{I've Been Reading} We Were Never Meant to Survive This

Trad Wife by Sarah Langan

If this isn't the best of the "trad wife" thrillers, it's darn close. The prologue makes it immediately clear that this is folk horror and then the book spends a lot of time introducing the reader to Jenny, a journalist who is just desperate enough to accept an assignment travelling to Black Swan Farm to write about Mia Wright, one of the most popular influencers online. Jenny's story is interesting on its own. She's a fully developed character, not just a young woman out to write a hit piece. Mia is a bit more enigmatic. There's far more too her than her online persona would suggest and it's not something you've seen in the many other thrillers that share this same basic premise. It's wonderfully creepy and one of my favorite horror novels of the year. 

Jay to the World by Donna Andrews

The Meg Lanslow mysteries are always a fun flurry of delightful activity and this one is no exception. As Meg and her extended family prepare for their annual Christmas celebrations, disaster strikes in the form of sabotage and a dangerous booby trap. There's an injured blue jay, a sabotaged playhouse, secret tunnels, stolen decorations....and, in the middle of all of that, there's a mystery with a satisfying conclusion. I've only read the most recent six of this forty book series, but it's easy to jump right in and enjoy the chaos.  I didn't even mind that some of my favorite characters were absent from the book -- I was so caught up in what was going on that I barely noticed! 

We Were Never Meant to Survive This by Jesse Sherwood 

This thriller is a slow, fascinating burn that runs out of steam before the underwhelming end. It opens with the protagonist in a hospital bed, unsure of what's happened or how they got there. It's a while before we learn that character's name or anything at all about them (and a whole lot longer before we find out what's going on with that bandaged arm.) After seeing the arrowhead a co-worker made at a survival camp, Jamie visited an outdated webiste and sends and email, then forgot about the whole thing until he receives a response weeks later. Hidden in the Catskills, The Camp is run by A, a women who is preparing her students for "Day Zero." The whole thing reminds me of The Beach by Alex Garland. It took me a while to work out the timeline. There's "Before" and "After" and then I'm pretty sure there's a second "After" at least as far as the chapter names and number of days since are concerned. I enjoyed the read,  but the ending dragged on for far too long before it came to an abrupt stop. 

Until the Last Light Goes Out by Courtney Gold

Set in an abandoned luxury resort on an isolated  Florida Key, this thriller feels like the Backrooms mixed up with Sarah Winchester's sprawling mansion. Everything is drenched in pink and neon and, after and absolutely gripping prologue, the plot rambles in a creepy slow burn that eventually reaches a satisfying ending. Twenty-five years earlier, The Kaleidoscope was sight of a graduation party that ended with the discovery of a hundred and eighty-three dead students the following morning. No one has ever figured out what happened and the place never reopened. It just sat there, empty and waiting...until the children of the few surviving students make their way to the island and go inside.  

America Obscura An Explorer's Guide to the Hidden Wonders of the United States

I miss the good old days, when we'd hit the road with a stack of  the state TourBooks from AAA and, as we'd approach a little down we'd never heard of I'd flip to that page and see if there were any interesting detours we should make. We found some of the greatest little museums and historic sites that way. The books are digital now, and I hate that. (I know you're going to tell me that I can look it all up on my phone, but that doesn't account for the spotty reception in the places we go.) 

This book feels like someone took the best of those guides and added color photos. Odds are, we'll never be anywhere near most of the places, but I enjoyed reading about them and plan on researching quite a few to learn more about them. Not everything in our own neck of the woods is something that you can actually see or do, and it's all going to require more research to figure out prices and hours, but it's a great starting point. I'm going to go through the book and start bookmarking possibilies -- we may plan a trip around part of the United States I never expected to visit!   

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

{I've Been Reading} Murder in the Upper Crust

 Murder in the Upper Crust by Mindy Quigley 

I've been reading the Deep Dish mystery series since the first book and as soon as I see that a new one is coming out, I add it to my to-be-read pile. The writing style always pulls me in and this one is no exception. With most of her staff away, Delilah gets sucked into a last minute catering job for a wellness guru. She also gets stuck attending a late night meditation session and when she should be zipped into her own private pod with a scented candle and personalized app, she's walking across the grounds discovering that something has gone very wrong for one of the other attendees. And, almost despite herself, she does some deep introspection along the way. There's also a newly introduced character I hope to read more about. 

Fire Witch: Kate Claxton and the 1876 Brooklyn Theatre Inferno by Melanie Gall

I had never heard of Kate Claxton, but the description of the theater fire and the other fires that plagued her career intrigued me. The first few chapters were fascinating. I enjoyed reading about the early days of theater in New York. The descriptions of the theater fire, while hard to get through because the author paints such a vivid picture of the tragedy, were fascinating. I love reading about historical disasters and the changes that have been made to prevent those things from happening again. Gradually, the book started to drag. For decades, Kate played one of the title roles in Two Orphans, a popular melodrama, and I started to feel like I'd sat through the thousands of performances myself.  It's a short book that could have been a lot shorter.  

Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with review copies. 

{I've Been Reading} House Haunters

House Haunters by KC Jones

I tend to add books to my to-be-read pile and then pick them up to read without rereading the description and that's how I started this book without realizing that the same author also wrote White Line Fever and Black Tide (both great books). That might've been the best way to go into it, without preconceived ideas of what kind of book it was going to be -- because it kind of felt like it might be a romance and it kind of felt like it was a horror novel and it landed in an absolutely perfect spot in between. I loved the characters, a reality television producer who is trying to develop a show without the help of the AI that's taken over her job and Fear Not Frank, a home inspector who also checks the property for the sometimes dangerous remnants that he calls spectrals. Frank has no sense of fear, so he relies on his dog, Fish Stick, to determine if a place is safe or not. They're filming the pilot episode in a condominium that's already killed the real estate photographer, so it's clear from the first few pages that these ghosts do exist and that they're deadly. I absolutely loved this book. I wouldn't call it scary, but it's definitely effective. 

The Elegance of Decay by Stoney Brooks

Six researchers gather on a remote cliffside to study the unique moss that grows there. Supported by metal platforms, there's only one way back up and no safe way down. This short horror novel reads like a creature feature. It's claustrophobic and tightly plotted, only breaking away from the cliffside in brief flashbacks to develop the characters. Don't let your attention wander while reading or you'll be flipping back to figure out what just happened. 

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

{I've Been Reading} Yesteryear

 Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke 

I think it's fair to say that the thriller market is full of tradwives. I've read two books called "The Trad Wife" (and also The Trad Wife's Secret) and have another with the same title in my TBR. So of course as soon as I heard about Yesteryear, I wanted to read it. It's taken me this long to get my hands on a copy -- the reserve list at the library is REALLY long. While I was waiting, I made some assumptions about what the book would be like. I was wrong. So, so wrong. Not much of the plot takes place in the past. Instead it's Natalie's story before she became a popular influencer. I kept guessing what was going to happen and I came nowhere close to figuring it out. 

Quaint Folk by Bitter Karella 

A family moves to a remote island with strangely old fashioned ways. It's one of the basic tropes of  folk horror, but this is like nothing I've ever read before. The locals have cutesy names that sound straight out of a children's book. They're preparing for an annual festival and everything is just so adorable it makes your teeth hurt. There's nothing scary or forboding -- and I think that's what makes it so effective when everything changes. Honestly, I wanted to put it down after the first few chapters because I couldn't stand Jessica, but I'm glad I stuck with it. It's weird and effective and kind of beyond description. 

And Then There Were Bun by Vivian Chien 

This cozy mystery was a fast paced engaging read that pulled me right in. I'd read the description and forgotten the details before picking the book up to start, so I didn't know what was coming. That's probably my favorite was to read cozies. Lana is an engaging narrator who quickly establishes the details of her life. A couple of references to previous murders and bodies made it clear that this wasn't the first book in the series, but I was suprised when I checked later and found out that it's is the thirteenth book. It was easy to jump right in and enjoy Lana's world and the mystery. Even though I didn't already know her friends and family, I was worried when the investigation seemed like it might turn in that direction.  I'll definitely be reading more of the Noodle Shop mysteries. 

Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with advance review copies. Yesteryear came from the library.