thoughts on books

Category: Psychological thriller

  • what kind of paradise by janell brown

    This book is a phenomenal thriller with such deep, thought provoking questions about our society. If there was ever a “page turner,” it is this book. I absolutely could not put this down.

    Jane lives in a shack in the woods with her kooky dad. He has raised her far apart from society, a Luddite of the most exceptional proportions. Jane, at 17, knows no one except her father, and has near no contact without the outside world. Set in the late 90’s, they only leave their Montana home periodically to sell a zine called Libertaire. Jane’s father tells her that her mother died in a car accident, which she had never questioned until now.

    Hungry for the outside world, she sneaks episodes of the X-files and get access to the internet via a modem. In these early days of the internet, social media is arbitrary and sparse- but Dad wants her to learn HTML so he can publish his “manifesto.”

    This is where the tires start to fall off, and learning who she is and that her father is more than just a tin foil hat extremist. I don’t want to give away any more of the plot, but know that once we leave the shack this entire story goes full throttle.

    I think what sets this book apart from other suspense/thrillers is the theme of the complicated relationship we have with technology. Although it hurts just a little to call a book taking place in 1995 “historical” fiction, the time period when the world was hurtling towards connectivity with little regard for the implications truly doesn’t take that long to feel like a long time ago. In some ways, Jane’s “kooky” conspiracy dad is actually right about what he was warning the world about. And that’s what is so deeply moving about the greater theme— we know more than the characters about what is to come. We know he’s not totally wrong, even though in many ways, he is the villain of this story.

    Also, the epilogue was so unexpected and wonderful. It doesn’t end with a bang, but with an echo.

    Pub date was pushed from June 10 to June 3, so I am sure this is going to be a book club pick of some kind.

    a best mystery/thriller of 2025

    Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC. Book to be published 6/3/25

    PS- that is THREE outstanding ARCs in a row for me after a dearth of mid picks. Reading so many good ones feels like an embarrassment of riches. I actually feel as though I am bragging to all my #bookstagram friends.

  • dissolution by nicholas binge

    I can’t imagine a scarier scenario than deep diving and getting lost inside your partner’s memories of 80 years of life. Dissolution is a love story deeply embedded within a mystery within a speculative fiction/sci fi novel. Maggie’s husband Stanley is in assisted living, in the memory care unit. A stranger appears into her life and tells Maggie that Stanley does not have dementia, but his memories are being stolen. She has renewed hope that he can regain his short and long term memory and become “her Stanley” again. 

    Hassan gives Maggie the chance to go back into Stanley’s memories- to places and time they shared together in 50 years of marriage and with their daughter, Leah. The chapters alternate between Stanley’s past- back to 1955 before he met Maggie. It becomes clear earlier on in the book that Hassan is not all he seems. 

    This is a fascinating premise that unfolds over time, layers upon layers are revealed… and I missed some. I did have to keep flipping back to understand where I was in the narrative, and to differentiate the true from the false. Although I liked Maggie and believed her love- and Stanley being a true romantic, the characters themselves fell a little flat for me, protagonist and antagonists being tragically exaggerated. I liked this book a lot, but I am not sure I completely understood it. It was exciting and very dark/gruesome in parts. 

    Memories as time travel is something intriguing to me, and this was certainly a fresh way of thinking about it. 

    Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin/ Riverhead books for the ARC. Book to be published March 25, 2025.

  • doll parts by penny zang

    An intriguing and creative debut novel with dueling timelines of “sad girls on campus” twenty years ago and another timeline of today.

    Sadie has a baby and lives with her child’s father, Harrison. Harrison is recently widowed by Sadie’s former childhood friend, Nikki. So, Sadie and Nikki were estranged and never spoke for 20 years. Nikki dies, seemingly of suicide, and Sadie sits in the back at her funeral. 9 months later we skip and Sadie is living with her widow and has a baby with him.

    If this seems weird and a bit unbelievable, you aren’t alone in that thought!

    We side with Sadie and see things from her perspective. We don’t love Harrison, we aren’t sure about Caroline, who is Nikki and Harrison’s teen daughter.

    Both mysteries are good, the past one is better, it is clever to be following two mysteries in different timelines because it gets away from the typical criticism of slow burn mysteries as that it can drag in the middle.

    Why is it called Doll Parts? No idea! I do love the cover, though.

    My favorite character was Nikki, the past segments are in her view point.

    Lots of open ended things with no conclusion, but it works. I liked this and found i very readable, some of the minor characters didn’t have enough characterization so I didn’t know them as well. I did love the setting and the writing style.

    A fresh new voice in women centered mystery/thrillers!

    Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks/Landmark for the ARC. Book to be published August 26, 2025.

  • sweet fury by sash bischoff

    Here is a book that makes me long for the more nuanced rating systems of other book-reading-reviewing-tracking apps.

    This book is well crafted and written, very imaginative and cleverly aligned with the literature of F Scott Fitzgerald. Not only the stories of Tender Is the Night and The Great Gatsby, but also the lore of his life, his relationship with his wife Zelda, and thoughts that she was the author of his works.

    What happens when you take a story and re-center it in the female perspective? This is very meta- it is multi-universal and there are layers upon layers of re-centering a story in a different perspective.

    Here is the gist of it- this book is very well done. I hated the ending, the conclusion, I wanted to hurl the book against the wall. I hated the characters. They are really well characterized but I hated them so much. It is a brilliant book and I wish I never read it.

    HOW DO I RATE THAT.

    I guess 3 stars, but I am not happy about it.

  • don’t open your eyes by liv constantine

    A psychological thriller about a woman who can dream the future. This ends up being less creepy and more of a plot device allowing us to understand the accountability at the end. I remember reading The Last and Next Mrs Parrish and liking them, they were some of the first books I read in the psychological suspense/thriller genre. While this book was just as suspenseful and with a clever plot, I found the writing style to be overly simplistic and the characters not well developed. In all, this was a good story written simply. Some will be disappointed in the conclusion, but it wrapped up the story very well with not many loose ends. I liked how the main character, Annabelle, was written. Her inner dialogue seems transparent and vulnerable while being compelling. I liked her husband, James, and part of the conclusion regarding his character didn’t ring true. Her daughter’s character grew on me, I found her to be immature, way below her age level, but over time she became a stronger person.

    I am not sure the title fits the story, which I will say is compulsively readable and easy to follow. If you are in the mood for a suspense book with a strong female lead but escapist and not needing a lot of mental gymnastics, this could be a great next read for you.

    Thanks to NetGalley and Bantam/Random House for the ARC. Book to be published June 17, 2025.

  • you are fatally invited by ande pliego

    My favorite mystery/thriller of February! If you are nostalgic for Agatha Christie, love Knives Out and watched and re-watched the Clue movie as a kid, pick up this fun locked-room mystery. This is absolutely my type of mystery.

    The legendary author JR Alastor invites 6 different thriller authors to his secluded estate for a week-long “writer’s retreat” hosted by event planner Mila. Mila communicates with JR on her apple watch while the authors are treated to tasks through puzzles and “tropes” such as the dinner party, cursed artifacts and survive the night. They are joined by Rodrigo and Olivia (seriously?) who are partners in life and in writing. Cassandra, who is rumored to have killed her 2nd husband. Fletcher, an egomaniacal old white guy. Ashton, a broody and guilt ridden young man attracted to Mila. Violet, a 21 year old with only one title to her name.

    Soon there are deaths! Missing bodies! A storm keeping them trapped on the island! And everyone has secrets and guilt in their past that MUST be revealed! And where and WHO is JR Alastor??

    This is great on audio, with eight different audiobook narrators to keep straight all of these characters. It is still dizzying and a bit hard to follow if you typically listen at 2.0 speed or higher. I did skip back and re-listen to certain chapters to hear what I missed.

    If you ARE going to listen on audio, I will warn you that the CHAPTER TITLES are a spoiler so beware of the Table of Contents if you like to keep your mysteries spoiler-free. To be completely honest, for me it sort of helped to know where the book was going so I could focus on the characterization.

    This is all plot and pacing and I loved it.

  • the mother next door: medicine, deception and munchausen by proxy by andrea dunlop and mike weber

    This book is a bit uncomfortable, in a good way. It has big “podcast” energy, sort of like a large format “Did you hear THIS crazy story?” townie bar conversation.

    Andrea Dunlop is an author and podcaster, her sister was lost to her due to Munchausen by proxy. Because of her personal experience she created a podcast based on a famous case of MBP, Hope Ybarra, who pretended to have cancer 4 times and faked that her daughters had cerebral palsy and cystic fibrosis. At first her family thought she was delusional. Then they discovered she was guilty of fraud, falsifying medical documentation.

    Mike Weber was the sheriff/law enforcement on the Hope Ybarra case, he has made his career on several child abuse cases to varying results.

    On one hand, this book is a good guidebook for those who want to know the patterns. On the other hand, it is also a good guidebook for how to work on this and pull it off. For me it felt like “eek this is none of my business” and I legitimately felt like a rubber necker… but I suppose there is a bit of that in all true crime genre.

    It was an eye opener. I learned a lot. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around MBP is both a mental illness and a crime.

    Thanks to Netgalley and St Martins Press for the ARC. Book to be published February 4, 2025

  • close your eyes by theresa driscoll

    I am not sure what it was about this book that made me keep speeding up the time so it would go faster. I think perhaps since the mystery itself was revealed to the reader early in the book and it was not solved by the crime’s victims until later. I just couldn’t wait for the characters to discover who took their daughter. THeme of toxic theology and religious and cultural trauma. Audiobook narrator uses a british accent and the pacing of the mystery just didn’t work for me. This one was a miss for me.

    Thanks to NetGalley and Brilliance Publishing for an ALC in exchange for an honest review.

  • the business trip by jessie garcia

    200 Book ReviewsCamp NetGalley 202480%Professional Reader

    A twisty, turny multiple POV story across several days and characters. Jasmine and Stephanie are both on the same flight, and Jasmine has a lot more to escape from, a terrible relationship with an abusive partner. Stephanie is bound for San Diego to a business trip for people in local news to learn and bring back to her team. A few days later, both women send identical texts to their close friends saying that they met a great guy named Trent and they are going to spend some time with him in Atlanta. Then both of them go missing.

    50% of the way through I thought it was definitely a five star read and I could not, for the life of me, understand why the reviews were averaging 3.77. Now that I have finished, I understand where the ratings go. The short of it is, the ending is not exactly what you want it to be. But it is definitely a surprise. Somewhat unbelievable, but books in this genre usually are. This is a really fast paced thriller with parallel content. Some of the “friend” and “Coworker” characters go away and never come back once the narrative goes back to the main characters. And you really do miss them, I loved some of those characters, or at least, I wanted to know them better. There are a couple of male characters that are utterly detestable, the kind you love to hate. 

    This is definitely one that is better on audio. Ten different narrators! WOW. That is pretty unheard of. It gives the narrative a transparency and an authenticity that I really enjoyed. I will admit I was SO engaged in this book that I kept speeding it up so I could get to the conclusion faster.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @macmillan.audio for the ARC. Book to be published January 14, 2025.

  • don’t let him in by lisa jewell

    Literally could not put this down because I could NOT wait for the reckoning of the Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. Sure to be one of the BEST mystery/thriller of 2025.

    This book has a hell of a villain. A sociopathic, women-hating, gaslighting, love bombing overall horrific human being. He is the kind of guy you could do a 10 episode podcast about. Known by various names, he loves to manipulate and have relationships with women in a long con.

    Multiple POV chapters that skip time and between multiple characters. Although this is a little confusing at first it comes together pretty quickly. Ash lost her father Paddy about a year ago, as a schizophrenic unhoused man pushed him onto the train tracks. He was a successful restauranteur and cookbook author. Now Ash’s mother has gotten romantically involved with a man that she has some questions about.

    The best thing about this book is that the victims are not stupid. Not by a long shot. They are smart, funny, good mothers. In one way or another, they have insecurities, but this guy is an absolute professional at getting women to fall in love with him and in believing his lies. It is so easy to hear a story like this and assume that the victim of a con man is stupid. Our culture teaches us to blame the victim- but I would caution the reader to thinking you are better than falling for a long con. The overall theme is showing the pattern of behavior… and the solution is always community.

    Thanks to NetGalley and Atria for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Book to be released June 24, 2025.