{I've Been Reading} The Woman in the Cabin

 The Woman in the Cabin by Becca Day 

Her name is Mary. She lives a simple life in an isolated cabin, spending each day tending  the garden, repairing leaks in the roof, making sure that dinner is hot on the table when her husband walks through the door. It's been ten years since she was anywhere else and her memories of life outside the cabin have faded. The world is dangerous and has nothing to offer her. Then she finds a bundle of letters tucked under a floorboard and realizes that she's not the first woman to have lived here with him. The writing kept me glued to the page even before the real plot twists started.  

Lonely Places by Kate Anderson 

After travelling the country for years in a converted school bus, a homeschooling family takes up residence at a fire lookout in Utah. The youngest daughter no longer speaks, traumatized by what happened in the woods That Night. After reading this book, I could go the rest of my life without hearing that phrase. which is repeated over and over in a slightly different font from the book's main text. There's also that thing that happened at the lookout that no one wants to talk about. The aspen grove is filled with creepy bones which the youngest daughter keeps picking up and bringing home. It's a young adult novel, so Chase, the older daughter, is extremely critical of her parents and looking forward to getting away from her family at the first possible opportunity. There's an intriguing story here and some really creepy imagery, but it takes a while to get there. 

Death at the Dinner Party by Ellie Alexander

The fund raising dinner at the historic farmhouse has barely started when one of the guests collapses. Curtis isn't one of the actors hired for that night's murder mystery, he's actually dead, and quite a few of his fellow attendees have reason to want him gone. I'm practically giddy about this new-to-me mystery series (I jumped in with the third book, which I don't recommend since I'm obviously missing some important back story -- I'll catch up on the first two titles as soon as I can.) It's atmospheric, the event is one that the characters are actually invested in, the protagonist is a trained crimonologist who knows what she's doing... and parts of it read like my favorite bits of the Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books I loved as a kid. It's fun and fast paced and I read the whole thing in one delighted sitting. 

Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine

This book sat in my to-be-read pile for way too long and I don't know why. Pregnancy related horror and thrillers are right up my alley and reviews compared this one to Rosemary's Baby, a novel that I absolutely loved. Actress Anna Alcott is desperate to have a baby and realizes that time is running out, that she and her husband might have waited too long. When their latest round of IVF results in a pregnancy, she and her husband are thrilled. When she has a miscarriage, they're devastated. There was no heartbeat on the ultrasound. There was so much blood in the hospital room. But she can still feel her unborn child moving inside of her. Pregnancy leaves woman vulnerable and the author absolutely captures that. Anna has been missing appointments and making mistakes with her medication. She's being stalked and receiving warnings about a cult of baby stealing Satanists. And, despite what the medical professionals say, she's still pregnant. I loved this one. 

Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with advance review copies. 

{I've Been Reading} Sleep in Heavenly Pizza

 

Sleep in Heavenly Pizza by Mindy Quigly

If you're looking for a holiday mystery, this one fits the bill perfectly. Delilah and her friends are always fun to spend time with and the book opens with her staff catering a Chrismukkah house party that ends with a death (but at least they're not snowed in with a killer the way they were in the previous book!) It's an enjoyable read with an ending that I never would have expected. Be sure not to skip the recipes at the end -- they're written by the characters and full of personality! 

Shear Terror by Dorothy Howell 

Her custom embroidered tote bag business isn't the success she'd hoped for, so Abbey is working part time at the Hideaway Cover visitor's center. That's where she discovers a body in the huge boxes of stuff they've collected for the annual lost and found sale. What she doesn't immediately notice is that the silver object embedded in the dead woman's chest is a pair of engraved sewing shears with Abbey's name on them. Her favorite pair of jeans has become too difficult to button, which led to the travel cup of tomato juice, which could help confirm her story...if she hadn't pitched it into the dumpster. This mystery is fast paced and fun with lots of small town gossip and Abbey continually getting in her own way as she tries to solve the murder and clear her own name. I'm going to keep wondering how someone with so few sewing skills decided to open a sewing studio and I'm going to keep happily reading this series. 

The Other Couple by Triona Walsh 

The first chapter was full of promise. A couple is set to spend a romantic weekend in a converted lighthouse. The setting, the relationship the author quickly establishes between the characters...it's all perfect. Then another couple shows up claiming to have reserved the property for the same night and it goes downhill from there. Every person in that lighthouse is hiding secrets and/or plotting against someone else. The book drags from that point on and the characters are hard to emphathize with. Why would a woman who is unwillingly sharing a rental with complete strangers leave her purse unattended in the kitchen -- and then be shocked when things turn up missing? 

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. 

(I've Been Reading) Red River Road by Anna Downes

 My Missing Daughter by Ellery A Kane 

Ever since Gone Girl, thrillers have to end with a twist. One of the characters in My Missing Daughter actually says that and, for this book at least, it's pretty obvious that there's going to be some kind of crazy unexpected ending. Willow and her best friend are on a road trip to finish the last set of edits on the book they've written together and promote their project on their social media channels. But the converted school bus shows up in Willow's mother's driveway without either girl. Scenes of the girls on the bus alternate with Willow's mother's search for her daughter. I couldn't put this one down. The plot isn't believable, but it's a lot of fun leading up to a less than perfect ending. 

Red River Road by Anna Downes 

Vanlife intrigues me to begin with, but add in a young woman driving the Big Lap, following her missing sister's social media posts and trying to figure out what happened to her on the isolated roads of Australia, and I found myself totally immersed in this book. Some of Phoebe's posts are included between the chapters and the comments give chilling hints about what might have gone wrong. Chapters alternate between characters who seem unrelated at first but the author sets up a suspenseful collision course that had me holding my breath by the end. 

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. 

{I've Been Reading} The House on the Cover of a Horror Novel

 The House on the Covr of a Horror Novel by EV Knight

This short horror novel had me absolutely enraged at times. Miles is a clueless husband who buys a dilapidated old house after seeing his wife's many sketches of it. He thinks she's in love with the property, while in reality she's been comissioned to paint a cover for a horror novel. I couldn't stand Miles and over the course of the book began to realize that he's a very realistic description of a personality type I wouldn't get along with. The childless couple unexpectedly find themselves with a baby on the way. They're  absolutely horrible at communicating with each other, which makes every situation worse than it has to be. 

What's really going on in the old house surpasses anything that Emily dreamed up while she was painting it. There are graves in the swamp at the edge of the property, a horrific family history, and creepy old toys that keep turning up in the worst places. It's standard haunted house stuff...until it's not. Every plot element I hated while I was reading the book actually had a reason for being there and comes together in a very effective ending. I'm honestly not sure if I likes this one or not. 

French Quarter Fright Night by Ellen Byron

This is an absolutely delightful Halloween themed cozy that provides readers with a vicarious chance to enjoy the spooky holiday fun in New Orleans and also to find out more about Ricki's life before she opened her vintage cookbook shop in the historic Bon Vee museum. I can't decide if this was my favorite book in the series so far -- all three have been great reads! The setting and characters are fantastic and so is the mystery.

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with advance review copies.