{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. 

{I've Been Reading} Tell Me You Trust Me

 Tell Me You Trust Me by Elle Owens 

This thriller had me immediately hooked. "Tell me you trust me" was the last thing Marissa's husband said to her before leaving that morning. He didn't take his car, didn't go to work, is nowhere to be found. Her loving family is absolutely everywhere, determined to take care of her. They're in the security business, after all, and they want to help her. What they won't give her is a moment to herself, a moment she desperately needs to figure out the message her husband seems to have sent her through a song title that's just appeared on their shared playlist. 

I read this through one one sitting. Marissa's desperation to figure things out kept me turning pages and the author tells the story of their marriages through the messages they're leaving one another. It's a suspenseful read that had me on the edge of my seat and trying to figure things out until the very end.

Sick Houses - Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread by Leila Taylor

Haunted houses, the homes of notorious series killers, those places you pass and just wonder about because they're a little odd -- that's what this book is about. And I LOVED it. The author delves into well known properties, both fictional and real, and also several that I'd never heard of. I came away from it with a fairly long list of movies I want to watch (surprising, because I love haunted house movies and have watched so many) and some new insight into movies I'd already watched. There are plenty of spoilers in the detailed plot discissions, but I don't really mind because I probably wouldn't have watched them if I hadn't read about them here. A few, I'll watch anyway. Another I'll go out of my way to avoid. The book sent me down quite a few interesting rabbit trails and I'm glad I picked it up.  

 

Fondue or Die by Korina Moss

Willa Bauer and her friends are always fun to spend some time with. In this mystery, they're running a  booth at the local Dairy Days festival, selling carefully curated snack boxes of different cheeses.  And, after the woman running the annual bauty pageant is found dead under a pile of milk jugs, they're investigating whether it was an accident or a murder. While this isn't my favorite book in the series so far, it was an enjoyable read.

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