ARC Review: In a Midnight Wood

 

Despite this being a series with 27 books already out there, I somehow had never heard of Jane Lawless. I'm glad that has been rectified now, as this was a clever mystery with a strong female protagonist.

Jane Lawless is a private investigator who also works on a true crime podcast. Visting her friend, Jane finds herself drawn into a mystery surrounding the 1999 disappearance of a teenage boy, brought to a head by an upcoming high school reunion.

The mystery is a good one, with lots of ties to secrets in the past that are linked to characters in the present. I did feel that the ending twist was partly given away by a clue, but I still didn't guess the whole reveal. I was definitely invested in finding out what had happened to the missing teenager.

Jane is a great lead character. I fell in love with her even without having read the previous 26 books in the series. She's strong, believes in herself, and genuinally wants to help others. Her budding romance with the female mayor of the town she is visiting has a lot of sweet potential.

It felt like there was a little too much going on sometimes. There were so many characters I couldn't always remember who everyone was in the beginning. There were a lot of side plots as well (the stalking plotline especially felt unnecessary). But everything came together well in the end, and the resolution felt satisfying.

ARC Review: Whispering Pines

 

Title: Whispering Pines

Author: Heidi Lang and Katie Bartkowski

Publication Date: September 1, 2020

Genre: Middle Grade/Horror/Supernatural

Recommended If You Like: spooky stories, child heroes and heroines, exploration of families and friendships, a side of wacky, creepy settings where all is definitely not what it seems, supernatural tales

The Book:

Rae's family has moved to Whispering Pines, minus her father, who disappeared a year ago. Whispering Pines is supposed to be a fresh start, but Rae immediately notices there are strange things occurring everywhere, things that may be connected to her father's disappearance (which Rae believes was caused by him seeing an alien at the lab he worked at). She makes some new friends, including Caden, whose family has a ghost hunting business, and together they work to figure out why children are disappearing and then being found without their eyes.

What I Liked:

This book slides right into a good amount of creep factor. It's definitely appropriate for middle grade, but also still eerie enough for adults. I was creeped out for sure, especially towards the end of the book. And I didn't see the big scary reveal coming until just a few pages beforehand, which is always a plus for me.

There's some clever humor in this book, where Rae, as the new girl, is looking in on these wacky things that everyone else just takes as normal.

I also really liked the group of main characters and their friendships. Rae's sister is also an intriguing side character who I supect will have a bigger role as the series progresses.

Anything I Didn't Like? 

It did feel a bit like Lang and Bartkowski were throwing the whole kitchen sink at readers-mysterious and possibly evil science lab corporation, disappearances, sinkholes, haunted woods, ghost hunting business, brother who is trapped in another dimension, children getting their eyes stolen, possible aliens and spaceships, conspiracies...I'm hopeful that in later books in what is clearly being set up as a series, things get a bit more focused.

So...?

I definitely had fun reading this book-good scares and interesting storylines. I'm curious enough about what will happen to the characters next. I just need the next book to become a little more focused and for the authors to decide what story or stories they truly want to be telling.

ARC Review: Daddy

 

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.

I loved Cline's book The Girls. It was the kind of book where after I read it, I went out and bought a copy so I could have it on my shelves whenever I wanted to re read it.

So I had high hopes for her new book, Daddy, a collection of short stories. Unfortunately, my hopes were not exactly met.

I find it hard to say exactly why I didn't love this book more.Cline has a great writing style. She gets you right into her character's heads. She's not afraid to play around in the dark underbelly of humanity-in fact, she purposefully dives right in. Also, Cline brings a unique perspective on the power struggles between men and women, between women and women, between parents and children, between rich and poor, between being famous and being infamous, between adults and children. 

I think I just finished the book feeling left unsatisfied. No story really felt completely finished and resolved, and even if that was the point, it just didn't work for me. I read the whole book in less than three hours, and found that I would forget what had happened in one story once I had started another. Some of the stories were definitely more memorable than others, but as a whole the collection didn't really hold together for me.

This was not a bad book by any means. I think I was just expecting so much, maybe too much, because of my love for The Girls.

Review: They Bite Series (Forbidden Bond, Forbidden Love, Forbidden Need)

 

I received copies of these books in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the books or my review itself.

The They Bite series centers around a world full of supernatural beings, with the focus predominantly on vampires and werewolves (and other types of shifters, such as coyotes). Each book focuses on a different male/male pairing, but each pairing is between a vampire and a shifter, pairings that in the book's world are essentially unheard of until these characters fall in love.

These books can be read alone, but I would recommend reading them in order, as each successive book in the series centers around a character readers met in the previous book. This also means we get to see some more of the couples from the earlier books, which I loved.

Forbidden Bond centers around an alpha werewolf and a vampire from a highly prestigious family, who meet when Sinclair (the vampire) attends an all-werewolf college. They essentially become the foundational couple that opens up the possibility of interspecies dating between what were once two enemy factions. Forbidden Love is about a vampire who is a doctor, who meets a werewolf (both characters we met in the first book) due to a major event from the first book. Forbidden Need takes a vampire character from the previous two books, who seemed very cruel and unfeeling, but when he meets a coyote shifter, his character is shown to be so complex, and I went from not liking him at all to absolutely loving him.

Colgin does such a great job with this series. The characters are compelling, their romances are beautiful, there is just enough tension to keep things suspenseful, and the ending leaves readers feeling satisfied. I flew through these three books, and I really hope this series continues on!

ARC Review: One by One

 

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

Ruth Ware has absolutely done it again. In her latest book, the small company behind a highly popular app comes to a chalet for a company retreat. What starts out as fancy food, lots of top shelf alcohol, and amazing skiing and snowboarding opportunties, quickly becomes a tension-filled debate about the future of the company.

And that's before people start dying.

I love everything Ware's written. One of the things I love the most is how she plays with classic mystery and suspense themes and genres. Here it's a return to one of my absolute favorites (possibly my all-time absolute favorite), where a group of people are completely isolated and stranded, and realize the killer must be one of them. (I even interpreted one of the lines in the book as a little homage to the ever classic And Then There Were None, but that could possibly just be my Agatha Christie obsession showing again.)

The suspense in this is through the roof. For about the last quarter of the book, the tension is so high it's almost unbearable, in that absolutely amazing page turning heart racing way that only the best authors know how to create. 

I absolutely recommend this book, and every book Ware has written. She's one of my favorite modern writers.

ARC Review: Stay

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 third entry in the In Midsummer series, Rocky and Conner are in a steady relationship, but they are juggling a lot. At the end of the second book, Rocky's ex-wife had abandoned her new baby with Rocky and Conner, and baby Ryder is still settling in, which means no sleep and no alone time for the two men.

Then add in Rocky being shot at, constant dangerous prank calls, and some big decisions, plus of course some mysteries to solve, and life has become extremely complicated.

My one issue with the previous book in the series was I felt the solution to the main mystery just didn't work. But I though the solutions were handled much better in this book. While some people's reactions may have seemed a little extreme, they worked within the world Frances has created. I thought it was really clever how things tied together.

The supporting characters are full of life and each adds something to the story. I especially love Conner's best friend Love, a journalist, and Rocky's daughter, River (though she unfortunately wasn't in this book much). 

But what keeps me coming back to this series is absolutely Rocky and Conner, both as characters and as a couple. They just completely work, and I really love them.

I'm looking forward to the fourth book in the series!