{I've Been Reading} Adrift

 Adrift by Will Dean 

A married couple and their son, living on a Britist canal boat in Illinois and moving farther and farther from town, begin to unravel. This book reminded me of The Shining, without the supernatural elements  or extreme isolation. Imagine what would have happened if Wendy was writing a book and Jack realized it was better than his own efforts -- that's the awful situation facing the wife in this book. I've got mixed feelings about it. The tension and sense of dread are agonizing. I kept wanting to scream at the characters to do something, anything, to stop what was happening to them. My one complaint about the book is that it didn't feel like it was set in the United States. Some of the details and descriptions felt "off" and a few were absolutely glaring. 

House of Splinters by Laura Purcell

This wonderfully creepy book tells the story of Belinda Bainbridge who moves with her husband and children to his family's estate.  I didn't realize when I first picked it up that this is a prequel to another book, but that didn't interfere with my enjoyment at all. I don't think I've ever read a ghost story set in the 1700s, so it was a neat change of pace. Belinda fears for her children's safety, both from the perils of an old moldering house and  from the "silent companions," wooden figures that seem to be lurking around every corner. (These are a real thing -- look up "dummy boards" if you're curious about them.) I can't wait to read more by this author. 

A Sociopath's Guide to a Successful Marriage by MK Oliver

Lalla Rook's priorities are....interesting. She's just as concerned with convincing the other moms at her four-year-old son's birthday party that she made his store bought cake as she is with the body still leaking blood into her living room rug. Driving around with a dead man in the back of her SUV doesn't seem to phase her at all. As long as her daughter gets admitted into that exclusive private school and she can move her family into a more expensive house, she'll be satisfied. The writing is good enough and the plot twists in some interesting ways, but I really didn't care what happened to the protagonist. She lacks the charisma that's kept me turning pages in other books with serial killers as the main characters.  

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

{I've Been Reading} Trad Wife

 The Ravine by Maia Chance 

Set on an island in the Pacific Northwest, this wonderfully creepy thriller kept me turning pages until the end. I love folk horror and this is a fascinating slow burn that definitely delivers. After struggling with her fertility for years, Harlow steps away from her high stress job and moves with her husband and stepson to his childhood home. She has little in common with her next door neighbor or the other moms who take their children to KinderWild, a forest preschool that seems a little too cultish. An island full of nearly identical blonde children, strange religious symbols, her husband's late night trips into the forest and odd behavior.... this book was right up my alley!  

Trad Wife by Saratoga Schaefer 

This was a wild read!  Camille is a wannabe influencer with a perfect home and a wealthy husband who buys her everything she needs to create their perfectly curated life. What she can't order online -- the thing she knows will absolutely explode her subscriber count -- is a baby, but as hard as she tries, she's not getting pregnant. So she visits the creepy old well behind her house and throws a shiny penny in (her less aesthetically pleasing change goes into donation boxes) and a demonic creature comes to her and before she knows it, she's trying to figure out how to write social media posts documenting a pregnancy that's moving way too fast. I've been a stay a home mom for a loooong time, so I don't get as riled up about the whole tradwife thing as a lot of people seem to. But Camille is grating. Her bamboo dish drainer and hand stitched dishtowels and perfect outfits, not to mention her relationship with her husband, are absolute rage bait. But that Rosemary's Baby twist she willingly threw into her own life? I didn't have to like Camille to enjoy reading about her. 

The Body by Bethany C. Morrow

The book opens with a car crash and, as Mavis calls her husband and he hurries to her side at the hospital, their reactions had me guessing at their relationship and what was actually going on between the two of them. The whole focus of the story is on their marriage and their vows to one another. I feel like I should have loved this one. The type of horror is right up my alley but, for whatever reason I can't put my finger on, the horrific events didn't have much impact when they actually happened. They almost seemed like an afterthought compared to other details. 

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

{I've Been Reading} A Spirited Supper at Dundoon Castle

 A Spirited Supper at Dundoon Castle by Darci Hannah

This fun cozy has a complex mystery, a lively cast of characters, and a great setting at a bagpiping competition. I thought it was the first in a new series, but it's actually the second (and luckily the first is on Kindle Unlimited, so I plan on reading that one just as soon as I can.) Chef Bunny MacBride signed the contract for a cooking show thinking the "spirits" in the title meant alcohol. Now she's preparing meals for famous ghosts with a crew of ghost hunters.  Bunny's crush on one of her co-hosts is adorable. Her way of speaking took a bit of getting used to and I don't think I'll ever be able to read the phrase "Mr. Man" without hearing it in the voice of Annie Wilkes, but that's probably just me. I can't wait to see what other hauntings the Food & Spirits crew decide to investigate! 

Silenced at the Book Show by Kim Griswell

The third Pacific Northwest Cozy Mystery has Saffi in her element as the key note speaker at an event in Seaside to promote her bestselling series of Aunt Saffi's Bedside Reader. I'm loving this new series. The setting is perfect for readers who want a virtual escape to someplace different. Saffi is a wonderful protagonist, the kind of person I'd actually want to spend some time with. After writing so many trivia books, her mind is full of facts and details that she puts to use in her investigations. I jumped in with the second book and there's just enough backstory to keep new readers from feeling lost without giving away important reveals from the previous books. 

The Swamps by Seraphina Nova Glass

Macy and her husband have travelled to Louisiana to investigate the cases of two missing women for their popular YouTube channel. Unfortunately the bayou cabin they rented doesn't look nearly as cute as the online pictures. It only took me a few pages to lose patience with Macy who seems to feel that dated countertops and appliances are just as distressing as the hair and human teeth suspended from a nearby  tree by tangles of wire. This one is short and fast paced and contains some genuinely creepy scenes and a twist I definitely wasn't expecting. 

Her Beautiful Life by Brianna Labuskes

I keep picking up domestic thrillers involving tradwifes, even though most of them wind up ticking me off. After going on thirty years as a stay at home mom and homemaker, I find myself disagreeing with a lot of the characters about women's roles in the home and the first few pages of this book had me jumping to conclusions about what was to come. I am SO glad I stuck with it, because it wasn't at all what I expected. Holland, a jounalist, has been invited to the gated property of Catriona Bouchard to write a profile of the popular influencer. They were best friends at one point, but haven't spoken for years. Catriona is nothing like the women Holland remembers and life at The Orchard is one concerning detail after another. The book is a very slow burn, but I really enjoyed seeing the plot gradually unfold to its unexpected conclusion. The chapters from a police investigator's perspective were a bit distracting and I wish the story could have been told without them, but that's a minor complaint about an otherwise great book. 

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

{I've Been Reading} Dead Fake

 Jammed With Secrets by Selina Hill

I enjoyed the first book in this new series featuring Sadie Cruz, a celebrity chef whose reputation took an awful turn after a food critic died after sampling her restaurant's Heavenly Duck. Now she's in the spotlight again when a member of a 90s boyband is found dead in  her food trailer with one of her jam filled heart cookies smeared all over him.  It's an entertaining plot with a likeable protagonist, even if it sometimes felt like her investigation circled, going over the same information multiple times.   

Dead Fake by Vincent Ralph

Swipe to Die is an app that came out of nowhere and quickly became the most popular thing around. Just sign up with your email address, answer a couple of questions, and then watch an AI video of your own gory death. It's all innocent fun, right? This book takes all of the elements of an enjoyable slasher movie and makes them better by adding little hints of backstory that just wouldn't work in a film. The town of Bleak Haven has a troubled past, evidenced by the memorial wall at the local high school. One of the administrators is apparently a final girl, having survived a serial killer years earlier. Ava, the protagonist, is haunted by dark events in her own family's past, which makes her well equippped to try to stop whoever is behind Swipe or Die. I was extremely happy to see that this is the first book in a series about the town. 

The Room in the Attic by T. M. Logan

I don't know how this author managed to make an outdated flip phone so ominous, but I was holding my breath and wanting to yell at the characters to stop messing with it. It starts with Adam exploring a seam in the wooden paneling of their new residence and discovering a hidden space behind the wall. The tiny room is furnished with a chair and dresser and the dresser drawers contain an odd assortment of unremarkable objects. Told amost entirely from Adam's point of view, this book creates an uneasy sense of dread that I couldn't resist. 

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