The Wasp Trap - Mark Edwards

 "A dinner party in a beautiful Notting Hill townhouse turns into a sinister game, as six old friends are forced to spill their darkest secrets…or else.

Six friends reunite in London to celebrate the life of their recently deceased ex-employer, a professor that brought them together in 1999 to help build a dating website based on psychological testing.

But what is meant to be a night of bittersweet nostalgia soon becomes a twisted and deadly game when the old friends find themselves held at gunpoint. They are given an ultimatum: reveal their darkest secrets to the group or pick each other off one-by-one.

It soon becomes clear that their current predicament is related to their shared past. The love questionnaire they helped develop in 1999 for the dating site was also turned into a tool for weeding out The Wasp Trap. This and the other tragic events of that summer long ago may help reveal the truth behind a killer hiding in plain sight."

What Worked for Me

If the premise above catches your eye at all, please pick this read up.  The entire main plot takes place during the dinner party so there isn't a whole lot of fluff to take away from the premise.  I love when reads with these really high level plots just jump right into it without a lot of set up or exposition.  Like, we all know why we picked up the book, let's just dive right in.

In hindsight, I really enjoyed the dual POV, but I didn't love it until the last 3rd of the book.  I think the dual POV mechanic worked very well as a way to give the reader backstory to these characters and that fateful summer without having the characters in the current day plot unnaturally explain things they all already know. It also served as a way to give the reader a break from the tension in the main plot - although I did feel, while reading, that it was too much of a break at times. 

The tension in the main plot was perfection.  When the main conflict kicks off, it ramps up very quickly and at first, I thought it would stagnate.  Instead, Edwards manages to find new ways and new angles to add tension and complications. There were a good number of reveals and twists before we actually got to the resolution of the main mystery, none of which I saw coming.  This was a relatively shorter read at 330 pages, so to fit all of the dual POV, plus twists and reveals, meant the pacing and tension had to be on point.  This really feels like it was meant to be a one-sitting read.

What Didn't Work for Me

The extra ending reveal/twist felt a bit heavy handed and I didn't think it was necessary.  I really enjoyed the main reveal of the core mystery/situation but Edward tacked on a little extra reveal right at the end that I could have done without. It is one of my least favorite tropes in mystery/suspense books (but naming the actual trope would be a spoiler). 

I do wish the past POV would have gotten around to the main plot a little more quickly.  There were a number of times when we switched to the past POV and I thought to myself "why do we keep coming back here? Is it just for a break in tension?  Some easy character development?" And when we do, eventually, get around to the main plot, I was extremely intrigued - I just wanted to get there a little sooner so I didn't feel quite so much like my time was being wasted.

Overall, this was a great read that really paid off on the premise. Fantastic tension and reveals with an interesting dual POV element.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC.  Publication date was September 16, 2025

Malice House - Megan Shepherd

 "Of all the things aspiring artist Haven Marbury expected to find while clearing out her late father’s remote seaside house, Bedtime Stories for Monsters was not on the list. This secret handwritten manuscript is disturbingly different from his Pulitzer-winning works: its interweaving short stories crawl with horrific monsters and enigmatic humans that exist somewhere between this world and the next. The stories unsettle but also entice Haven, practically compelling her to illustrate them while she stays in the house that her father warned her was haunted. Clearly just dementia whispering in his ear . . . right?

Reeling from a failed marriage, Haven hopes an illustrated Bedtime Stories can be the lucrative posthumous father-daughter collaboration she desperately needs to jump-start her art career. However, everyone in the nearby vacation town wants a piece of the manuscript: her father’s obsessive literary salon members, the Ink Drinkers; her mysterious yet charming neighbor, who has a tendency toward three a.m. bonfires; a young barista with a literary forgery business; and of course, whoever keeps trying to break into her house. But when a monstrous creature appears under Haven’s bed right as grisly deaths are reported in the nearby woods, she must race to uncover dark, otherworldly family secrets―completely rewriting everything she ever knew about herself in the process."

 What Worked for Me:

The characters in this were absolutely fantastic.  Haven was a really interesting character to follow as much as she was frustrating at times.  I think she had a good balance of being frustrated with the choices she was making but also intrigued with how everything was going to turn out.  The side characters were developed just enough for us to get a sense of them, but they were a little flexible enough that when Haven starts questioning everyone around her, we can also be reasonably suspicious of everyone which made for a fun read.

The world building - both the physical world and imaginary world - was spot on.  The setting of this small town on an isolated island was very eerie and atmospheric.  Plus, we have an old, abandoned house that hold far more secrets than Haven could ever imagine.  The world building in the Bedtime Stories for Monsters was also really well developed and I loved that we would get a little snippet of a story at the beginning of each chapter.  Since these stories became so important to the overall plot, it was really nice to have such a good feel of these spooky characters and what they are capable of.

Speaking of the monsters, they perfectly rode the line between scary and intriguing.  They really felt like The Brothers Grimm fairytale level of scary and, at times, grotesque. We get a lot of interesting relationships between the different characters and stories which makes everything feel more cohesive.  Right around the middle of the book, I was getting spooked just enough that I couldn't read this book after dark.  Shepherd does a great job with her descriptions of the creatures and atmosphere that really got under my skin.

 What Didn't Work for Me: 

 I didn't know that this was book 1 in a series when I requested the ARC so I wasn't expecting the type of 'open door' ending we got.  I generally am not a series reader so this was a little bit of a downer for me.  However, I did appreciate that we get answers to most of the questions posed throughout the book and I think if you stopped here, it was still a satisfying read. It sort of felt like a detective fiction series in that way, we get most of our answers in this book but there is just enough left over to encourage continuing on - which I will be doing.

Overall, this was a super fun and spooky read with great characters, scares, and world building. 

Thanks to NetGalley and Hyperion Avenue for the ARC.  Publication date was October 4, 2022 

The Hunter - Jennifer Herrera

"After reckless behavior costs NYPD detective Leigh O’Donnell her job and her marriage, three suspicious drownings in her hometown cause her to return to Copper Falls, Ohio in the hopes that solving a triple homicide just might get her life back on course. Leigh had stayed away from Copper Falls for decades, even though her trio of loving uncles and her brother still call it home. Because Copper Falls may seem idyllic, but something rotten lies at its core.

Headstrong and intuitive, Leigh isn’t afraid to face a killer. But she will have to do more than that to learn the truth about Copper Falls; she must unravel a complicated web of insidious secrets going back generations and truly confront what the town keeps hidden—as well as what she is hiding from herself.

Both a taut mystery and a deeply affecting examination of the stories and lies we build our lives upon, The Hunter signals the arrival of an unforgettable character and a major new writing talent."

What Worked for Me

The investigation elements were on point.  Very logical progression with few 'summing up' parts that I can find annoying if they are too frequent.  I think this book is a police procedural at its core with some more folklore/folk horror parts sprinkled on top and as such, the investigation needs to be spot on, which it completely was. While we know from the synopsis that Leigh lost her position on the NYPD, we don't find out until later in the read what the exact reason/situation was.  However, I never found myself doubting her actual investigation skills - although she does go rogue a few times, like any good detective in a police procedural read.

We have a great cast of characters in a small town setting.  I loved that we saw not only Leigh's family connections but also many other members of the community.  The setting is a rural, small town, but Herrera does a great job of really showing a lot of different characters from all different walks of life in the same town.  Also, since it is such a small town, we do run into the same characters over and over again which is great during an investigation because we are able to keep progressing the plot without having the main character constantly introducing herself or explaining the situation.

Leigh was a great main character to follow.  Herrera does a good job with her character development throughout the book.  I think we got the perfect balance of Leigh the person coming back to her hometown vs Leigh the investigator doing her job.  Herrera does play around a little bit with the typical character of the detective we see in a lot of police procedural books. 

What Didn't Work for Me

The ending sort of fell apart for me in a number of different ways - not anything too drastic, but I felt it could have been tweaked to fit the rest of the narrative better.  First, the pacing was noticeably faster than the rest of the book.  Now, most endings are faster paced as we ramp up the tension, reveals, and danger but this felt more like a 0-to-100 sort of deal.  I would have liked either a more gradual ramp up or to slow down the ending events just a little.  We get so many details, events, and reveals in the last 10% that I just wish we had more time to breathe.  Also, I found myself missing a sort of 'summation' type of ending that we get in a lot of police procedurals where we tie up loose ends.  There were a number of 'bad guys' that I was missing finding out what happened to them or what the outcome of the investigation was for those characters.  

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the ARC.  Publication date was January 10, 2023.

The Swell - Allie Reynolds

 

"The waves are to die for.

Three years ago, passionate surfer Kenna Ward lost her two great loves—after her boyfriend drowned, she hung up her surfboard and swore off the water for good. But she is drawn back to the beach when her best friend, Mikki, announces her sudden engagement to a man Kenna has never met—a member of a tight-knit group of surfers. Kenna travels to a remote Australian beach, entering a dangerous world far from civilization world where the waves, weather, and tides are all that matter. Kenna is tempted back into the surf, and drawn into the dazzling group and the beach they call their own.

But this coastal paradise has a dark side, and members of the group begin to go missing. Kenna realizes that in order to protect Mikki and learn more about the surfers, she must become one of them…without becoming one of their victims. What follows is an adrenaline-fueled thriller packed with twists and turns, exploring the dangerous edge between passion and obsession."

What Worked for Me

This book really nailed the creepy vibes.  It was such a great contrast to have this basically paradise have a constant undercurrent of unease. The book is primarily from Kenna's POV, but we do get a brief chapter here and there from one of the other characters. These other chapters each seem to show a slightly new angle to something Kenna is concerned about.  However, these chapters don't serve to show that Kenna is completely wrong, and often further complicate the situation while posing more questions than answers - which was always great.  This is also an isolated setting with a pretty closed cast and those two tropes always bring certain creepy vibes on their own.

There is a great building of tension and danger throughout the read from multiple different directions. We have environmental danger from the isolated setting and wild ocean along with interpersonal danger that slowly develops over the course of the book.  The pacing is spot on and it is a slow, but steady build until it really ramps up at the end.

The actual reveals we get are excellent especially given the secretive nature of the group overall.  The premise of the book - Kenna meeting this group of people who are wary of outsiders and then being incorporated into the group - really lends directly to some explosive reveals.  Reynolds has so many different people and aspects to choose from as the story builds and I really think she used everything to her advantage.  This is an isolated, closed circle mystery in a more tropical locale which is a really fun contrast to the usual snowy or rainy settings we get a lot.  It reminded me a lot of Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins in that way. 

The setting was fantastic and Reynolds does a great job of really immersing the reader in the nature of this isolated beach.  I don't know much about surfing, but these characters all love it and we get a lot of surfing on page.  The way the surfing was entwined with their daily life on this beach really helped fill in some gaps in my knowledge because Reynolds was able to sprinkle in some details or background info in a more organic way. I loved the way Kenna was a bit of a fish out of water and was not used to the insects, animals, or weather in Australia so we have a natural way of building the setting around her.

What Didn't Work for Me

The multi-POV was a little odd.  As mentioned above, most of the chapters (I'd say around 90%) were from Kenna's POV.  The other chapters did help build some vibes and tension but also ended up taking me out of the flow of the read.  I get so settled into Kenna's POV since we get chapter after chapter of her but then when we get another characters, that flow gets broken.  I love multi-POV isolated mysteries but this was just too lopsided for the POV choices to really work for me. 

Reynolds spent so much time slowly ramping up the tension and danger but I think she should have pumped the brakes a little more at the end.  The pacing really picked up at the end and just kept accelerating more than I wanted.  We get so many reveals right at the end and so many "the answer is A ... just kidding, the answer is B .... no, wait, the answer is C" type of reveals. And when these sort of reveals come too quickly, it ends up feeling like my brain was just getting beat up a bit by the story. I thought the pacing was great until the last 15% or so. 

Overall, this was a really solid isolated, closed circle mystery.  Great setting, tension, and pacing right up until the end.  There were a couple of things that didn't entirely work for me, but they didn't take too much away from the read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the ARC.  Publication date was June 14, 2022

The Mountain King - Anders de la Motte

"Criminal inspector Leonore Asker seems to have the leading position at Malmö’s Major Crime Division within reach. But things go awry when, in the middle of a high-profile kidnapping case, management relegates her to the so-called Department of Lost Souls—the unit for odd, cold cases banished to the basement of the police station.

Despite the humiliation, Asker is drawn into one of the more peculiar cases. Someone is placing small ominous figures in town and one of them seems to represent the missing woman from the kidnapping case. As Asker’s investigation takes her to abandoned buildings, she reaches out to a local architecture expert and together they explore the sinister recesses of the city and discover that an unusual kind of evil lurks in the shadows."

What Worked for Me

The characters in this read were incredibly well developed and intriguing. I loved how many different people and personalities we got to meet and see how they are connected with Asker or the case. We get some fantastic details about their individual wants and drives. I think de la Motte does a great job of really getting the reader invested in Anders and the other characters as well.  I found myself rooting for different characters at different times while reading which was great.  I find sometimes these police procedurals really only focus on developing the main character and maybe one or two others and everyone else feels like cardboard cutouts.  This was not the case in this read and I'd be happy to follow any one of the many characters in the upcoming books.

The investigation was incredibly compelling and I loved how it developed from a seemingly small and unimportant type of crime.  The way de la Motte was able to expand the investigation in a very logical and interesting way from that small beginning nugget was truly impressive. I was very interested in the entire investigation and didn't find it lull in the middle like some other books do.  The pacing was on point and we had just enough pauses to recap the investigation that the reader could stay up to date and have a little breather but didn't lose too much momentum.  

The killer was really interesting both in the style of kills as well as their psychology and background. I always love a complex killer in these types of reads rather than just your garden variety psychopath.  We do get to see the killer's POV in the book which was very well done and the killer had a great character voice. I also liked how Asker works out a lot of details about the killer which lead to multiple suspects so it was fun to try and sort out who is the killer.

What Didn't Work for Me

Since this was the first book in a series, we were being introduced to many characters and the start of many different plot threads that will span across multiple books.  I found this a little frustrating because I was so intrigued but ended up feeling like these were sort of put to the side.  I know book #2 in the series will expand on one of these side characters and we will get more of these threads tied up with that book and I hope that trend continues with other books in the series. But as a standalone read, these threads ended up feeling a little abandoned and unfinished. 

This was a bit of a longer read at 464 pages and while I had a great time reading, I did feel like some of the flashbacks weren't really necessary.  They did explain more about Asker's personality and background and they end up sort of coming into play in the later investigation but they really seemed mostly to set up book 2 plot.  Since these parts didn't really directly contribute to the current investigation, I did find myself wanting to skim through these portions. 

Overall, this was exactly what I want out of Nordic mystery/thrillers and I'm excited to have a new series to look forward to.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC.  Publication date was January 30, 2024

Everyone on this Train is a Suspect - Benjamin Stevenson

 

"When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out. 

The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty: the debut writer (me!), the forensic science writer, the blockbuster writer, the legal thriller writer, the literary writer, the psychological suspense writer, But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. 

Together, we should know how to solve a crime. Of course, we should also know how to commit one."

What Worked for Me

I'll be honest - pretty much this whole book worked for me.  This was such an absolutely fantastic read that delivered exactly what I wanted.  I've been really wanting to read just some straight up mysteries instead of the mystery/thrillers I usually reach for.  This was exactly the type of mystery I was in the mood for and it was a hit.

This is the second book in the Ernest Cunningham series and our main character, Ernest, has a very distinctive voice and often speaks directly to the reader.  This was one of my favorite parts of the first book in the series and I was so glad to see it was consistent in this second book.  I know that sort of thing isn't for everyone and I've seen some reviews that even mentioned they don't like that sort of mechanic.  I think it works great and really makes for an engaging read that stands out from other mysteries.

I think the actual mystery case and investigation were also fantastic and I enjoyed the premise of all these different mystery writers in one place.  Of course, each of these different authors are involved in the investigation at some point and in some capacity and it was so much fun.  The investigation was very fast paced but had enough pauses where Ernest was basically catching his breath by reviewing what he had learned so far.  These pauses were staggered throughout the read in just the right places that I wasn't overwhelmed or annoyed with them. 

There are a lot of characters that seem to be constantly popping in and out of the book.  Stevenson does a great job of making them all distinct enough that I didn't have a hard time keeping them straight.  Stevenson also made sure to reference characters pretty equally by name and by their title or some sort of other descriptor. 

What Didn't Work for Me

As I said above, the majority of this book was a hit, so these are pretty small potatoes in the grand scheme of the read.

Ernest's relationship with Julia was a little off for me.  They meet in the first book, but most of their relationship happens between the first and second book.  Stevenson does give us a brief rundown of how the time between the events of book 1 and book 2 developed, but there was something about how their relationship was presented that made me feel like I missed a romance novella or something in between.  

I also was surprised at how many plot points Stevenson was able to fit into this 320 page book.  When thinking back over all the different things that happened, it feels like it should be like a 450 page book.  While I think the pacing worked really well and I didn't exactly feel rushed, I do think that the read toed the line of pacing that may end up overwhelming some readers. I also read the book in one sitting, which may have made it easier for me to keep track of things since I didn't have to remember what I read a few days prior.  

Overall, this was another fantastic entry in this series and if you liked the first one, I think you'd like this one also. 

Romance Wrap-up September 2025

 

First-Time Caller - B.K. Borison

This was an absolutely fantastic romance and solidified Borison as an insta-read author for me.  The premise was pretty straightforward, a jaded radio host of a romance advice show meets a hopeless romantic single mom and they start hosting the show together.  Borison does a fantastic job of grounding these characters in incredibly human moments that took what could have been a much more fluffy, sweet romance into something with a little bit of grit.  This isn't the type of romance where the jaded cynic learns to love again just because the FMC has that 'special something' that melts his ice cold heart.  In this case, it was so much more and we could actually see Aiden work through his feelings about relationships and love.  This read had so much heart along side some absolutely top tier mutual pining and slow burn romance.  The side characters were also very well developed and I can't wait to continue on in the series.

Tropes: Single Parent, Hopeless Romantic FMC vs Jaded MMC, Dating Game

Series: Heartstrings #1

Addicted to Glove - Kelly Reynolds

I've never had a surprise pregnancy book make me cry out of happiness for the characters before but this one sure did. I normally don't read them unless the author has earned my trust that they'll handle it in a way I'd enjoy.  Childfree by choice over here so surprise pregnancy books can often come across as a little more on the horror side than romance for me personally.  Reynolds and the whole series so far has been absolutely fantastic and after seeing Dani and Brooks in book 2, there was no way I'd be skipping this one just because of the pregnancy stuff.  Reynolds also identifies as childfree by choice in the author's note at the end of the read so maybe she had a different view on writing a surprise pregnancy romance that worked with my brain.  We get to see a lot of the previous couples and the team overall so it was such a fun read where pretty much everyone was happy about this baby coming.  There was so much pure happiness and joy that Reynolds put into all corners of this read that I couldn't help but feel the same for Dani and Brooks.  But then add in some very steamy scenes and this was a great read. 

Tropes: Sports - Baseball, Surprise Pregnancy, Age Gap, Coworkers

Series: Rose City Roasters #3

Stuck in the Middle With You - Frances M. Thompson

This was a pretty solid romance read and I had a pretty good time.  I really enjoy the Gym Bros to Lovers aspect of this as it is a little different than a regular friends to lovers trope. I found both MCs to be very well fleshed out, but they are both in their 40s and really felt much more like they are in their 20s.  Both of them had some pretty significant communication issues for their own reasons.  And while I think the reasons behind these communication issues were really well developed, it just didn't feel like they should have still had as much trouble as they did at their ages. This did lead to a number of mis-communication/non-communication trope situations that I'm not a huge fan of.  However, we do get past those very quickly and they don't really escalate the way they do in some other books.  I loved the very positive queer exploration/realization that Marcello went through in this read and how that Giles and the other characters helped him along that journey.  I thought the mental health impacts (ADHD and OCD) were realistic without feeling overly focused on.  I thought the friendship both in and out of the gym really shined in this read and there were so many times that I was yelling at the book for them to just kiss already.  The friendship really supported and highlighted the more romantic parts of the read, which I loved.

Tropes: MM, Bi x Pan, Friends to Lovers, Sex Lessons, Gym Bros to Lovers, ADHD/OCD Rep, MCs in 40s

Series: Standalone