childhood secrets

    The Infinite Blacktop by Sara Gran

    Sara Gran has published two previous novels featuring “the world’s best private detective” Claire DeWitt, and The Infinite Blacktop is the third in the series. Not having read the first two, I was concerned I might be lost when I read it, having received an advance copy from Atria Books and NetGalley in exchange for …

    Heartland by Sarah Smarsh

    Many years ago, I read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and it knocked my socks off. When I saw Sarah Smarsh’s Heartland had been favorably compared to it and recommended to people who liked it, I jumped at the opportunity (provided by Scribner and NetGalley) to read it in exchange for my honest review. First …

    The Punishment She Deserves by Elizabeth George

    It has been too long since I read/reviewed an Elizabeth George Novel (since August, 2015, in fact, for the release of A Banquet of Consequences). Some things don’t change: as I said then, “I LOVE Elizabeth George, and have been reading the Inspector Lynley novels (or, as I prefer to call them, the Lynley-Havers novels) …

    The Things We Wish Were True by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

    The Things We Wish Were True, by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, is a classic beach read. It tells the story of Sycamore Glen, North Carolina, where it is summertime, and everyone spends time at the neighborhood pool, talking to and about each other. Along the way, some old secrets come to light, some new mysteries are …

    The Vanishing Year by Kate Moretti

      I admit, the thing that initially compelled me to dive into this book in a frenzy of “oh-please-let-this-be-a-story-that-makes-me-unable-to-stop-reading-til-I-have-finished-it” were the strong quotes from Mary Kubica and Heather Gudenkauf praising it. I have enjoyed some of their psychological thrillers, so I figured, “YES! I HAVE ONE!!!!” The protagonist, Zoe Whittaker, lives a life that, to …

    Arrowood by Laura McHugh

    In her mid-20s, Arden Arrowood has inherited the family home on the banks of the Mississippi River in Keokuk, Iowa, where she lived as a child. When she was just eight years old, she was in the front yard of the elegant home, watching her twin sisters, Violet and Tabitha, who were almost two years …

    All These Perfect Strangers by Aoife Clifford

    All These Perfect Strangers by Aoife Clifford grabbed me for two reasons: first there was the teaser I read: “This is about three deaths. Actually more, if you go back far enough. I say deaths, but perhaps all of them were murders. It’s a grey area. Murder, like beauty, is in the eye of the …

    Watching Edie by Camilla Way

    This is another one of those CREEPY psychological thrillers involving young women who were friends as teenagers, then they lose contact, and years later they reconnect with more or less unpleasant results. In this one, Heather and Edie are the two main characters. The novel is definitely creepy and it all leads to a horrifying …

    Miller’s Valley by Anna Quindlen

    In so many ways, I loved this book…as I hoped and somewhat expected, being a Quindlen fan. It is filled with people who are so well-developed, they were incredibly real to me as I read, thanks to Quindlen’s  familiar skill at developing characters in her “family fiction.” The protagonist, known as Mimi (real name Mary Margaret), is …

    Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf

    Sarah and Jack Quinlan have been married for two decades, and they live in Montana with their twin daughters, age 18. So Sarah would think she knows Jack VERY well. But, when they get a phone call that Jack’s aunt in the Midwest has taken a bad fall and may be near death, they fly …