Death With an Ocean View by Noreen Wald

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


In this fun, light cozy mystery, Wald introduces readers to Kate Kennedy, a widow living in Florida adjusting to her new life. What brings her out of her self-imposed shell, besides the ministrations of her long-time best friend, is a shocking murder on the beach below her condo.

Local politics, love affairs, zoning rights, tell-all articles, and Hearts games combine to form a quick read with some well-done twists and turns. The characters are well-differentiated, and there are some really funny, clever scenes, as well as more heartfelt moments as Kate reflects on the life she never expected to be living.

My issue is with the epilogue. It's really short, just a few paragraphs, and just throws out there a major, major secret that comes out of left field. The epilogue seems completely tacked on, and undermines one of the most important relationships in the pages that had preceded it.

If you just ignore the epilogue, this is a quick, easy, fun mystery that doesn't require much thinking, which can be a very welcome thing.

Relic by Gretchen McNeil and Finding Jake by Bryan Reardon

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

Relic centers around Annie, our narrator, and her boyfriend and their group of friends. They have just graduated high school, and are determined to have a summer of "no regrets" before they separate to attend college. To this end, they lie to their parents, and sneak out to an island to drink and explore the mysterious mines.

This book has a lot of characters and scenarios that have been seen in many books before. There is the strong but insecure main female character, who loves her boyfriend but isn't ready to "go all the way", the ex-girlfriend who is gorgeous but mean, the best friend who worries all the time, the conspiracy theorist who can always score good drugs...

But where McNeil makes her book stand out is the well plotted out mystery and horror that accompany these characters after their ill-fated island trip. After the first few chapters, there is almost constant tension and suspense about just what exactly is going on, and if it can be stopped.

Relic sometimes veers over into overly dramatic territory, with the group of friends concerned that if they don't go all out this summer, one of them may suffer a breakdown in college because they don't know how to be independent and have rule-breaking fun. The romances can also seem a little forced and out of place with all the murder and mayhem happening around them.

But despite its flaws, Relic is a quick, gripping read. McNeil seems to be growing as a writer from her earlier works, and I look forward to seeing what comes next.

Advance warning: This is not a light read, but it is a good one. It centers around the titular Jake, who is missing after a school shooting. The police and neighbors seem to instantly think the worst of Jake, and thus are searching for him as a suspect, not a boy in need of help. But the narrator, Simon, Jake's father (a stay-at-home-dad), is determined to find Jake and help him, whatever he needs.

The story goes back and forth in time, from before Jake was born, when Simon and his wife decided she would go back to work and he would stay at home to take care of their children, to right before the shooting, to after the tragic event. Through this device, Reardon really allows his readers to get to know Jake, Simon, and their family outside of the high-stakes of the present-day events.

Reardon tackles some very heavy topics-violence, what causes it, modern-day witch hunts, innate personalities, parenting, gender roles, and moral codes-and handles them well. Finding Jake gets its point across without being heavy handed or preachy, and is a suspenseful, haunting read.

All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage

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

Stick with this book.

It starts out with a bang, then seems to drift around somewhat, going back and forth in time, getting in the heads of so many different characters you may find yourself unsure if you are keeping track of them all correctly.

But stick with this book. It all has a purpose, a beautifully written, haunting purpose.

All Things Cease to Appear is the story of families, of tragedies, of love and lack thereof, of men and women and children. It is the story of murder, of societal expectations, of religion and disbelief, of the past and present and what it means when they collide.

Brundage is not afraid to tackle massive topics, and she handles them beautifully. There is so much to unpack in this novel, the kind of story you can imagine a college professor (somewhat ironically, given events in the story) teaching to their Literature students. But it's also a story that can be read, absorbed, and thought about in the comfort of your living room, on the train on the way to work, during a lunch break.

Stick with this book. It is so very, very worth it.

The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall by Katie Alender

YA Horror/Paranormal/Supernatural

There is a really good book in here, even though the book as is is disappointingly lacking. With a great editor, The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall could be a thrilling, scary read, with a fascinating mystery to solve.

But the mystery, in fact, all the exciting parts, essentially get buried in the last third of the book. Alender spends page after page describing how time can slow down for ghosts, and makes the reader feel each minute of the years a ghost might spend lying on the grass or sitting in a room. Then, in the last third, secrets are revealed, foes are fought, and every page is full of action. But all the reveals and running around, while really interesting, feel really rushed as well.

I wish that Alender had made this a shorter book. If she had cut out some of the more repetitive parts, there would have been more room to explore the core of the book-the mystery behind Hysteria Hall, and what that means for all who have entered its doors. This would have made the book great, instead of just okay.

Remembrance by Meg Cabot

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 my review itself.


I was really excited to hear this book was coming out, and even more excited to get an ARC of it. Meg Cabot was one of my favorite writers when I was a teenager, and I read her more adult books as I got older. I had loved The Mediator series as a teen, falling in love with Suze and Jesse and their story, and to have it continued so many years later was a great surprise.

Remembrance is not for a young adult audience. Meg Cabot has specifically said this is The Mediator book for her fans who have grown up. While there isn't really any explicit language, there are lots of hints at it, as well as some violence, a dark situation involving a ghost, and some sexual situations.

If you haven't read the previous books in this series, you can still enjoy this book, but I think you definitely get a lot more out of it if you were a fan from the start. It's rare to get to have a series you loved growing up continued, especially to have it continued by the original author, and this was a special treat.

Holding Court by K.C. Held, and Knit One Kill Two by Maggie Sefton

YA Mystery


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 my review itself.


Juliet Verity has the misfortune (in her opinion) of being from a family with psychic gifts. Her gift, or curse as she sees it, is spontaneously blurting out prophetic sentences that make absolutely no sense at the time.

When she takes a summer job at Tudor Times, nothing seems to be going right. Her costume could not be more unflattering, she has to spend every day close to her unattainable long-time crush, and she stumbles onto a dead body that is gone by the time she can bring anyone back to see it.

But Jules knows what she saw, and she's determined to get to the bottom of this mystery. And if some of her predictions come true along the way, and her unrequited love seems just that little bit more requited, all the better.

This is a read that is just plain fun. Juliet is a great character, full of sarcasm, wit, and The Princess Bride quotes. Her love interest is cute, and funny, and even his girlfriend, who in most books the readers would be supposed to hate, is sweet. The mystery is a good one, full of twists and turns, secret passageways, missing pearls, and scuttling around an old castle.

I hope Held brings Juliet and her friends back for another mystery. I would definitely read it.

Cozy Mystery

In this genre cozy mystery, the main theme is knitting, in particular an amazing little knitting shop located right by the protagonist's aunt's house. 

Kelly Flynn has inherited her beloved Aunt Helen's home, and is immediately swept out of her stressful city life and into the relaxing, loving small town life she remembers from her childhood. She makes friends, and even begins to knit, but her aunt's murder continues to haunt her. 

Kelly believes her aunt wasn't killed by an interrupted intruder, but a cold-blooded killer.

With the help of her new friends, and a possible love interest, Kelly sets out to bring her aunt's killer to justice.

I love cozy mysteries, and this was an especially enjoyable one. The knitting scenes, particularly the descriptions of the yarns, made me want to become a knitter. The characters are all well-developed, and the mystery has a lot of good red herrings and twists. The only thing really that was at all a negative was that Kelly's initial strong dislike of her now-possible love interest seemed really out of left field, and didn't make a lot of sense. 

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.