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The Unseen
Author: Ania Ahlborn
Publisher: Gallery Books
Date To Be Published: August 19, 2025This was the first book I’ve read by Ania Ahlborn, although I know her by reputation.
A mother is grieving the loss of her child, and a little child walks out of the forest. Could he take the place of her child Adam? And will her family of five kids accept him? One thing is for sure…the dogs are freaked out by him, and dogs know! Just sayin’.
Even though I went into this book blind (no pun intended), I felt like I knew where it was headed. I wanted to scream “what the heck are you waiting for, give that kid back!”. The writing was atmospheric, and you could picture the house, its isolation, and the woods behind it. There is a scene with wasps that had me squirming, and a few scenes where there is so much noise I could almost hear it. I did have some trouble distinguishing between the younger kids when they presented their points of view, but it didn’t detract from the story. Unlike some others, I didn’t have a problem with the ending, although again, it was predictable to me.
So even though it wasn’t my style of horror, I’m rounding up from 3.5 for the creepy kid factor, the atmospheric writing, and the uniqueness of the setting.
Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for an advance reader’s copy! -
Julie Tudor is Not a Psychopath
Author: Jennifer Holdich
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Date Published: June 24, 2025Julie Tudor is obsessed.
You know how you fangirl over a new TV show, obsess over a new lipstick color, or what to wear tomorrow? Yeah, no. Julie is not obsessed like that. She is OBSESSED! And by that I mean <cough> stalker <cough>.
We’ve all been there – where you thought the lead singer was singing just to you. Or that the hunk on the TV show was talking just to you, and would fall madly in love with you if you ever had a chance to meet. No? Just me?
Julie Tudor believes that her affections are totally mutual, and that the men in her life are only with other people because they are stuck in bad relationships…and she’s here to do something about that!
Also, FYI – Julie is not a pet person (trigger warning for assumed animal abuse).
I mainly felt sorry for Julie throughout her not <wink, wink> psycho serial killings. The fact that she was an older woman who dressed like an odd duck, had an inflated sense of her job, and an eye for a younger man at work, was not lost on colleagues, who made her the brunt of many office jokes. This book will make you extremely uncomfortable in a “can’t look away from a train wreck” kind of way. And that’s okay. It just means your normal!
Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for an early eBook by this debut author and special box of summer paperback reads! -
The Bachelorette Party
Author: Camilla Sten
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Date Published: June 10, 2025Who killed Tilly, Anna, Linnea, and Evelina?
There’s always something atmospheric about a deserted island, and Isle Blind is no exception.
But 10 years later, a new hotel has been built on the island and a group of women is invited to have their bridal party at the soft opening. One requirement – leave all electronic devices at the door. One of the women, Tessa, happens to be there for an ulterior reason: she’s obsessed with the murders, presumed accidental drownings, of the Nacka Four as the women were known. She’s fallen into disgrace as a podcaster for her aggressive pursuit of a former story, and she thinks this could be the case that will put her in the ratings again.
When Tessa steps foot on the island, her spidey sense is tingling. I love how Sten made comparisons between the women from the past and the current group (although I kept getting the name Matilda, from the first group, and Mikaela from the second group, confused)
Sten manages to ramp up the book during the last third of the book; I know, because I was holding my breath the whole time. I was also surprised to find I had tears glistening at the corners of my eyes reading the final chapter.
Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s for providing me with an advance reader’s copy! -
Room 21
Author: Jessica Huntley
Publisher: Joffe Books
Date Published: May 27, 2025Jessica, what have you done? This book absolutely wrecked me…in a good way!
Kimberley loves her job as a maid. She prides herself on a job well done. But she’s just barely getting by, even though she shares an apartment with several other people. Not friends. Just people. So when she’s made an offer she can’t refuse, she hardly thinks about the consequences. Or the NDA she has to sign. Mistake. BIG mistake!!
The first thing that sweetened the pot (plot?) for me was that this is a locked room mystery. Employees come to this hotel, but they don’t leave. Why…well, that’s where this book goes dark. I was holding my breath waiting to see how far the author went, and let’s just say…she goes there!
I love that the author includes a real-life source for her inspiration of Kimberley’s epilepsy, and I think everyone who reads this will fall in love with Muffin, her seizure alert border collie.
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Before She Fell
Book Tour
Author: Natalie Sammons
Publisher: Bloodhound Books
Date Published: June 24, 2024Did she fall, or was she pushed? That’s the question DI Roth must answer in a case that will either redeem her after her last case, or cast her into a vote of no confidence.
During an extravagant party for her 50th birthday, Susan Grey is found at the bottom of the steps, alive, but barely. The case is dismissed as an accident until the police receive an anonymous phone call – it may not have been an accident. There are a bunch of suspects, a few motives, a bunch of red herrings, and witnesses who might be lying.
This is a quick read from a new-to-me author, told from several POVs that will keep you entertained.Background photo courtesy of Guy Basabose on @unsplash
Thanks to Bloodhound Books, and to Love Books Tours for bringing me along on the book tour! -
Whistle
Author: Linwood Barclay
Publisher: William Morrow
Date Published: May 20, 2025Reading this book, I could not help but make comparisons to the creepy guy in the hat, Charlie Manx, in Nos4a2. Whistle had the same kind of impending dread, of something just beyond consciousness, that you knew was bringing evil to town.
How can the words “ChuffchuffCLICKETYCLACKclikcetyCLACK-wooWOOchuffCLICKETYchuffCLICKETYchuff” hold such horror? How can the innocuous train spinning around the Christmas tree that we see as a symbol of the holidays hold such suspense? Linwood Barclay, that’s how!
Annie Blount is a children’s author who has gone through a great deal of trauma over the past year. Her editor takes all the guesswork out of vacation planning by renting a beautifully renovated house in the country, away from the hustle and bustle of NYC. The first sign that it may not be the bucolic country home she thinks, comes when a neighbor is unpardonably rude. And then her son Charlie finds the train in the backyard shed. And things start to get weird.
Told from the perspective of 23 years earlier when the train store comes to Lucknow, and the investigation of the proprietor by the good-intentioned Chief of Police, Harry Cook, to the present-day disappearance of Charlie, the author is not afraid to “kill his darlings”. You have been warned! If that’s not convincing enough, the author gives a special thanks to Stephen King in the acknowledgements.
Read this now. Because, according to Barclay, “this might not be my last time exploring an even darker world.”
Much thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for taking me on my beginning foray into horror with this advance reader’s copy!Thanks to Yucel Moran @unsplash for the background photo.
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The Butcher and the Wren
Author: Alaina Urquhart
Publisher: Zando
Date Published: July 25, 2023I am late to the party on this one, but it’s been sitting on my TBR shelf long enough that I decided to do a buddy read to motivate me. And I’m glad I did – I finished this in one day!
First of all, I might be an outlier, but I was fully absorbed in this book. I loved the setting. What better place for the creepiness that is the Bayou Butcher than New Orleans? It makes me regret that I didn’t have a chance to visit the cemetery when we were there!
The torture conducted by the serial killer, a man who treated his victims as sport, was pretty intense. I found myself wondering at the mind that could think up all those forms of punishment (sorry Alaina!). But it contrasted with the ministrations of Wren, the forensic pathologist of the title, because you must also have a stomach to do what a pathologist does!
While the ending was somewhat predictable, it sets up Book 2 in the series perfectly. Despite some plot issues, I thoroughly enjoyed this debut read from podcaster and real-life autopsy technician Urquhart and would recommend it! -
This Book Will Bury Me
Author: Ashley Winstead
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Date Published: March 25, 2025I was blown away by the way that Winstead captured the capacity for people to band together for a common cause.
The Internet has given birth to the burgeoning “internet sleuth/true crime” business, and thousands of forums and podcasts have sprung up around this theme. While I wasn’t aware of the real Idaho murders this book is based on, it was hard to step out of the story enough to remember – the book is a work of fiction. But because the dialogue rings so true, and the story is so compelling, I had to keep reminding myself that it (probably) was not (it isn’t).
And yet we still feel compassion for Jane, who has recently lost her father and is clinging to her found family to help her through her grief. We feel it for the others in the forum, regardless of why they are there – “a place for hopeless, helpless people to raise their tiny swords against the sky”. And maybe we even skate past whether what they do is morally right or wrong – because of the potential to save lives. But real life is not always so black and white, and neither was this story. But it was quick-paced, intelligent, and heart wrenching.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for introducing me to Ashley Winstead through an advance reader’s copy. Now to check out her backlist! -
My Son’s Girlfriend
Author: Kerry Wilkinson
Publisher: Bookouture
Date Published: February 27, 2025BOOK TOUR
Kerry Wilkinson always writes the main female character well, and in this instance he proves he can also write from a mom’s point of view.
The reader will feel every bit of a mom’s anguish when Jennifer here’s her son’s anguished words: “It wasn’t me” followed by a hang up. What follows is a fast-paced novel of cat and mouse as Jennifer tries to stay one step ahead of the police and whoever killed his girlfriend. because Jennifer is sure it isn’t Dan. And for Jennifer, it might just be history repeating itself.
The main characters each had distinct identities and the way Kerry weaved them all together made the plot move along at a good clip. This was an easy one day read for me!
Thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture Books on Tour for an advance reader’s copy.Author Bio:
Kerry Wilkinson is from the English county of Somerset but has spent far too long living in the north. It’s there that he’s picked up possibly made-up regional words like ‘barm’ and ‘ginnel’. He pretends to know what they mean.
He’s also been busy since turning thirty: his Jessica Daniel crime series has sold more than a million copies in the UK; he has written a fantasy-adventure trilogy for young adults; a second crime series featuring private investigator Andrew Hunter and the standalone thriller, Down Among The Dead Men.
https://kerrywilkinson.com/
https://www.facebook.com/KerryWilkinsonBooks/
https://twitter.com/kerrywkSign up to be the first to hear about new releases from Kerry Wilkinson here: https://www.bookouture.com/kerry-wilkinson
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You Are Fatally Invited
Author: Ande Pliego
Publisher: Random House Publishing – Ballantine
Date Published: February 11, 2025Six prominent mystery writers are invited to a private island by an anonymous author, J. R. Alastor, whose works are well known even if he isn’t. And each writer is hiding a secret. This book is a wonderful debut by author Ande Pliego. It’s a little bit Agatha Christie locked room, a little bit Clue, a little bit Puzzle Box, and a whole lot of fun.
The book starts slowly, and you might be confused by some of the names (Ashton is so close to Alastor, and Ashton is also called Ash and Carter), but hang in there – once it gets going it never lets up! There are a lot of characters, but each chapter is titled with the writer’s name who is narrating. Sections are broken down by descriptions of mystery writing tropes, giving you a little prelude to what follows. Each night there is a different game/puzzle, organized by Mila, Alastor’s assistant. She’s been given an agenda, with no idea of the outcome. As the story proceeds, we see that Mila might be an unwitting player in the game, as are each of the writers.
And as one of the character’s t-shirts reads, “Don’t annoy the writer, they’ll put you in a book and kill you.”.
Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine for an advance reader’s copy.
Book Cravings 