Icon Tag: Mystery

Review: Her Darkest Nightmare – Brenda Novak

Review: Her Darkest Nightmare – Brenda Novak

Her Darkest Nightmare has a lot of tension, the psychological aspect of this thriller is very well done. There were, however, several instances where I had to consciously suspend disbelief in order to follow Evelyn. Her Darkest Nightmare happens about six months after the ending of Hanover House, and the prison / psych ward has opened and is almost at capacity. With one of the doctors out sick, and another one having left because of the long winter in Alaska, Evelyn has a smaller team to deal with, which means there’s more work for all of them. Because Evelyn has brought in a new inmate – without discussing it with her colleagues first – the sense of mistrust was very […]

Posted 6 September, 2016 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 19 Comments
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Review: The Secrets She Kept – Brenda Novak

Review: The Secrets She Kept – Brenda Novak

The Secrets She Kept is a mystery with seemingly endless possibilities when it comes to the who did it. While the characters are the same in The Secrets She Kept and The Secret Sister, the tone and the feel of the story here is quite different. Partly because it unfolds five years after the ending of the first book, and possibly also because it was more from Keith’s point of view, and he had made some huge changes in his life in the past five years. This character growth, as well as the suspense surrounding the matriarch’s death made me both anxious to keep reading, and kept me guessing, and guessing, and guessing. When Keith got news of his mother’s […]

Posted 23 August, 2016 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 6 Comments
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Review: Mr. Corporate – J. A. Huss

Review: Mr. Corporate – J. A. Huss

Mr. Corporate made me doubt what I thought I knew about the Misters, and I enjoyed that he was keeping his card so close to the chest he wasn’t even thinking about what they were. I really enjoyed Weston and what he brought to the story in Mr. Corporate, but Tori truly grated on my nerves. For almost the whole story, she went from hot to cold to scalding, and her reactions didn’t really make much sense to me. Even when I got to know her back story, I didn’t fully understand her or think she was justified in the way she treated Weston. The overall story and plot was awesome, though, and I found Weston to be great – […]

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Review : The Woman in Cabin 10 – Ruth Ware

Review : The Woman in Cabin 10 – Ruth Ware

The Woman in Cabin 10 is a tightly written psychological thriller where part of the action happens on a small cruise boat… and it’s a chilling and sharp tale. Lo is one of those very flawed characters whom it’s impossible not to love. The Woman in Cabin 10 is a complex tale, where, after waking up to a burglar in her home, Lo gets the possibility to go on a luxury cruise for her work. Writing about how the rich and famous do vacation in the ice-cold waters off the coast of Norway. There’s a bit of a mystery surrounding Lo, she seems to be holding back -both in the narration and with her boyfriend whom she’s been with for […]

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Review: The Bourbon Thief – Tiffany Reisz

Review: The Bourbon Thief – Tiffany Reisz

I’m not sure how Reisz does it – The Bourbon Thief has an amazing narrator who knows how to spin a story, and it’s like a mixture between a dark fairytale and a melancholy history lesson. The one and only progress update I made while I was reading The Bourbon Thief was this : This whole story has me on the edge of tears, there’s such a strong melancholy, or unfinished sadness here I can hardly stand it! And that feeling of being on the edge of tears stayed with me for the duration of the story – and I just couldn’t stop reading. Always needing to know what would happen next, I was completely mesmerized from start to finish. Reisz […]

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Review: The Raven King – Maggie Stiefvater

Review: The Raven King – Maggie Stiefvater

The Raven King made me want The Raven Cycle to be circular, never-ending, always continuing, the mystery always just around the next corner… The Raven King is a beautiful, emotional culmination of Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle series. Most things truly do come full circle, the characters continue to grow and evolve, and the overall plot makes complete sense. And I’m wondering, weeks after I finished reading, if I really have to make sense with my review? Or can I just mostly squee and say that everyone in the world who enjoys reading needs to read The Raven Cycle? Can I just say that Stiefvater is a literary genius? One who knows how to weave words together so that they make […]

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Review: The Sudden Appearance of Hope – Claire North

Review: The Sudden Appearance of Hope – Claire North

The Sudden Appearance of Hope is a fascinating novel, intricate, complex, and beautifully written. Are we still real if nobody else knows us? The Sudden Appearance of Hope is dubbed as a fantasy, but I think it’s much closer to contemporary, with some light paranormal elements in some ways. Hope Arden is the girl / woman you’ll never know you met! From when she was 16 years old, people would forget her almost as soon as they looked somewhere else, and it was almost as if she didn’t exist at all. Both the story and the prose are very particular, and the peculiarity is one of the things that won me over and made me feel like there was more […]

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Review: Blue Lily, Lily Blue – Maggie Stiefvater

Review: Blue Lily, Lily Blue – Maggie Stiefvater

WOW! What else can I say about Blue Lily, Lily Blue? It was awesome – and I’m so happy I don’t have to wait for The Raven King! So much happened in Blue Lily, Lily Blue, and yet, not that much time actually passed for these amazing characters as the story unfolded. Between missing parents, new, nefarious characters showing up for dark reasons, and more about both dreams and what Adam is capable of, I was enchanted from start to finish! The world is so tangible, even if this is fantasy, I really felt like I could stretch out my hand and touch the trees in Crabeswater, or hug Blue when she needed it. And some characters I found to […]

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Review: The Dream Thieves – Maggie Stiefvater

Review: The Dream Thieves – Maggie Stiefvater

The Dream Thieves is a darkly beautiful story, with intricate, full-grown characters who continue to grow and evolve throughout the various plot-lines. As always, when reading a Stiefvater novel, I was immediately transported to another world, with vivid characters, a dark but promising story, a mystery and plot-lines that slowly but surely got weaved together to make a whole picture. I couldn’t even say what’s my favorite part of her writing – I love that the characters are so well developed, and that they keep evolving and changing as the story and the plot is moved forward. The Dream Thieves is both character driven and plot-driven, both are important, and play together to show the complexity of all that is […]

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Review: Wicked Need – Sawyer Bennett

Review: Wicked Need – Sawyer Bennett

Wicked Need is HOT! And it’s also very tender. And there’s some danger and quite a bit of self-doubt. With Wicked Need, Bennett took the tension and the hotness up yet another notch! I felt both sorry for Cat, and was angry at her expense because of what she’d been through with her old-ass husband, and things didn’t exactly get better for her once he kicked the bucket, either. And I was so surprised by Rand’s knight in shining armour complex! He seemed so detached in the prior books in the Wicked Horse series, I wasn’t sure he had it in him to be so caring, even if I knew he wasn’t judgemental! He was the perfect champion for Cat, […]

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