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Nine Dolls
Author: Rupa Mahadevan
Publisher: Joffe Books
To Be Published: September 25, 2025I loved learning about the Hindu Festival of Dolls, or Navaratri, where traditionally, nine dolls are displayed on handmade tiers. The higher tiers represent gods and goddesses, characters from mythology, or scenes from weddings. Everyday scenes are displayed on the lower tiers. However, Leela’s version is a unique take, wherein the dolls assume the significance of the secrets of the people who have been invited to this remote house in the Scottish Highlands.
Leela carefully unwraps each doll and places each on the shelves, in the cabin adjacent to the house, which she and the other guests will visit each day. But then, the dolls are moved, each day, a different secret revealed. It’s bad luck to even touch the dolls, but this? This is a very bad omen!
The book started out slowly, and the chapters are interspersed from different characters’ POV. The problem I had was that there were reveals with backstories coming later, so that I always felt like I was missing something. What kept me engaged, though, was the great plot, learning about a cultural practice that was so well described and implemented into the storyline, and the twists at the end. This was a very ambitious and clever suspense thriller from this debut author.
Thank you to Joffe Books for publishing diverse voices and for sending me an advance reader’s copy to review -
In Deadly Company
Author: L. S. Stratton
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
To Be Published: September 2, 2025As an ambassador for the BookSparks Fall Reading Challenge, I chose the “Secrets” track. This is Book One of my challenge!
In Deadly Company takes you through the days leading up to a birthday bash for Nicole Underwood’s very entitled boss. We flip back and forth between the events that took place, and the movie set for the movie based on Nicole’s retelling of those fateful days, that ended in Xander’s death. It’s the story about a cross, double-cross, and double-double cross.
On the flip side, there is the presumed murder of the company founder, and Nicole is on a mission to find out “who dun it”. There is a love interest (“What? He loves me?), a con-man (could they be the same person?), a cheating spouse, and a couple who maybe don’t want to be a couple. There’s a twist I saw coming, but you may not. Overall, this was an easy-breezy, quick read, with a good dose of humor.
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Too Old For This
Author: Samantha Downing
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
To Be Published: August 12, 2025Where do old serial killers go to die? Why, the local nursing home, of course!
Lottie only has a few things on her mind: bingo, what to bring to bingo (store-bought or homemade?), her son’s (second) marriage, and where to bury the bodies…
Despite the fact that she’s never been caught for any of her (alleged) murders, Lottie wants to continue to fly under the radar. But these pesky visitors keep showing up at her door faster than she can dispose of them. And to top it off, her son has a secret he’s been keeping from her, and someone from her past is on her tail again. Can she get through the next few months until she’s sold her home and moved into a care home?
There’s only one problem – there won’t be room for a freezer…
Even though this went way over the top at times (do you know how heavy it is to lift “dead weight”?), I enjoyed reading about a character who was so relatable. Life might not be exciting for Lottie, but it sure is interesting!
Thanks so much @thrillerfriends_giveaways for my copy, and the Thriller Obsessed Buddy Read group for reading along! -
The Winter Visitor
Author: B. P. Walter
Publisher: Bookouture
To Be Published: September 23, 2025BLOG TOUR
A Scottish castle √
A raging snowstorm √
Family secrets √
One, no two, possibly three murders √
This story is set in timelines 10 years apart, 2005 and 2025, at Christmas. Three brothers have been living with the consequences of what happened that first Christmas, when Sherie, George’s teenage fling, came to visit, under false pretenses, in the middle of a snowstorm. But someone knows their secret. Ten years later, there’s another visitor, mid-snowstorm, Christmas day. But he can’t be who he says he is, can he? Did I mention there’s an inheritance hanging in the balance? Yeah, complicated.
While this book started out slowly, once the twists came, they kept on coming, reminding me again of why I like B.P. Walter. If you like (almost) locked room thrillers, secrets and lies, and twisty endings, read The Winter Visitor!
Thank you to NetGalley, and to Bookouture for taking me along on this blog tour!Background photo courtesy of Luca on @unsplash
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6:40 to Montreal
Author: Eva Jurczyk
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
To Be Published: October 28, 2025While this book could have almost devolved into the black comedy humor of Weekend at Bernie’s, it actually unfolds as a macabre sequence of events that occur after Agatha is encouraged by her husband to take a train from Toronto to Montreal as a way to rejuvenate her writing. And boy does it! No one could have predicted the train stalling on the tracks after a ferocious snowstorm. Or that all of the cell connectivity would disappear. Or that the group of characters on board would be the strangest people to be stuck with.
I did have trouble getting into the book, especially since one of the characters was named Dorcas (which is way too much like dufus), but the need to find out what was going on overrode that. There is a lot that will require the reader to suspend disbelief, but just go with it and I promise this book will stick in your head for a long time!
Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for sending an advance reader’s eArc by this new-to-me author!
Background photo courtesy of Felix Rottman @unsplash
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In Deadly Company
Author: L. S. Stratton
Publisher: Union Square & Co.
Publication Date: September 2, 2025Thank you to Book Sparks for including me in their autumn release celebration of In Deadly Company by L. S. Stratton.
Description
As the assistant to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, Nicole Underwood has plenty of tasks on her to-do list – one of which is the blowout birthday celebration for her nightmare, one-percenter boss, Xander Chambers. But when the party ends in chaos and murder and Nicole is one of the survivors, suspicion lands on her. Was she the reason for all the bloodshed?About the Author
D. S. Stratton is an NAACP Image Award-nominated author and former crime reporter who has written more than a dozen books under different pen names in just about every genre, from thrillers to romance to historical fiction. She currently lives in Maryland with her husband, their daughter, and their tuxedo cat.
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This Is How a Villain is Made
Author: Amanda Headlee
Publisher: Uncomfortably Dark Publishing
Publication Date: September 3, 2025When I first saw the cover of this book, my first thought was, “This is horror?”. When I realized it was both historical and western, I groaned. But since it was a novella, I figured, what do I have to lose? Because I had to know how a villain is made.
The dedication says it all: “For those who let the fire in – not just to burn, but to become”.
Bea has left an untenable situation in Philadelphia, and plans to take a train all the way to San Francisco. But when she only makes it to Chicago, on waning funds, she realizes she needs a job if she’s going to continue her journey. When she approaches a man about job opportunities and he invites her in, it sets in motion an evil that shows Bea that sometimes villains are born out of circumstance, nurtured rather than born that way.
The next train takes her as far as Colorado, where she meets a doctor who sees in her a companion with whom he can hold forth on scholarly topics. He offers her room and board. But he’s hiding a secret in the office that he keeps off limits.
It’s in the discovery of those secrets that Bea’s mind splinters. But his mistake was in underestimating the fierceness of a woman determined to survive by any means necessary.
This was a beautifully told tale of the progression of circumstances, the evolution of the will to live, and the innate strength of a woman who has endured more than enough.
P. S. You can also find a bonus playlist on Spotify under the book title.Thank you to Booked With the Emilys and Uncomfortably Dark Publishing for taking me on this advance readers feature tour.
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The Ever End
Author: Audrey Wilson
Publisher: Bywater Books
Publication Date: August 5, 2025I don’t know why this stayed on my TBR for so long, because once I started it, I couldn’t put it down. Holy cow! Why didn’t someone tell me about this book sooner?
After meeting on a train, Sam proposes to Margo six months later and asks her to come meet his family. That’s a natural progression, right? He warns her they’re a little old-fashioned. What he didn’t warn her about was the level of cult-like adoration they have for a televangelist. Okay, Margo is not without her own brand of crazy. She keeps seeing an apparition of the same dark figure she thought she saw (imagined) when she was 4. I put that down to the fact that she missed a few of her antidepressants. But once she’s in the presence of this family, the visions come back with a bang. The family starts planning her wedding, insisting they have everything she’ll need. They are offended when she suggests using a wedding planner. But, for the sake of Sam, she tries to comply with everything they’ve requested, even wearing the creepy satin nightgown they’ve provided to her. I wanted to scream, “No man is worth that. Run!”.
The author managed to describe scenes that evoked every creepy nightmare you’ve ever had. Think of future in-laws who are smiling to your face, while metaphorically stabbing you in the back. Over and over and over.
This is one of those books that, after you read it, you just kind of have to sit with it for a while. I was seriously reluctant to start another book while I still had this one in my mind.
Thank you, Audrey Wilson, for sending me an ARC and making a new fan out of me!Background photo courtesy of Mateus Campos Felipe on Unsplash
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Between Friends
Author: Natalie Banks
Publisher: Champion Books
Anticipated Publication Date: August 28, 2025Madison travels to North Carolina to clear out her mother’s estate, taking a break from her life in LA, where she has a glamorous and successful life as a celebrity photographer. They say you can’t go home again, and there’s a reason for that. For Madison, it brings back memories she’d kept hidden, and she falls into almost the same patterns. Under the thumb of the mean girl. Loving the man she loved as a boy. Worried that she can’t remember what happened to Olivia in the woods on graduation night.
But some secrets can’t stay buried. Everyone is a suspect. And nothing is as it seems.
If you love small-town, fast-paced mysteries (and cats – yay Leech!), and big twists, you’ll want to get a copy of Between Friends. This was my first read by this Indie author and I loved every minute of it!
Thanks to Natalie Banks and IRIS Influencer Society for an advance reader’s copy. -
Bad Things Happened in This Room
Author: Marie Still
Publisher: Rising Action Publishing Co.
Anticipated Publication Date: September 16, 2025If insanity is doing the same thing over and over, this book is the definition of that. Willow is stuck in a routine, and even worse, she goes through the motions in such a rote way that she doesn’t even remember doing things. Did she make dinner? Was she in the garden? Is Liam drugging her?
The book is accurately described as a fever dream; it’s also a hallucination, a never-ending carousel ride, and a very sad descent into madness. From the “incident” that means she can never go back to her favorite grocery store, to the disappearance of Sarah, the one person who means so much to Willow, we see inside the mind of someone struggling to make sense of her reality. To understand what bad thing happened in the room. Willow goes from one horrific scenario to the next. There but for grace, go you or I. Marie Still writes horror in a way that is vivid, and far too real.
If you want to know what it feels like to be immersed in a fever pitch of disorienting claustrophobia, read this book!
Thank you to Marie Still and Rising Action Publishing Co. for my signed advance reading copy.
Book Cravings 