Top Ten Tuesday and 3 Truths and a Lie Review

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the wonderful The Broke and Bookish

For this Top Ten Tuesday, we had to fill in the blank for ten books if you want to feel....

I went with ten books to read if you want to feel like you need to double check that your doors and windows are locked. These are the books that are creepy, mysterious, and have you huddled in your chair jumping at any and every noise.

This book is centered around a creepy, underground horror film director, and the creepy, unsolved death of his daughter. Needless to say, it is a scary, amazing read. Readers get snippets of his movies described to them, have no idea who to trust, and are taken through some of the eeriest settings in any book I've ever read.

This is a book where even if your doors and windows are locked, you're not safe. The house itself may just be out to get you, and once you're inside, there's no escape.

In this book, you've been locked in the room with the yellow wallpaper, and it just might be the room itself that is driving you insane. You want to check your doors and windows in the hope that someone has made a mistake, and left one a crack open for you to escape.

You don't want any of these characters getting in, not the possible ghosts, not the utterly creepy children, not the nanny who may or may not have gone completely insane.

Even locking yourself in your room won't keep you safe. The killer is among you, and he's already inside the house.

This is a classic go-to in this genre. It's guaranteed to make you sleep with the lights on, especially if you're staying in a hotel while reading this.

This book starts with mysterious deaths, and continues through the history of a building in ruins, that holds a secret that has ruined lives.

This is the kind of slow-build creepy that gets under your skin and stays with you.  It's one of those scary books that feels all too real.

This is a book that epitomizes the slow-burn scare, where you are constantly on edge because you know something is about to happen.

This book is not for the faint of heart. I love scary books and Joyce Carol Oates, and I almost couldn't finish this one. It's centered around a serial killer, but Oates takes it to the edge and keeps right on going.

3 Truths and a Lie Review!

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not effect my opinion of the book or the review itself.

This novella features Gardner's popular detective, D.D. Warren, who has been roped into teaching a seminar at a mystery writer's conference. Concerned that her topic won't be interesting enough to keep a group of writers' attention, she spices it up by telling them about her most unusual recent case-that of the seedy hotel room, the amputated leg, and the hooker. She challenges the writers to decide what is the lie hidden in her story.

What follows is a great locked room mystery, full of twists and turns and lots of bizarre details that all work in context. The reader is as enthralled as the group of writers, and as eager to learn the solution.

This is a unique, fun, concept to frame a mystery in, and Gardner does it well. I would love to see this expanded into a whole book, maybe with Detective Warren teaching a multipart class with multiple case studies.