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The Midnight Feast
The Midnight Feast
Lucy Foley | 2024 | Contemporary, Crime, Fiction & Poetry, Mystery, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley is a tense read that literally radiates heat off the page! It’s set during a very hot summer, and feelings are running high.

A Manor House has been converted into a luxurious hotel, complete with private “hutches” for guests to stay in. The local people are not at all happy.

This is a story of local villagers versus wealthy landowners, local myths and superstitions and destructive secrets. There’s a nod to Daphne Du Maurier’s The Birds - I like birds, and even I was deeply unsettled by the ones in this story!

I listened to this on Xigxag audiobooks, and the story sped by. It was tense, unsettling and pretty sinister on more than a couple of occasions!

Suffocatingly suspenseful!!
  
Secrets In Shadows (Shadow Creek #1)
Secrets In Shadows (Shadow Creek #1)
Leah Blake | 2017 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Secrets In Shadows (Shadow Creek #1) by Leah Blake
Secrets in Shadows is the first book in the Shadow Creek series, and it starts with a bang! Rex is held within what could be a vicious circle - his father didn't want to be a wolf, so concentrated on fitting in with the human world and passed no information onto his family. Unfortunately, that meant that Rex and his brother grew up knowing very little about what it means, and how to survive. When they are attacked, they head for the only sanctuary they know. It is here that Rex learns just how bratty he has been, and figures out what he must do to change. I'm glad he figured it out, because he was a pain to begin with! Devon is the strong, silent type, and doesn't want a mate, let alone someone like Rex. However, that doesn't stop him from helping Rex when some hyenas get out of hand.

Being the first book, there is a lot to take in as you figure out a new world, new rules, new wars. It never feels like an info-dump though, and is spread out throughout the book. With no editing or grammatical errors that disrupted my reading flow, I was engrossed with the story and found the pacing to be just right for me. I have no hesitation in recommending this book for all fans of #M_M #PNR.

* A copy of this book was provided to me with no requirements for a review. I voluntarily read this book, and my comments here are my honest opinion. *

Merissa
Archaeolibrarian - I Dig Good Books!
  
Forget You Know Me
Forget You Know Me
Jessica Strawser | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry
7
7.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
I have to hand it to Jessica Strawser--not sure what's happened to her in her life (ha), but she can come up with some tangled plots. As always with her books, you have to go in expecting more women's fiction than suspense/thriller, and that helps set expectations up front. Still, I have to say, that there are a surprising number of suspects for the black-clad figure who pops up on Liza's web cam. For a suburban neighborhood, it sure is a tangled web of secrets and lies out there!

So I found the plot on this one kind of baffling at first: I think it could have done without Liza and Molly's fight, honestly. Their fighting was awkward and uncomfortable and didn't seem really necessary. But I quickly warmed to Molly and Liza, who were very real characters with flaws and genuine traits. For Liza, much of her life is ruled by her anxiety, while Molly's by her chronic pain. I felt for both of them. Despite being best friends, they are on separate tracks for most of the book, making you wonder where things are going to wind up.

With everyone keeping secrets, telling lies, and basically just being dishonest--both to others and themselves--the book really does keep you guessing about what happened that night. As it does, you're treated to a very realistic look at marriage and friendship. I felt parts of it were overblown and it was a very different sort of read, but I enjoyed it overall. The descriptions and portrayals of Molly and Liza are what really drew me in. 3.5+ stars.
  
The Art of Escaping
The Art of Escaping
8
7.3 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
Oh, how I do NOT miss high school!

I really enjoyed this book - It is so fun, and kept me entertained throughout the whole thing! There were some seriously nail-biting moments with daredevil Mattie, and I can totally see this becoming a movie that I would go see in a second!

Mattie is a high school junior who has some pretty quirky aspirations of becoming an escapologist. She's obsessed with Houdini and the like, but especially Akiko - an elite escapologist gone way before her time. But Mattie is determined to find Akiko's daughter and find out as much as she can. All the while, no-0ne in her life knows her secrets or desires to become this really cool performance artist. Not her parents or her family, or even her best, closest friend.

The story also has some snippets of Akikos past, the life she led, and the birth of her daughter, giving you some insight of the life of this mysterious performer and her equally closed-off daughter. We also meet Will, another one with some secrets, and several other really cool high school kids who are so well-developed, mature but fun. It pains me to think of how tough high school was, and how hard it is for kids just t be themselves.

The art of escapology is front and center, through training and Mattie's stage performances that literally have you holding your breath! But the art of escape is evident is other ways, with a lot of hiding from reality and fear of being found out.

This book is such a delight and hope it gets the attention it deserves.
  
The House Swap
The House Swap
Rebecca Fleet | 2018 | Thriller
8
6.5 (4 Ratings)
Book Rating
Wow, did this book have me on the edge of my seat the ENTIRE TIME. So much tension in this book - a marriage in shambles, addictions of the physical and mental kind, suspicious neighbors, and a house full of devastating clues of an affair that had deadly consequences ... I found myself flipping pages at a rapid speed, watching these clues and secrets unfold.

Caroline and Francis swap houses in what seems to be an innocent week away to try to rekindle a very strained marriage. The narrative flips back from Caroline's past and future, with a bit of Francis injected thoughout, as well as this mysterious person they've swapped houses with. Things. Get. Weird. I felt myself having some heart palpitations at different points of the story and jumping at noises in my house as I was reading alone at night! What an awesome movie this would make.

Somehow this house is connected to her, and little snippets of a past life keep peeking through and they totally freak Caroline out and totally freaked me out as well! I cannot imagine going though such paranoia, but I also can't help but thinking Caroline made her bed, and now she has to lie in it. It's always safe to assume that when you hold on to such horrible secrets, eventually, no matter how hard you try to forget them, they'll be revealed when you least expect it - and in the most freakingly intense ways! And that just makes this book all the better.

Edge of my seat might be an understatement - I was totally entranced by this book and I enjoyed the suspense very much.