I liked the idea of The Second Mother. A woman wanting to start over ends up at a remote island to be the teacher after the last ones left. I don’t think the book needed the mystery element which might have been part of why it felt flat. Nothing sat right about the ages to … Continue reading
Loved the concept! Stylish cover! I think Portrait of a Thief would make a great movie or limited tv series. I didn’t feel like it was as good of a book as it could have been. I wish it had been just from two points of view (or one!). I liked the characters and they … Continue reading
How We Fall Apart was one of those books I was so excited to read because it seemed like it was tailor-made for me. Gossip Girl plus murder plus high pressure to succeed? Yes, please! But I ended up disappointed. I didn’t really think the details added up. I am still confused about how a … Continue reading
I liked All Her Little Secrets well enough. I liked the characters. I thought the storyline was clever and the mystery wasn’t too mysterious but it was fairly well-paced even with the flashbacks. A few things bothered me. I was puzzled why the single section from Sam’s point of view was basically a spoiler for … Continue reading
Find Me by Alafair Burke was a weird mess. It was definitely presented as a standalone book when I asked for and was rejected for a galley but it contains a character, Ellie Hatcher, who is the main character of Burke’s long-running Ellie Hatcher series. I haven’t read that series (only Burke’s standalone novels) so … Continue reading
White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson is fun book that ties in a lot of topical issues like prisons, blended interracial families, poorly treated mental illness, veganism, peanut allergies, predatory televangelists, drug use and gentrification into a spooky ghost/horror story. The ending was incredibly abrupt. Bizarrely so. I got it from the library and truly … Continue reading
I had some high hopes and mixed feelings about The Temple House Vanishing by Rachel Donohue. On the surface it ticked all of my “summer reading” boxes: A book set the late 1990s where a sixteen-year-old girl and her teacher disappeared from a remote Catholic girls’ boarding-school housed in a cliffside old mansion in Ireland? … Continue reading
I really don’t know how I came across this book. It was on my reserves from library so at some point I must have suggested they purchase it. I vaguely remember reading an earlier book of hers and enjoying it well enough. Sometimes the lag between reading about a book and it actually coming out … Continue reading
I came across this one in a NYT column and put it right on my holds list. It sounded intriguing–a man with three wives found dead near his rural compound. What a disappointment! I’m not entirely sure if Marilyn Stasio actually read the book. I didn’t get the impression from Black Widows or interviews with … Continue reading
I found A Spy in the Struggle a little puzzling. The concept was unique and I like how it touched on real issues and was topical (there is even a Covid-19 reference) but the main character was so flat. Her thinking was very black and white and childlike. It was very difficult to believe she … Continue reading
Rachel Reads Books 