{I've Been Reading} White Line Fever

 

White Line Fever by K C Jones

County Road 951, a fifteen mile stretch of scenic curves responsible for more deaths than any other road in Oregon, has been gated off at both ends for years. But sometimes GPS suggests unsuitable detours and someone else had already cut the gate before Liva and her friends turned off the main road to get away from a threatening tow truck. I was hooked by this one, maybe because I live in the area and can picture exactly the stretch of mountain range that the road must cut across. I'm used to hearing sirens on the way to accidents. It's far too easy to imagine The Devil's Driveweay and what it would be like to be trapped there by supernatural forces. The plot alternates between Olivia's traumatic childhood and what's happening on the road and it does start to bog down at a few points, but for the most part I aboslutely loved it. 

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

{I've Been Reading} Claire, Darling

 Claire, Darling by Callie Kazumi

In one moment, Claire's life has been turned upside down. She took lunch to her fiancé only to be told that he doesn't work for the company. He's not returning her calls or texts, he doesn't return to their shared apartment, and she's reeling from the shock of the whole thing. What happened? Why did he leave her? It's the structure of this thriller that made it work so well for me. We only know what Claire knows, when she knows it. There are a few brief scenes from her childhood and diary entries from the early days of her relationship with Noah, but the plot goes in a straight line from beginning to end and I kept trying to make sense of it. The pieces just weren't fitting together no matter how badly I wanted them to. I genuinely liked Claire as a character and wanted her to be okay, but I couldn't see how that was going to be possible. I love this one from beginning to end. 

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

{I've Been Reading} The Night Shift

 The Night Shift by Gemma Rogers

Nina has the perfect job, working overnight alone at Storage Queen. All she has to do is keep track of a few customers as they enter and leave and do an occasional walk through to make sure that none of the units were left unlocked. The rest of the night, she has free to concentrate on her studies. Until a man drags in a bulky suitcase and deposits it in an otherwise empty unit and her boring job becomes a fight for survival. This one is fast paced and suspenseful and I love the way the author kept coming up with ways to up the stakes. Not that I think any of it could actually happen...but for a work of thriller fiction most of it felt plausible enough. By the very end, it was starting to feel a bit repetitive, but for the most part it's a fast paced and engaging read. 

It Will Only Hurt for a Moment by Delilah S. Dawson

This is an absolutely fantastic, disturbing nightmare of a book. A secluded artists' colony holds dark secrets in the abandoned hotel on the property and Sarah has nowhere else to go. This was her escape, her first step towards a new future. She never expected to find a dead animal rotting in her bed or an absolutely horrible misogynist sharing the pottery studio or a long buried coffin at the site where she's digging a pit kiln. She never expected the other residents to be descending into madness or to unearth awful secrets from a past century. By the last chapter, I was completely rattled, something that rarely happens. This one hit me HARD. 

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

{I've Been Reading} Something in the Walls

 Something in the Walls by Daisy Pearce

An inexperienced child psychologist travels to an isolated village to assess a girl whose family and  community believe is possessed by a witch. The first thing she notices upon her arrival are odd stones hanging from every building. Hagstones, she's told. That's her first sign that she's stepped into a place that's far different from the world she's accustomed to. This folk horror is a slow, slow burn and at first it felt similar to other books I've read with similar premises. But this one finally gets going and when it does, it's something else entirely.  I don't want to risk spoilers, but if you enjoyed Midsommar or The Lottery, this is in that vein. 

Killing Me Soufflé by Ellie Alexander 

I'm not sure if I've read any of the other  twenty Bakeshop mysteries  by Ellie Alexander, but after reading this one I can't wait to track them down. It was a fun read with a fantastic setting and interesting mystery. Jules and her family travel to the Oregon coast where two employees from her Ashland bakery have been hired to run the restaurant at a an aging resort. Opening night is a wild success, but then the resort's manager is found dead at the foot of a rocky cliff. I love the coast and this book does an amazing job of capturing the atmosphere. There's lots of focus on the delicious sounding food, which never slows the plot because they're preparing it while talking over elements of the murder mystery. 

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