This is a 2.5/5 for me. A pretty good thriller, but I felt it dragged a lot. The beginning and end were exciting enough to keep me reading but it wasn‘t my favourite. Huge huge huge amount of gaslighting from the male characters. I also didn‘t like the portrayal of mental health issues. The MC is clearly struggling with PTSD but instead of her family supporting her they gaslit her and and accused her of “losing it.”

Current read: interesting so far… hard to tell exactly what‘s going on and who is reliable. HUGE amount of gaslighting happening. Anyone read this one? I‘m enjoying it but I‘ve been reading it slower than I typically read. #mystery #thriller #domesticthriller

Beautiful prose and a devastating but real picture of grief and loss. Nothing like I was expecting but truly excellent. I saw the ending coming but still hard hitting. I expected more of a YA thriller but it‘s more of a mystery. Shows that even the super rich are not exempt from horrific tragedies.

Mixed feelings about this one! The themes of witchcraft and dark academia are appealing to me and I love so many elements included in this book. I found the characters unlikeable but I think it was mostly the pacing that made me feel ambivalent.

It does have a spooky vibe (which I enjoyed) and a strong mental illness representation which I really appreciate. I can tell the book was written with passion, it just wasn‘t for me.

I loved this book! The vibe is small town obsessed with Halloween and I am living for it! Some wonderfully spooky elements but overall, a charming romance. It would‘ve been a 5 star read had it had a touch more depth. It‘s light and fluffy. Definitely a feel-good read. #mystery #halloween #witches #romance

This was really good! Dark academia vibes and certainly macabre. I wouldn‘t say there were any huge surprises for me but it is well written and I just wanted to keep reading. Solid psychological thriller! Beautiful photo by The Lit B*tch. #mystery #thriller #psychologicalthriller

I have mixed feelings about this. Ultimately, I liked it. I was invested in the characters, so I read until the end, but I did contemplate not finishing the book. It‘s very well written, I just found there were way more details than necessary and honestly a simple conversation between the main characters could‘ve ended the book at any point. I also feel it lacked the male character‘s perspective.

So good! I couldn‘t wait to keep reading! It definitely reads more like a mystery than a thriller. It‘s wonderful unravelling the pieces of the mystery along with Hannah (the wife Owen, the man who has gone missing) and Bailey (Hannah‘s teenaged step-daughter/Owen‘s daughter). Why did Owen suddenly disappear leaving only money and a note telling Hannah to protect his daughter? The story is engaging and really comes down to the power of love.

I‘ve read over half of this in less than a day. It‘s my first read by the author and I‘m so engrossed so far!

A solid mystery/thriller. I always love Swanson‘s books. They keep my attention. The author has a way of using limited book space but still making a character feel real/likeable. He doesn‘t go over the top with detailed or flowery descriptions so I never feel like I‘m taken out of the urgency of the story. Really enjoyed this one! The author is one of my favourites.

Unfortunately I had to bail on this one. The dialogue was so cheesy I just couldn‘t keep reading. I hear the author is quite renown, though, so that‘s a bummer.

St. James always writes a nicely crafted mystery and does alternating (past and present) perspectives very well. Macabre but not gory, spooky but not terrifying. The author gets her point across without pushing too far into depravity. I personally don‘t shy away from gore but it‘s nice to have a reprieve from it if you read a lot of thriller/horror books. I didn‘t like this one as much as Sun Down Motel but I still enjoyed it. #thriller #mystery

A stellar mystery. Heart-breaking, but very well crafted. Kept me guessing til the end. I love when I can‘t guess the ending because there are so many potential outcomes. The author does a wonderful job of giving the reader many leads to figure out whodunnit. Overall, excellent.

I‘m genuinely surprised how good this was! In the beginning I thought it was going to be predictable and it wasn‘t at all. This is a wild ride until the very end. Told in alternating perspectives, and through letters, it tells the tale of a marriage gone very wrong. Hoping to save their marriage, Amelia and Adam embark on a weekend getaway that they literally can‘t GET AWAY FROM. So twisty. #thriller #mystery #spooky

The 1st and last 50 pages of the book are well written and very engaging. Atmospheric and wild. However, the pacing in the middle was pretty rough. I felt for a thriller that this moved very slowly.I couldn‘t wait to get to the end of it because I wanted to know how it ended but it took Emily so long to discover the truth about Kristen. But perhaps what Emily discovered isn‘t even the truth. With this book and it‘s unreliable narrator.. who knows?

This is a fast-paced, compulsive read. It alternates perspectives and includes various text messages between characters. This feels like mean girls where the moms are also mean girls. I really enjoyed it but the decisions of the characters drove me nuts. Overall, a great thriller/mystery. #mystery #thriller #psychologicalthriller

I really enjoyed this one! A fun, fantastical story. This would make a perfect spooky season read or just something fun to snuggle up with. It‘s ultimately about a 30 year old woman finding herself after a big breakup, but it‘s wrapped up in magic. * Beautiful photo from Wildwood Reads. #supernatural #witches #spookyseason #fiction

So so good. It took a bit for me to get into it, but it made me so emotional I cried. That doesn‘t happen too often with books. The human experience is truly captured and expressed here. Such a wonderful story. #themidnightlibrary #fiction #emotional

I really enjoyed this one. I read it compulsively because I HAD to find out what happened to Sammy Went. I love White‘s ability to develop characters so deeply so quickly. I didn‘t love it as much as The Wife and The Widow but it was still a quick and well-developed read.

Heart-warming. Perfect for Christmas. I rounded up from 3.5 stars because some of the dialogue, especially among those who were supposed to be late 20s, was super cheesy and it was evident the author was trying too hard to sound “young.”
It took me awhile to really get into this one but I really enjoyed it. I definitely felt the Christmas spirit!

Oh man I LOVED this book! It was everything I wanted from a spooky book. Mystery, likeable characters, intrigued. Just enough spookiness that I was gripped but not terrified. I will definitely read more from this author! #horror #mystery #thriller #atmospheric

I listened to this on audiobook over the course of a couple years, but I keep going back to it. It is truly an incredible story. Slaughter‘s plots captivate me and her characters feel very real, very human. She has a way with grizzly gore and delivers horrifying situations in such a way that I don‘t find them too over the top. I have a high tolerance for gore and blood though. Just another incredible book by this formidable author. #thriller

That was a wild ride… I thought I knew what was going on but I didn‘t.. even when I thought I had it figured out at last, I didn‘t. Just, whoa. Different from anything I‘ve ever read. I didn‘t enjoy the setting of this one but it was super interesting and such a smart psychological thriller. I didn‘t love reading it, but I am very impressed. #mystery #dark

Bloody..so bloody. Atmospheric teen slasher and would make one heck of an action packed movie. This was the perfect Halloween read. Implausible but sometimes it‘s fun to let your mind push the envelope with how far humans will go for what they believe in. Could‘ve benefitted from a tad more character development, but it reminded me of a horror movie, and those often have little character development. I really enjoyed it though. #horror #halloween

I was incredibly drawn in by the story, I could hardly put it down. The way Jennifer McMahon writes characters feels intimate. They‘re not perfect people, but they‘re real. It alternates perspectives between the past and present to tell a story. I love this way this one is written. It urges you to keep reading. It‘s really well written, I only took 1 star off because I didn‘t love the end.
#thriller #ghoststory #horror #mystery

The writing style, which flipped between the perspectives of multiple characters as well as a blog post, was confusing. This is another story with unlikeable characters. We‘re supposed to be rooting for Lena, but I personally didn‘t care what happened to her. I just wanted to know the truth of how her sister died. The plot is outlandish and disjointed and implausible and it honestly got worse the more I read. TW:child death #thriller #mystery

I had heard great things about this one so I was very intrigued. I wanted to love it, but I didn‘t. I was entertained but I got very annoyed with Louise. She kept making mistakes over and over again. The characters aren‘t particularly likeable. It‘s a complex plot and it wasn‘t a bad book but I just didn‘t love it. #thriller

This was pretty damn good! I couldn‘t wait to keep reading. Totally fresh and cool idea. I loved the little included police case notes, interviews, and magazine articles. Some gory details but not totally overwhelming. There are definitely some things that could‘ve been included to up the gore factor. Hendrix writes female characters well, which I appreciate. I think I liked this one more than the Southern Bookclub. #horror #halloweenread