Review: Insomnia by Sarah Pinborough

Goodreads Blurb

In this twisty, mind-bending thriller from the bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes, Emma Averell worries that her crippling insomnia is a sign that she’s slowly going insane—like the mother she’s worked so hard to leave in her past.

Emma Averell loves her life—her high-powered legal career, her two beautiful children, and her wonderful stay-at-home husband—but it wasn’t always so perfect. When she was just five years old, Emma and her older sister went into foster care because of a horrific incident with their mother. Her sister can remember a time when their mother was loving and “normal,” but Emma can only remember her as one thing—a monster. And that monster emerged right around their mother’s fortieth birthday, the same age Emma is approaching now.

Emma desperately wants to keep her successful life separate from her past, so she has always hidden her childhood trauma. But then she’s unable to sleep, and now losing time during the day, also one of the first symptoms her mother showed. Is the madness in her blood, just as her mother predicted? Could she end up hurting her family in her foggy, frenetic state? Or is she truly beginning to lose her mind?

My Review: Rated 3 out of 5 Stars

A mind-blowing thriller that will have you frightened of your fortieth birthday. Turning forty for many does seem life-changing, especially for women. In this thriller novel, I found myself frightened of turning forty, worried about insomnia, crazy thoughts, and loss of time, and seeing my life go upside down without a clear ending. The dreaded countdown had me just as insane as the character.

I wanted the day to arrive as much as Emma dreaded her birthday’s arrival. This psychological thriller has the reader thinking the main character Emma, is going mad just like her mother: but the story flips around, and the unexpected dread that someone is causing all her torture becomes a reality. This story foresaw the future at the time Emma’s mother went mad and how that future becomes the present for Emma. Two visions drove the characters mad because of the darkness they revealed. Will you survive your fortieth birthday?

Author Biography

Sarah Pinborough is a New York Times bestselling and Sunday Times Number one and Internationally bestselling author who is published in over 30 territories worldwide. Having published more than 25 novels across various genres, her recent books include Behind Her Eyes, now a smash hit Netflix limited series, Dead To Her, now in development with Amazon Studios, and 13 Minutes and The Death House in development with Compelling Pictures. Sarah lives in the historic town of Stony Stratford, the home of the Cock and Bull story, with her dog Ted. Her next novel, Insomnia, is out in 2022. You can follow Sarah on Twitter at @sarahpinborough.

My Review: Samuel by Fonda St. Paul

Amazon’s Blurb

The Big Apple, New York City has an unwelcome guest raining havoc on it streets and leaving bodies of young women in different locations around the city. This killer hides in plain sight which is causing major concern for Detectives Dan Cerrico and Jack Klinger.
Now this person is stalking the bright lights of Broadway and a beautiful, young up and coming Broadway star that has captured his damaged soul. He won’t let go until he has possessed her.
He is cunning, charming, and extremely intelligent. He is a truculent Serial Killer and his name is SAMUEL

My Review: Rated 4 out of 5 Stars

Have you ever got a feeling that someone is watching you from afar? Well, this book will have the hairs on the back of your neck stand when you enter the world of a spying serial killer. You are about to discover the inside mind of a serial killer through Samuel, who has a damaged childhood. He needs his fix when his obsession arrives, and he needs his fix right away. Samuel will take you inside his mind as he plans how he will catch the next girl. Allison is his next obsession, but this girl will turn his life upside down. The reader will fall down a rabbit hole full of anger, cravings, determination, the fight to live, and the fight to survive. Can Allison and the detectives take down Samuel before he kills Allison, you will need to pick this book up to find out?

Author Biography

Fonda St.Paul is a voracious reader with a vivid imagination. Over the years she has entertained many friends with her exceptional talent for telling a story.

Fonda is considered an expert in the field of Serial killers due to her many years of research on the criminal mind and interviews with Serial Killers and their families. Fonda has created and executive produced several crime reality shows in Los Angeles. Being bicoastal for many years gave her the opportunity to produce plays for other writers in New York and Los Angeles.

SAMUEL is Fonda’s fourth novel and a sequel is in the works bringing along her popular New York Detectives Dan Cerrico and Jack Klinger.

She has been a guest speaker in many schools and on several podcast on the ins and outs of writing and being self publishing. She has told many student writers not to lose their dream of being a writer due to dyslexia which Fonda has coped with for years but to keep creating every day.

Fonda lives in the Los Angeles area and keeps her two pug muses, Monticello and Lily Jean by her side.

Be on the lookout for Fonda’s podcast Serial Wives, A Love Story due in 2022.

Book Review: The Therapist by B.A. Paris

Goodreads Blurb

When Alice and Leo move into a newly renovated house in The Circle, a gated community of exclusive houses, it is everything they’ve dreamed of. But appearances can be deceptive…

As Alice is getting to know her neighbours, she discovers a devastating secret about her new home, and begins to feel a strong connection with Nina, the therapist who lived there before.

Alice becomes obsessed with trying to piece together what happened two years before. But no one wants to talk about it. Her neighbors are keeping secrets and things are not as perfect as they seem…

My Review: Rated 3 out of 5 Stars

How would you feel if your boyfriend purchased a house where a murder had occurred, and he never told you about the murder? Well, the moment I would find out that relationship would be over. Alice felt such a fool when she found out, and she invited all her neighbors to check out the new updates in her house. Alice grows obsessed to figure out if the husband did murder his wife. As you read, you will guess who might be the killer and who might know within the gated community about the real murderer. The women living in this development try to protect their husbands, leading to a wild goose chase. Will Alice be one step ahead of the real murderer, or will she walk right into their grasp?

Author Biography

B A Paris is the internationally bestselling author of Behind Closed Doors, The Breakdown, Bring Me Back, and The Dilemma. Having sold over a million copies in the UK alone, she is a New York Times bestseller as well as a Sunday Times bestseller. Her books have been translated into 40 languages. Having lived in France for many years, she and her husband recently moved back to the UK.
Her fifth novel is out in 2021

Review: Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

Goodreads Blurb

Just in time for the centennial celebration of groundbreaking noir fiction writer Patricia Highsmith comes a reissue of her propulsive, engrossing debut, Strangers on a Train, with a new introduction by best-selling author Paula Hawkins. Guy Haines and Charles Anthony Bruno are passengers on the same train. Haines is a successful architect in the midst of a divorce, Bruno is a mysterious smooth-talker with a sadistic proposal: he’ll murder Haines’s wife if Haines will murder Bruno’s father. As Bruno carries out his twisted plan, Guy finds himself trapped in Highsmith’s perilous world, where, under the right circumstances, ordinary people are capable of extraordinary crimes. The inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1951 film, Strangers on a Train launched Highsmith’s prolific career, proving her a master at depicting the unsettling forces that tremble beneath the surface of everyday life.

My Review: Rated 5 out of 5 Stars

Trains are supposed to take you on an adventure, but this particular train will open a bizarre door of no return. Guy ends up having an unexpecting conversation with a man he meets on the train named Bruno. Bruno comes up with the perfect double murder plot that Guy forgets about when leaving it all behind on the train. But Bruno went through with his brilliant murder plan and now torments Guy to commit his part of the deal that Guy never agreed on.

This story will give you a first-hand account of a murders thought process and how one insane man can make a regular man go mad, delirious, frightened enough to proceed with murdering someone. The reader will be right inside Bruno’s plotting schemes which will feel like the reader agrees to complete the murder with Bruno. You will also get a first-hand glimpse of how manipulation and fear can shape someone to commit a murder. Can this perfect double murder run smoothly, as planned, or will the cops narrow down on the case?

Author Biography

Patricia Highsmith was an American novelist who is known mainly for her psychological crime thrillers which have led to more than two dozen film adaptations over the years. Her first suspense novel ‘Strangers on a Train’ published in 1950 was an immediate success with the public and critics alike. The novel has been adapted for the screen three times, most notably by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951.

Review: Hide and Seeker by Daka Hermon

Goodreads Blurb

One of our most iconic childhood games receives a creepy twist as it becomes the gateway to a nightmare world.

I went up the hill, the hill was muddy, stomped my toe and made it bloody, should I wash it?

Justin knows that something is wrong with his best friend. Zee went missing for a year. And when he came back, he was . . . different. Nobody knows what happened to him. At Zee’s welcome home party, Justin and the neighborhood crew play Hide and Seek. But it goes wrong. Very wrong.

One by one, everyone who plays the game disappears, pulled into a world of nightmares come to life. Justin and his friends realize this horrible place is where Zee had been trapped. All they can do now is hide from the Seeker.

My Review: Rated 5 out of 5 stars

A debut middle-grade novel about a game of Hide and Seek with a frightening twist.
A member of a group of friends goes missing for a year and comes back different. A
game of Hide and Seek is played and all the rules are broken by each of the players.
What the players don’t know is that a Seeker that is a creature from another world
will hunt each one to bring them to his world called Nowhere to trap them and
frighten them with their own personal fears. After the Seeker has 400 children, he
will be able to roam our world. The group of friends will need to work together to
return to their world and defeat the Seeker at his own game.

The horror scenes are scary for a middle scholar but not too frightening. The
parallel world the author created will frighten anyone as it looks exactly like our
real world, only with dark skies and your worst fears ready to attack you. Nothing is
scarier than seeing your family and not being able to talk or touch them. The author
did a great job developing the different fears children have and making them scarier.

Author Biography

Daka Hermon was born in Tennessee and spent her childhood huddled under a blanket with a flashlight reading and writing fairy-tale and fantasy stories. She works in the entertainment industry and is an active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She loves peach sweet tea, chocolate, cupcakes, and collecting superhero toys. Daka lives in California and can be found online at dakahermon.com and on Twitter @dakadh.

Cover Reveal: All the Broken Girls by Linda Hurtado Bond

BOOK DETAILS:
All the Broken Girls
by Linda Hurtado Bond
Published by: Entangled: Amara
Publication date: August 23, 2022
Genres: Adult, Thriller

Synopsis:

A Cuban American crime reporter races to interpret a serial killer’s dropped clues, by Emmy, AP, Edward R Murrow award-winning TV news anchor Linda Hurtado Bond.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58725060-all-the-broken-girls
Pre-order:Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ru07GM

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/all-the-broken-girls-linda-hurtado-bond/1139985517?ean=9781649372147

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/all-the-broken-girls

AUTHOR BIO:

Author Linda Bond works as a television news reporter and anchor in Florida. For the past twenty years, she’s been sharing important information with viewers on the latest medical breakthroughs and writing emotional, human-interest stories on those who have the courage and spirit to fight for their lives.

She’s been writing every day, under deadline, but has always loved losing herself in a good fiction story. Her love for writing fiction actually started in high school, but a thriving, busy professional life, along with five kids kept her busy for many years.

Entangled Publishing released two romantic adventures, Alive at 5 and Cuba Undercover. Think James Bond meets Romancing the Stone. She has received numerous writing awards for Alive at 5 and Cuba Undercover. Her latest book, Flatline, is a medical thriller.

She has also won 12 Emmy awards, numerous Society of Professional Journalist awards, Associated Press awards, as well as a Florida Bar award and an Edward R. Murrow award.

This former baton-twirling beauty queen from the deep south now lives in Tampa Florida with her husband, adopted son from Cuba, two daughters, and two stubborn Bulldogs named Sanford and Athens.
Author links:

https://twitter.com/authorlindabond

https://www.lindabond.com/

https://www.instagram.com/authorlindabond/

https://www.facebook.com/authorlindabond

https://www.bookbub.com/profile/linda-bond

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8343348.Linda_Hurtado_Bond

Review: Please Join Us by Catherine McKenzie

Goodreads Blurb:

At thirty-nine, Nicole Mueller’s life is on the rocks. Her once brilliant law career is falling apart. She and her husband, Dan, are soon to be forced out of the apartment they love. After a warning from her firm’s senior partners, she receives an invitation from an exclusive women’s networking group, Panthera Leo. Membership is anonymous, but every member is a successful professional. It sounds like the perfect solution to help Nicole revive her career. So, despite Dan’s concerns that the group might be a cult, Nicole signs up for their retreat in Colorado.

Once there, she meets the other women who will make up her Pride. A CEO, an actress, a finance whiz, a congresswoman: Nicole can’t believe her luck. The founders of Panthera Leo are equally as impressive. They explain the group’s core philosophy: they’re a girl’s club in a boy’s club world.

Nicole is all in. And when she gets home, she soon sees dividends. Her new network quickly provides her with clients that help her relaunch her career, and a great new apartment too. The favors she has to provide in return seem benign. But then she’s called to the congresswoman’s apartment late at night where she’s pressed into helping her cover up a crime. And suddenly, Dan’s concerns that something more sinister is at play seem all too relevant. Can Nicole extricate herself from the group before it’s too late? Or will joining Panthera Leo be the biggest mistake of her life?

My Review: Rated 5 out of 5 Stars

Please Join Us is a rollercoaster ride full of powerful women looking to take over the world as one strong group of women who will do whatever needs to be done, at whatever cost. Can a lawyer figure out the truth before it’s too late?

A secret society with powerful women ready to kick butt is where this book will bring you, but can you trust them? How curious are you of the opportunities a secret society can give your career the boost it needs? This thriller will leave you desperate for more. The women in this society empower their members to push to their potential. They work together to get ahead, and one of the reasons for this group is to have the upper hand over men in their careers. Nicole joins the group and goes for a workshop that will have her doing things; that she wouldn’t ever think of doing.

This book is action-packed with cut-throat women who will work together to achieve a goal. Throughout this suspense thriller, you will root for Nicole and hope that her plan will succeed. These women will use every power they have to scare people, threaten them, manipulate them and even commit murder to get what they want. This anticipated thriller will be leaving everyone talking and second-guessing themselves if they should join a secret society if they receive an invitation. Will you join them?

Author Biography from Goodreads:

Catherine McKenzie was born and raised in Montreal, Canada. A graduate of McGill in History and Law, Catherine practiced law in Montreal for twenty years before retiring to write full time. An avid runner and skier, she’s the author of numerous bestsellers including HIDDEN, FRACTURED, THE GOOD LIAR, and I’LL NEVER TELL. Her works have been translated into multiple languages.

In 2019, I’LL NEVER TELL was a #1 Amazon Bestseller, a Globe & Mail and Toronto Star Bestseller, was shortlisted for the Hugh McLennan Prize for Fiction, and was optioned for a television series by Paramount TV.

Review: Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley

Goodreads Blurb

As a biracial, unenrolled tribal member and the product of a scandal, eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. Daunis dreams of studying medicine, but when her family is struck by tragedy, she puts her future on hold to care for her fragile mother.

The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, certain details don’t add up and she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into the heart of a criminal investigation.

Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, but secretly pursues her own investigation, tracking down the criminals with her knowledge of chemistry and traditional medicine. But the deceptions—and deaths—keep piling up and soon the threat strikes too close to home.

Now, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go to protect her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.

Debut author Angeline Boulley crafts a groundbreaking YA thriller about a Native teen who must root out the corruption in her community, for readers of Angie Thomas and Tommy Orange.

My Review: Rated 5 out of 5 Stars

Debut author Angeline Boulley wrote a YA must-read thriller drama, with a Native American teen bringing to light the injustice, deceit, and corruption in her community, perfect for fans of Angie Thomas.

The story has a strong opening. Each character’s background and connection to the Ojibwe reservation is described in detail by the author. Most of the characters are biracial and belong to two different communities. The story is told in the first-person narrative allowing the reader to see what the main character is thinking. The author is well versed in Native American traditions and culture. You can see this as she talks about the native culture as it’s familiar to her. The story has a steady pace with thrilling moments that make this book hard to put down. The author includes the native language throughout the book giving the reader another aspect of the culture.

A thrilling story where drugs are running rampant through a Native community while taking innocent lives. A young girl who is part Native American needs to go undercover to unveil the truth and fight for justice. Will her search for justice bring her closer to her Native American tribe or farther apart? It’s a young adult story filled with loss, lies, Native American traditions, racism, and the strength of women in a world that doesn’t support their rights and safety.

Author Biography

Angeline Boulley, an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is a storyteller who writes about her Ojibwe community in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She gained attention from the We Need Diverse Books Mentorship Program. Angeline was the former Director of the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education. Her agent is Faye Bender at The Book Group. Firekeeper’s Daughter has been optioned for a Netflix series by the Obamas’ Higher Ground production company.

Cover Reveal: The Liars Beneath by Heather Powell

BOOK DETAILS:
The Liars Beneath
by Heather L. Powell
Publication date: January 27th, 2022
Genres: Thriller, Young Adult

Synopsis:

A romantically dark YA thriller set in the backdrop of Iowa’s suspenseful farmlands.

After a tragic accident ends her best friend’s life, 17-year-old Becca Thompson succumbs to grief the only way she knows how: by wallowing in it. She’s a fragment of the person she once was—far too broken to enjoy the summer before her senior year. But when Ben McCain, her best friend’s older brother, returns home, Becca must face her new reality head on.

She isn’t interested in Ben’s games, especially since he abandoned his sister during the months leading up to her death. But when he begs for her help in uncovering the truth about what really happened the night of his sister’s death, Becca finds herself agreeing, hoping to clear up rumors swirling in the wake of her best friend’s accident.

An unhinged ex-boyfriend, secret bucket lists, and garage parties in the place Becca calls home soon lead her to the answers she’s so desperate to unveil. But nobody is being honest, not even Ben. And the closer Becca gets to the truth—and to Ben—the more danger seems to surround her.

Clearing her best friend’s name was all she wanted to do, but Becca is quickly realizing that the truth she craves might be uglier than the lies her best friend kept.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58094102-the-liars-beneath
Pre-order: https://geni.us/9Y2Q7

AUTHOR BIO:

Heather Powell is Midwestern-born author with a love of all things spontaneous road trips, TV shows that leave her questioning her morals, and book boyfriends. As a graduate of Black Hawk College, Heather took her degree in early childhood development, tossed it into the garbage, and is now living the dream writing young adult novels sprinkled with suspense and lots of kissing.

She’s currently living out her own version of a happily ever after with her high-school-sweetheart-turned-husband, their three hugely feminist daughters, and two fur babies with bad attitudes. When she’s not being a mom or writing books, you can find her drinking way too many energy drinks or crashing out on her sofa with a romance novel of some sort.

Author links:

https://heatherlpowell.com/

https://mailchi.mp/af9750eda38e/authorheathervanfleet

https://twitter.com/heatherlpowell

Cover Reveal: Hold My Place by Cassondra Windwalker

BOOK DETAILS:
Hold My Place
by Cassondra Windwalker
Publication date: January 25th 2022
Genres: Adult, Thriller

Synopsis:

Obsession never dies.

When librarian Sigrun falls head-over-heels for the sophisticated and very married Edgar Leyward, she never expects to find herself in his bed—or his heart. Nevertheless, when his enigmatic wife Octavia dies from a sudden illness, Sigrun finds herself caught up in a whirlwind romance worthy of the most lurid novels on her bookshelves.

Sigrun soon discovers Octavia wasn’t Edgar’s first lost love, or even his second. Three women Edgar has loved met early deaths. As she delves into her beloved’s past through a trove of discovered letters, the edges of Sigrun identity begin to disappear, fading into the women of the past. Sigrun tells herself it’s impossible for any dark magic to be at play—that the dead can’t possibly inhabit the bodies of the living—but something shadowy stalks the halls of the Leyward house and the lines between the love of the present and the obsessions of the past become increasingly blurred—and bloody.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57877862-hold-my-place
Pre-order:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qWXEUR

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hold-my-place-cassondra-windwalker/1139217504?ean=9781645481003

iBooks: https://books.apple.com/us/book/hold-my-place/id1562868634

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/hold-my-place

AUTHOR BIO:

Cassondra Windwalker is a poet, essayist, and novelist presently writing full-time from the southern Alaskan coast. She enjoys hearing from readers via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, smoke signals, and interstellar songs.

Author links:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6552550.Cassondra_Windwalker

https://www.facebook.com/cassondrawindwalkerwrites

https://www.instagram.com/cassondrawindwalker/

https://twitter.com/WindwalkerWrite