Rob Hart won me over with his darkly funny, intense action-adventure-in-a-hotel, tragically romantic novel The Paradox Hotel, which is a book I think Rob Hart won me over with his darkly funny, intense action-adventure-in-a-hotel, tragically romantic novel The Paradox Hotel, which is a book I think about all the time and constantly recommend because I love authors who know how to write perfect blends of dark comedy, intense action, and love of varying types.
Assassins Anonymous runs in a similar-but-definitely-not-same vein as The Paradox Hotel: darkly funny, intense action-adventure (not in a hotel), and a few different types of love. The plot is what it says on the tin: An assassin gave up the game almost a year ago and joined a 12-step program to stop killing people. A few days shy of earning his one-year chip he gets attacked and now he’s on the run to get to the bottom of the matter and get back out all without relapsing and killing someone.
Why wouldn’t I want to read that? Why wouldn’t anyone want to read that? That plot sounds like the bee’s knees.
And it was the bee’s knees! This book was fantastic. From the first page to the last this book was an interesting and fun read. It’s witty, dark, action-packed, adrenaline-fueled, reflective, and emotionally-aware. I nearly cried a couple of times, and I really loved the found family aspect that comes in clutch. I totally recommend it.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
I’ve been so excited for this novella. You wouldn’t be my greedy, grabby hands! Pansexual camgirl? Genderfluid stalker? High spice, low plot? Dark romI’ve been so excited for this novella. You wouldn’t be my greedy, grabby hands! Pansexual camgirl? Genderfluid stalker? High spice, low plot? Dark romance? Oh yes, please and thank you to all of it!
This novella was a bit of a fun project for Dana Isaly, sprung forth from her brain when she saw the cover (Can you blame her? It’s a great cover!). Clara is a camgirl, just trying to get by on her own in Boston. She works in a coffee shop during the day and cams by night.
Io is a private investigator, of sorts. They’ve been hired by Clara’s father to find her. The guy’s sketchy though, so Io’s been taking their time to study Clara thoroughly to really make sure they’ve got the right girl. Yeah. That’s totally why they’ve been taking their sweet time and fobbing off the client with excuses as to why there are no answers yet. It’s not because Io’s obsessed.
As Io works to gain Clara’s trust online, her obsession grows into a sense of possession and a hard protective streak. Clara needs to learn some lessons.
This book isn’t meant to be anything but what’s advertised: an erotic thriller novella with low plot, high spice, gender fluid and pansexual representation, a camgirl, and a masked stalker. The spice is very nice, though it’s mostly solo until the back end of the story. When those couples scenes hit, though, BOY HOWDY was I here for it. Io and Clara were smokin’ hot together. Steam up the windows and burn up the sheets.
Terrific novella just in time for Halloween. Loved it.
I was provided a copy of this title by the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
While not entirely my cup of tea when it comes to horror, I have to admit Nick Medina knows how to write one heck of a novelReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
While not entirely my cup of tea when it comes to horror, I have to admit Nick Medina knows how to write one heck of a novel.
I’m going to have to come to terms with the fact I’m just not a fan of slow-burn or slower-paced horror novels. Or maybe even horror novels on the more subtle side, too? It’s almost the same situation as with romance novels: I need stimulation and a lot of it and you better not skimp on the action.
If you look past the horror aspects of this book, Medina’s writing is absolutely lovely. It’s literary fiction wrapped in dense and faithful world building. As you read you can tell just how much time and care he put into this book and how much the story means to him.
It’s an intense book with intense themes revolving around Native Americans that Medina chose to explore through a horror lens to magnify their social and cultural repercussions. In some ways it reminded me of the short story he contributed to the excellent Native American short-story anthology Never Whistle at Night called “Quantum” (which was one of my favorite stories in that anthology).
If you like your creepy mythological horror on the slow burn (but keep it spooky and a little eerie) side and enjoy some intense but beautiful world building, then I totally recommend it.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
This book feels like some of my favorite (and scariest) episodes of Doctor Who got put into a mixing bowl with a psychological thriller and then stirrThis book feels like some of my favorite (and scariest) episodes of Doctor Who got put into a mixing bowl with a psychological thriller and then stirred until all ingredients were well-integrated. This is why I love Barnes’ writing, because as she did with Dead Silence before this, you can’t quite call this book science fiction or space horror or a psychological thriller: It’s pure speculative fiction, a genre mashup of epic proportions that’s like taking whatever she finds in the pantry of her mind and seeing if it makes a tasty treat. And it scores.
This won’t be an in-depth review because going deeper than the surface is just asking for spoilers. I am, however, going to say that if you are the type of person that typically needs TW/CWs regarding body horror/gore/mental games/SI, then you should probably try to find those online before you read this book. Take care of you.
A lot of this book revolves around themes of guilt, responsibility, and memory. How long do you hold onto guilt and trying to make up for something before it’s enough? Who is it who determines that enough has been done to absolve you? Is it even your guilt to carry? Who are you responsible for? Who should you feel responsibility for? In the end, can anyone truly be held accountable for the actions of another adult? When can we consider ourselves or others compromised? Who are we even to judge who is compromised? Who’s to say we’re not the ones compromised? And memory: It’s such a heavy thing, for better or for worse.
As usual, Barnes’ writing is delightfully creepy and evocative, and her world building is absolutely on point. The imagery is vivid and adds so much to the horrific atmosphere of a frozen planet, a (metaphorically) haunted crew, and a ghost station out in space.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
Dude, I’m an atheist, but all the main characters in this book totally could learn some lessons from Proverbs: Pride goeth before destruction, And an Dude, I’m an atheist, but all the main characters in this book totally could learn some lessons from Proverbs: Pride goeth before destruction, And an haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, Than to divide the spoil with the proud.
These people are greedy to the point of avarice: filled with envy, lust, pride, privilege, and ambition. They won’t listen to warnings. They won’t listen to each other. They won’t even listen to their own instincts. They trod over grounds not their own and are surprised when things go wrong. Even when they are told to go, they stay. When things go awry and it’s clear they might be in danger, bruised egos refuse to give in.
One could say they were doomed from the start.
This is my huge problem with A Haunting on the Hill, and the sole reason I can’t rate this book five stars: I hate them all. I don’t hate them in that, “I love to hate you,” way. No. I just find them all either plain annoying or they just plain disgust me and I want to throw my Kindle at them. It’s hard to fully enjoy a horror novel when you can’t really find anything redeemable about your so-called protagonists.
Other than the characters, I found everything else about this novel to be spectacular: the ambience, the plot, the pacing, the world building, and the supporting characters. The fact the book seems like it was almost written like it hopes to be adapted for the big screen someday was a touch annoying, but I’ve seen that before and it wasn’t that huge of an issue.
One of the things I enjoyed the most in this book were the murder ballad excerpts. Can we talk about these? These lovely murder ballads? I was here for every single time a ballad came up in this book. They were my favorite part of the book. Not only did they add color and character to the plot of the book, but they added so much nuance to the book as a whole. An absolutely brilliant touch!
I’d say that if you can stand the characters, you’ll adore it. If you can’t stand the characters it’s still a totally worthwhile read.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. This review has been written freely, without any recompense. Thank you.
Despite loving the movie “Sliding Doors”, I haven’t read many books employing the same plot device before now. I loved the bReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
Despite loving the movie “Sliding Doors”, I haven’t read many books employing the same plot device before now. I loved the butterfly effect feeling of it: One mundane action leading to a split sequence of events and we get to read as they play out for better or for worse.
For all that I love split sequence novels (some call them sliding door novels), this one just didn’t enthrall me all that much. The inciting event is compelling, the story is interesting enough, but the execution of that story is lacking in both skill and originality.
We’ve got two self-absorbed siblings, a philandering father, and a sick mother. It’s one screwed up family I sure wouldn’t want to be a part of. I found it hard to identify with Jane, our protagonist, which meant I spent most of the time reading this novel sighing and rolling my eyes at her.
I didn’t enjoy Frick’s writing style much, which also affected my enjoyment of the novel. I suspect if you’re already a Frick fan, then you’ll likely enjoy this novel more than I did.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
By the time I was 10% into this book I was seriously feeling sorry for Anna, the protagonist of this story, because if I had a family like hers I woulBy the time I was 10% into this book I was seriously feeling sorry for Anna, the protagonist of this story, because if I had a family like hers I would never voluntarily go on a trip to Italy with them (even if they were paying for the whole thing). I love my family and we’re very close, but we would be tested to travel to Europe together and even pretend to try and stay civil. The family in this book? Let’s say they’ve got denial down to an art. Wow.
By 45% I remembered a secret only stays a secret if you never tell anyone…and I wished Anna had a family with a scintilla of tact. I also realized Anna and I had a lot of things in common: Being used to taking the blame for the bad things that happen to our family, apologizing constantly to our family members for things that aren’t our fault, keeping our mouths shut when we want to say something because we know it’s either going to upset someone or no one’s going to believe us, and making sure to dumb ourselves down around our loved ones lest they accuse us of “acting smarter” than everyone else (or “showing off”).
AKA: Both Anna and I are the black sheep of our families.
This book is an absolute blast to read: Engaging, compelling, intriguing, intelligent, fierce, creepy, insightful, sometimes funny, and sometimes sad. It has lovely (in that haunting, bloody way) nightmare sequences, creepy daytime scenes inside the house that might be hard for those with squeamish stomachs, truly scary calls involving Anna’s family, and lots of fascinating Italian art history information that not only worked well into the story of the book but was also just plain cool to read. This book shines its brightest when it focuses on Anna, especially in the last 20% of the book, but also anywhere else in the book. All in all, it’s just a fantastic read.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
The Silence in Her Eyes is a thriller novel with a female protagonist that has a visual impairment casually known as motion blindness. She can’t see mThe Silence in Her Eyes is a thriller novel with a female protagonist that has a visual impairment casually known as motion blindness. She can’t see movement. She can only see things that stay still. Think of her eyes as a camera shutter.
While this makes for one heck of an interesting approach to a thriller novel, it’s a shame author Armando Lucas Correa (making his thriller debut) isn’t a more practiced thriller author. If he were, this novel might have been heaps better than it was. In its current incarnation, it was rather boring.
For a very short book (272 pages), I expected a great deal of suspense hemmed in by a brisk pace, an economy of words, and a completely tense atmosphere. Instead, this book feels uneven. It feels like this book solely exists so the author could write the ending (which is one heck of an ending, but still).
A book should feel like a journey. Instead, what we have here is an author’s first attempt at thrills and chills where it seems like there were two salient parts that had to be in place and then the author just wrote everything else around it.
You might like it. I feel like it’s going to be one of those books where it’ll depend on the reader. But it wasn’t for me.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Owing to the rating of 3 stars or under this review will not be appearing on social media. Thank you....more
I saw Lucinda Berry, I saw “Read Now”, and so I did.
It wasn’t her best, but it wasn’t terrible. Mostly, I thought it was just too much story to cram I saw Lucinda Berry, I saw “Read Now”, and so I did.
It wasn’t her best, but it wasn’t terrible. Mostly, I thought it was just too much story to cram into 82 pages. As a result, it felt very rushed and none of it had a chance to register as anything else but rushed.
That may not be the same for every reader. I can acknowledge this. I read a lot of thrillers, a lot of horror, a lot of really dark romance, and a lot of other dark stuff, and it takes a lot for anything to register shock and awe with me. It takes a lot to freak me out. This story? It hardly registered because all we got is basically an outline. Now, if this were a whole novel it would be a different story. It would probably be a great novel. It just didn’t work for me as a short story.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. Due to personal policy, this review will not appear on any bookseller or social media page because it was rated three stars or less. ...more
The Rumor Game is an interesting historical thriller set in Boston during WWII, featuring a female reporter who works to stoReal Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
The Rumor Game is an interesting historical thriller set in Boston during WWII, featuring a female reporter who works to stop the spread of disinformation with a column in her local paper and male FBI agent who’s assignment is supposed to be preventing sabotage of industries vital to the war effort in and around Boston (the town being a vital port city). On the surface, the only thing the two seem to have in common is a hatred of Nazis. War makes for strange bedfellows, though, and soon it proves that these two have a lot of connections, both personally and professionally.
The Rumor Game has a great story, but my great issue is that it doesn’t ever seem to come together cohesively. It’s all over the place, narratively. There are a lot of threads to pull on, and not all of them are pulled on equally. Some are left dangling for too long and when Mullen comes back to them it’s been so long that it feels almost confusing. Some threads are resolved a little too neatly, or not in a satisfactory manner for the amount of outrage they elicited for the characters in the story (who deserved better). At times it also felt like Mullen may have been having his own characters act stupider than they were being otherwise written, because their ignorance regarding certain matters beggared belief.
It’s a cool story with great atmosphere but there’s a lot missing from it. If it had a tighter plot I would’ve loved it a lot more.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
Trauma. Anxiety. Stress. Any and/or all of these three things can really screw with your memory. Any and/or all three of these things can erase memoriTrauma. Anxiety. Stress. Any and/or all of these three things can really screw with your memory. Any and/or all three of these things can erase memories too (temporarily and permanently). You may never even know you lost memories until someone makes you aware something is missing. You know what that can lead to? Panic.
This what Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead feels like: Panic, manic, fevered, desperate, even grasping and clamoring as it shoots off like a pinball machine and bounces back and forth, up and down, around and over from beginning to end as Charlie, our protagonist, tries to keep the truth about the worst night of her life from coming out.
Author Jenny Hollander does a terrific job making this tightly-wound and fast-paced thriller feel just as high-strung, helpless, and spiraling as Charlie feels. As a reader, I can tell you I felt just as stressed out as Charlie did as Hollander switched between then and now, giving us glimpses of what happened on the fateful night that made Charlie and her friends infamous and letting us ride along while Charlie takes ever-increasingly desperate steps to try and stop a film based on those events from being made because she’s afraid of the truth coming out. There’s just too much at stake.
It’s not a perfect book but it’s a really good thriller read. I totally recommend it.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
I always appreciate authors who take the time to do their research when writing novels about mental illnesses, and Sagit SchwReal Rating: 3.5 /5 Stars
I always appreciate authors who take the time to do their research when writing novels about mental illnesses, and Sagit Schwartz certainly knew what she was doing when she went to research and write Beatrice, the protagonist of Since She’s Been Gone. Beatrice has anorexia, which grew inside of her like a possessive demon in the wake of her mother’s death when she was a teenager. Like an alcohol or drug addiction, you’re always in recovery from an eating disorder, and that’s a very important part of this novel. Schwartz’s research and sensitivity to the subject is evident in every page and it’s deeply appreciated by me. Not because I have dealt with an eating disorder but because I deeply appreciate any and all authors who endeavor to appropriately research and depict mental illnesses in literature.
The story as a whole is a little less impressive because it seems pretty standard and I didn’t really buy the emotional and sentimental ties between Beatrice and her mother. Maybe I was missing something, but I wasn’t buying into the story. I didn’t feel invested or connected.
It’s a decent story, but not a great one. I’d check it out, though.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
If it’s okay with all of you I’m just going to start calling Gillian McAllister’s books, “Thriller Games of Truth with Consequences: The Ethical DilemIf it’s okay with all of you I’m just going to start calling Gillian McAllister’s books, “Thriller Games of Truth with Consequences: The Ethical Dilemma Edition”. I’m not saying that to be insulting in any way, shape, or form. It’s simply that both of the books I’ve read of hers (Wrong Place, Wrong Time and now Just Another Missing Person) were both largely domestic thrillers revolving around mothers who faced huge ethical dilemmas involving their child and the cost of telling the truth would have major consequences for both them and their child. So the idea behind the whole book is, “How do I save my child? Should they be saved? If I do this, should I try to save myself too, or should I pay the price for the crime my child committed?”.
In Wrong Place, Wrong Time, the plot largely centered on a mom and her son. In Just Another Missing Person, however, we’ve got more than one parent facing an ethical dilemma and potential consequences for unlawful behavior in the name of either protecting or avenging their child. Heck, we’ve got ethical dilemmas just about everywhere we turn. Guess what? I’m here for it. I was so into this book I didn’t want to come out. I lost track of time.
This is one of those rare thrillers that actually managed to shock the heck out of me. The first turn actually caused me to shout, “What the f*ck?”
There were a few more surprises after that (not going to say how many), but they were all actual surprises and they were all welcome ones. At no time did I feel like McAllister had just shoehorned a turn in just so she could screw with us readers to pad the book. Every time we needed to change direction it was obvious why we had to and it ended up making sense. This book was thoughtfully, carefully, strategically constructed. I loved Wrong Place, Wrong Time, but I think I love Just Another Missing Person more simply because it has this vibe surrounding all the characters that says, “You all f*cked around and found out”. And they did. They all found out the cost of turning your back on the ethics of your profession or your place in someone’s life. And then there’s that murky, blurry, shadowy place: what’s the ethics when the love and need to protect your child runs right into the ethics of your profession? What then?
I can’t recommend it enough. It’s a book not to be missed.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
I liked this novel more than I did Markert’s previous effort, The Nightmare Man, by a small margin, because I believed The Nightmare Man suffered fromI liked this novel more than I did Markert’s previous effort, The Nightmare Man, by a small margin, because I believed The Nightmare Man suffered from a rather shaky, poorly-paced beginning, while Mister Lullaby doesn’t suffer from the same weakness. Instead, this book pops off right from the beginning, hooking the reader in and flinging them right into a disturbing, shaky, troubling situation that only gets more disturbing, shakier, and is downright off-the-wall nightmarish by the time act three hits.
It’s hard to describe the plot without spoilers, but you’ll get a clearly demarcated good versus evil storyline, questions about humanity, feelings of guilt and shame, reminders of how lullabies and nursery rhymes are about monsters and not happy things, questions about where you go when you’re in a coma, and when does a killer go from simply being a killer and become a living nightmare.
I don’t know if anyone else noticed this while reading the book, but Markert also did quite a bit of work with color theory and imagery in this book. There's a lot of yellow, red, white, and black used in this book in descriptions regarding the “evil” side of things in this book, and all of these colors can be correlated with conflict, rot, and death. The vivid colors of animals that come from the other side in this book is also a clue they aren’t quite right, as we can see in one scene in act three. Don’t even get me started on the symbology of the seashells and what you hear when you hold one to your ear.
My only two complaints are the ending (I wasn’t totally sold) and that the timing on the two POVs (us versus them) didn’t line up a little closer to one another. Other than that, it was a great novel.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. This review was written without compensation.
You know what they say: Go big or go home. Clemence Michallon, who hasn’t written a thriller before or a novel in English before, certainly seems to hYou know what they say: Go big or go home. Clemence Michallon, who hasn’t written a thriller before or a novel in English before, certainly seems to have taken that saying to heart by writing this absolutely riveting, heartbreaking, intense, page-turning thriller that will now make me look as closely at white trucks as I did white vans when I was a child and remind readers that sometimes we don’t even truly know the people closest to us. The people we love and who love us.
This book is so carefully crafted by Michallon. You can tell this was a passion project for her. It’s mainly the story of the everyday life of a serial killer named Aidan who’s also a recent widower (cancer) and a single dad who’s having a hard time keeping his carefully constructed life under control since his former in-laws decided to sell the house he, his wife, and their daughter used to live in and he was forced to move everything closer to town–including the woman he had been keeping captive in a secure shed on the old property for five years he insisted on calling “Rachel”. Meticulous in nature, Aidan needs to be in control of everything and everyone, and living too close to the city allows for too many variables. The story of Aidan’s carefully constructed facade and how he loses control of all of it is told mainly from the POV of three women in his life: “Rachel” (who is moved into the new house, given a room and can move around, but has a GPS tracker she can’t removed and is chained to her radiator or bed every night even as Aidan continues to assault her in various ways), his daughter Cecilia (who loves her dad but doesn’t like him and is angry at him for not seeming to grieve her mother more), and a local restaurant owner named Emily who’s had a crush on Aidan since she was a teenager and since it looks like he’s finally giving her the time of day she’s going to go for it and shoot her shot. Little does she know Aidan’s been watching her for a while now. Slotted in here and there are little vignettes told from the POV of Aidan’s victims, their names disappearing just like their bodies do.
There is so much hopelessness and helplessness in this book when it comes to the triangle between Aidan, “Rachel”, and Cecilia. They say you have to find something redeeming about the antagonist in the story for it to truly work, and I actually did find myself sympathizing with Aidan a little bit. It was the control freak in me recognizing the control freak in him. I have to be in control of everything, mainly because that’s been my essential function for most of my life. If I’m not in control, or if I’m in control and something happens to upset the apple cart, I lose it. I certainly don’t need to do what he does to regain control, but there’s no doubt I’ve had panic attacks when everything starts to even feel like it’s not going to plan. The anger at putting so much planning and time and consideration into something only to have it only go to pot? Yeah, the anger, frustration, and feeling of genuine helplessness is real. Of course “Rachel” feels helpless and often hopeless, being held captive for all this time. She doesn’t even recognize herself when she looks in the mirror. She doesn’t know what combination of words will set Aidan off on one day and make him not horrible the next. Then there’s Cecilia, who feels helpless because she can’t make friends at her new school and hopeless because she can see her dad is going to move on and she can’t believe he’d do that. He doesn’t like to talk about her mom or let her look at her mom’s things. She’s still grieving and can’t understand why he isn’t.
The pacing is so nice and organically tense. There’s no artificial propulsion to this story. There is a little give here and there, but it’s just enough to let you take a breath because most of the time while you’re reading this book you’ll find you’re holding it. You’re not going to want to put it down, because you might even not think to. I know I didn’t. I picked it up and only put it down long enough to put together cheese and crackers for lunch to eat…while I kept reading.
The climax of this story will make your heart race and will have your eyes glued to the page. My heart was even racing a little. It’s a serious case of life or death and will she? Will she? Can she? Can she?
I feel utterly spoiled by this book. I’m officially a Clemence Michallon fan girl and I need more from her.
I was provided a copy of the eARC of this title by NetGalley and the author and provided a finished copy by the folks over at Knopf Publishing. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Kidnapping/Murder Thriller/Psychological Thriller/Serial Killers/Suspense Thriller/Thriller ...more
I don’t think I’ve read a book so obviously padded with unnecessary filler material before. This shouldn’t have been a novel–it should’ve been a novelI don’t think I’ve read a book so obviously padded with unnecessary filler material before. This shouldn’t have been a novel–it should’ve been a novella. There wasn’t enough story here to make a novel and it shows.
This book is filled with multiple POVs, and that’s fine, but there’s one POV that doesn’t fit and is so poorly written I ended up skipping every instance when it occurred after the first few times because it came across as evil villain monologuing. It was cheesy and that was where most of the filler sat.
As for the rest of the book? It was messy. It was unorganized. It felt like something that landed in a slush pile and I don’t know how any editor let it get this far. I don’t recommend it at all.
A copy of this title was provided by NetGalley and the author. Any thoughts, opinions, ideas, and views expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. Personal policy dictates that since this title has earned a rating of three stars or below the review will not appear on social media or any bookseller websites. ...more
I had hoped this book would be something I’d enjoy, but not only could I not get into it, but it moved so slowly I don’t know how it could be considerI had hoped this book would be something I’d enjoy, but not only could I not get into it, but it moved so slowly I don’t know how it could be considered a thriller. Honestly? I was bored. And a thriller set in the Applachians in the thick of winter involving vampires shouldn’t be boring. It shouldn’t be possible. Yet here we are.
The only redeeming thing about the whole book is Scott’s prose, which is incredibly evocative and full of the right weight for this book. I just wish the book itself would’ve been worthy of the prose.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. Personal policy dictates this review will not appear on social media due to receiving a rating of three stars or lower. ...more
The cover promises way more thrills than the book actually delivers.
The problem with The Followers isn’t the plot, because it’s actually a really gooThe cover promises way more thrills than the book actually delivers.
The problem with The Followers isn’t the plot, because it’s actually a really good plot. The issue is the characters. Not only does one of the two female protagonists not seem to know how to Google or have any semblance of common sense even though she’s an influencer with millions of followers, but I just couldn’t connect with any of the characters. I just didn’t identify with them and, as a result, I was just very bored.
I also didn’t care about (and was really annoyed by) all the snippets of chats or forums full of hate for Molly. They ripped me out of the story and were annoying. I’m seeing this method of exposition used in more and more books and I’ve ended up rating every book that uses this method lower than other books I read. An infodump is an infodump. Readers aren’t dumb.
So I’d like to say this book is terrific and groundbreaking, but it’s simply very average.
Thanks to Blackstone Publishing and Bradleigh Godfrey for sending me a copy of the physical ARC of this book for review. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Personal policy dictates that since this title earned a three star or lower rating this review will not appear on any of my social media channels or any bookseller websites. ...more
At 209 pages, this book is only a handful of pages longer than a novella, and the book truly suffers for it. Actually, the book just suffers from poorAt 209 pages, this book is only a handful of pages longer than a novella, and the book truly suffers for it. Actually, the book just suffers from poor research, clumsy writing, inelegant plotting, a truly predictable plot, and cookie cutter characters with no nuance to them whatsoever. I almost DNF’d it because I knew I could be spending my time reading the many other ARCs calling my name for April 4th’s release date.
Sure, I wax often and eloquently about the virtues of the novella and its ability to pack so much into so few pages, but that virtuosity depends on the economy of words and brilliant sentence structure. This book has neither. It’s clunky and runs like a carriage on cobblestones: rough and wobbly, starting and stopping, letting too many characters talk and get their voices in. There are too many players on the board for this to be anything but a tangle of threads that’s too conveniently cleaned up.
I wish Chad Zunker better luck in the future with his writing, because this read amateur, and I can see he’s no amateur.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, ideas, views, and opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. Due to personal policy, this review will not be posted on any social media or bookseller websites due to a rating of three stars or under.
File Under: Crime Thriller/Not For Me/Kindle Unlimited/KU/Short Story/Thriller/What Did I Just Read That Was Bad ...more
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