Final Girls by Riley Sager
The three of them are the Final Girls, sole survivors of terrible events that seem like they came straight out of a horror movie. Lisa wrote a book about the massacre at her sorority house. Sam disappeared from public view years ago. Quinn runs a baking blog and tries to get on with her life. She can't remember the details of that night at Pine Cottage and doesn't want to. Then suddenly Lisa is dead by her own hand and Sam bursts into her life, determined to make Quinn revisit her past. I can't tell you much more without venturing into spoiler territory and I never want to do that.
I read this one on the flight home from our trip and it kept me engrossed for five hours, even through clear air turbulence and worries about blood clots. At times, I thought I knew what was going on, but I was wrong. The plot shifts from Quinn's present life to that fatal night at Pine Cottage, but it never felt like the author was deliberate stringing me along. And, even though Quinn is kind of a mess, she never seemed whiny or childish. There's some blood and gore (because that comes with the territory when you're reading about horror-movie style massacres) but it's not the bulk of the plot and not horribly detailed.
Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar
I've been disappointed by the last couple of Stephen King Books. The Bizaar of Bad Dreams had too much material I'd already paid to read. Revival started out good but got too weird for me to enjoy. Over the past decade or so, I've decided that I'm either going to love his new book or hate it, so I'm more and more inclined to just get the new one from the library and read it before deciding if I want to own a copy.
Gwendy's Button box is a good one. It's not the kind of button box that quilters are going to think of, it's got buttons like a remote. Anyone who's read Stephen King knows that if a strange man offers a gift it's time to run. Twelve-year-old Gwendy doesn't know that, so when the man she meets on the suicide stairs offers her the box, she takes it. She doesn't know what it can do beyond dispensing the tiniest most perfect chocolates she's ever tasted, but she knows that she wants it. This one is more suspenseful than scary, and it's very short, but I enjoyed it.
Disclosure -- I was provided with advance review copies by the publishers. Gwendy's Button Box came from the library. All opinions are my own.
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