her and her sister when they are children.  At first, it isn't clear why we're being shown these past scenes since they seem pretty mundane.  However, they payoff really well at the end.  In this case, the dual timeline acts more as a way to show Isabelle's character growth throughout the story and is less directly related to the core mystery of her son's disappearance. It felt like the book was a 70/30 split between current day and the past, which I think is a good ratio to be at.  These past scenes were little moments of reprieve from the more emotionally heavy current timeline of the abduction.

My one complaint from this story was that there were too many moments where tense moments were killed before they had a chance to really make an impact.  The specifics of these would be spoilers, but the general trend happened a few times in the story.  It felt like Willingham spent so long and such care building up these situations and characters in a certain way that when the reveal came that all might not be as it seems, I was immediately intrigued.  I could envision how these reveals would have ripple effects throughout the entire plot.  However, it then seemed like only pages later these reveals would be sort of neutralized by a second reveal that while it didn't completely undo the information we learned, it certainly lessened the impact.  This could come down to a personal preference, but having this quick negating of tension really made the second half of the read feel a bit deflated.  I love mystery/thrillers that have really high tension and the initial reveals were spectacular.  I think if we got to sit in those high tension implications for longer before getting the resolution, it would have made for a more impactful read. 

In line with my previous point, the ending felt a little rushed.  We get a reveal of the solution to the mystery, then on-page conflict, then on-page resolution all within a handful of pages.  The reveal, itself, was fantastic - I loved the solution to this mystery and how it tied in a lot of ongoing threads in the story.  We do still get a satisfying ending and answers to all the questions, but I wanted to sit in that reveal and resolution for a little longer than we did. It felt like as soon as we got the big reveal, I had just enough time to go "oh, shit, that means...." and then we had a flash forward and some pretty quick wrap up explanation of the closing events of the book.

Overall, this was a really great, tense read. I loved the characters and the character choices that Willingham made.  I had some issues with the pacing for the more tense moments and would have liked them to be more drawn out, but the actual substance of those moments and reveals were fantastic.

TW/CW: death of a child, child abduction, post-partum psychosis, pregnancy, motherhood, infidelity, suicide, drug abuse, overdose

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC

Expected publication date is January 10, 2023

The Blackhouse - Carole Johnstone

 

This mystery follows Maggie MacKay as she returns to Kilmeray - a remote island off the coast of Scotland that she visited as a child after claiming to be a man named Andrew who had been murdered there. Now returning as an adult after the death of her mother, Maggie wants to find out the truth of if Andrew had actually existed and, if so, was he murdered.  As Maggie begins her investigation, she receives ominous threats that have her questioning just how much she actually wants to find the truth. We're also following Robert, 20 years prior, who has recently moved to Kilmeray. He hopes that this new life on the island with his wife and son will give him the safety and community he craves.  However, as he spends more time on the island, Robert starts to unravel and he believes his fate on the island cannot be escaped.

TW/CW: death of a child, drowning, Alzheimer's, suicide, death of a parent, mental health (bipolar)

The setting for this read was phenomenal.  The remoteness of Kilmeray is established early and we're reminded often in many different ways which really added to the overall atmosphere of the read.  We're told consistently about the dangers of the sea and since we're on an island, the sea is seemingly around all the time. We get a good sense of the small community there and we get a lot of important information while Maggie is walking around the island with various characters.  The setting is so atmospheric and I loved how integral the setting is to the plot as well.  So many of the plot points are directly connected to the elements and the sea that it just makes the whole story feel so cohesive. 

I loved the way the lore and supernatural elements were worked into the story.  We get a whole range of elements from Maggie's mother being a psychic, Maggie's reincarnation claims as a child, Norse mythology, and the superstitions of sailors. I loved the way the different elements came together and overlapped in a way that felt very real.  Like the people in these remote communities in these dangerous conditions don't necessarily care where the lore came from, only that they believe it will protect them on the boat when a storm blows in or will lead to a good fishing year. For some of these lore elements, the characters aren't entirely sure if these are good or bad things which I found really heightened the suspense of the story. I also loved how we do get some concrete explanation to some of the supernatural elements but others are left a little vague which made it feel overall more realistic in a way.  Investigating the truth behind her childhood added an extra layer to the mystery because while Maggie was researching dates and facts and tracking down witnesses, she was also figuring out if her being the reincarnated Andrew was true or not. 

The mystery investigation was a little slow to get going but it paid off big at the end.  Johnstone really took the time to lay out a solid foundation of this town and Maggie's own backstory and connection to this island. There are a lot of characters and places and they all play a role in the overall mystery investigation so it was good to get such a solid footing at the beginning.  I really enjoyed following Maggie's investigation because she isn't like a lot of mystery MCs where they are super clinical or meticulous during the investigation.  Maggie is coming to this island after some pretty significant changes in her life and as much as she wants answers, it is obvious that sometimes searching for those answers is also personally taxing so she isn't all go-go-go on the investigation.  I also loved how we, and Maggie, think she has found the answer to the mystery about 75% of the way through the book but obviously there is more book to go so there is more to be revealed. The reveals in that last 75% are fantastic and I couldn't put the book down until I had finished.  

I wasn't entirely loving the dual timeline aspect until about halfway through the book for the simple reason that I just wasn't as interested or invested in Robert's timeline.  We do find out the connection between Robert's timeline and Maggie's timeline fairly early on, but Robert's story was just not where I wanted to spend the time.  It felt like his timeline was just following him around the island while he was being moody.  But around the 50% mark, his timeline start to pick up and we can see some of the same interpersonal tension like we see in Maggie's timeline.  I did enjoy how the timelines were only 20ish years apart which lets us see some of the same characters in each which is always something I find super interesting. 

Overall, this was a fantastic, atmospheric, and suspenseful read.  I loved the way we get so many seemingly different pieces of this puzzle but they all come together so perfectly at the end. 

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC.  Publication date is January 3, 2023

The Villa - Rachel Hawkins

 

This mystery follows childhood friends Emily and Chess.  They used to be inseparable, but have grown apart in recent years due to demands in their professional and personal lives.  However, after meeting one day for lunch, Chess invites recently divorced and writer's blocked Emily to a trip to Italy to kick start the creative juices.  They're staying at Villa Aestas, a high-end vacation rental now, but was the scene of a murder in 1974 involving a notorious rock star, an up-and-coming musician, his girlfriend, and her sister. As Emily digs into the Villa's history, she realizes the horror novel written by one of the 1974 group might be more related to the events of that summer than she originally thought. As Emily's investigation deepens, the tension grows between her and Chess - and when secrets from the past are revealed, the villa might claim another victim. 

The dual timeline was used to perfection in this story.  I absolutely loved both timelines and the ways they intersected.  We are told the general outcome of the past timeline early on - someone ends up dead, there's a murder trial - but we don't know the details until later on in the book so it was fun following that timeline and trying to guess how it would all play out.  The present day timeline was more focused on the interpersonal dynamic/tension between Emily and Chess rather than Emily's eventual research into the events in 1974. I thought this difference was a nice touch because then we don't have too much duplication of seeing something happen in 1974 in the past timeline and then having to read about it again when Emily finds out about it. 

We have a handful of very colorful characters in this read which made it even more fun.  Emily is the most bland of the characters - but not in an underdeveloped way.  She's just simply the most regular person in contrast to all of these very colorful and enigmatic other characters.  Since she's the most 'normal' person as well as our main character, she easily acts as bit of a reader stand-in.  I think we get a good amount of Emily and Chess's backstory but I would have liked a little more from their relationship.  Early on in their stay at the villa, we do get a little bit of them reminiscing and I think more of that would have really strengthened their connection on-page for me.  I loved all of our 1974 characters and found them to be pretty colorful characters but managing to still feel believable and not cross the line into caricature.

There's a really interesting mix of tones in this book.  We get some good creepy gothic house vibes, especially when Emily is at the height of her investigation and she's searching the house.  But that is  contrasted with the rest of the setting being a luxurious Italian villa during the summer. I really enjoy these stories that have this mix, especially when the darker, gothic parts are the unexpected undertones.  This is my third read from Hawkins and I think this is a balance that she does well in a lot of her books and it always works well for me. This balance is also present in both timelines to different extents which, again, made this a really fun read. 

The ending reveal I think is going to be pretty divisive, but I absolutely loved it.  We get a couple of big reveals in pretty quick succession toward the end and while some were what I was expecting, a few were not. We also get a bit of a timejump at the end that I wish we had gotten a bit more of those events on page.  It felt like we fast-forwarded over the climax of the book and I was a little bummed. However, we do get the after-effects of those events which were interesting and left the ending a bit open.  

Overall, this was a really fun read and solidified Hawkins as an insta-read author for me. I loved the use of the dual timeline and the setting was fantastic. 

Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ARC

Expected publication date is January 3, 2023