The Bitter Season

The Bitter Season

A good mystery takes the everyday and turns it macabre and frightening. Letters in the mail become sinister missives. An odd sound becomes a deadly intruder. Petty problems and meaningless rivalries become motives in horrific crimes. Family members become suspects and friends turn out to be turn coats. A good mystery makes you look at…

The Bones of You

The Bones of You by Debbie Howells is a psychological thriller that revolves around a missing teen. Kate is stunned when she receives a call from a woman she knows named Jo who is asking if Kate has seen Jo’s daughter. As the hours turn into days with the teen still missing, Kate finds herself…

The Stranger by Harlan Coben

The Stranger by Harlan Coben

Harlan Coben’s latest, The Stranger, is so like the author’s earlier books that, as I read, I kept confusing plots. The hero, a lawyer named Adam who has his safe suburban world upended by the eponymous stranger, is interchangeable with the heroes of Hold Tight (a much better book) and Caught, just to pick two….

Precious Thing

Right now is the era of the psychological thriller. And the nice thing is that most of the books being published are not the Gone Girl copycats that will soon be appearing on our shelves. They are (in my opinion) novels by writers who had always intended to write a disturbing, misleading mystery and who…

In the Blood

The tag line for this novel is “Someone knows Lana’s secret and he’s dying to tell.” That’s actually not quite accurate. Someone does indeed know Lana’s secret – several someones in fact. But they aren’t dying to tell. They are killing the secrets one by one, until only their truth is left. ”Sticks and stones…

Red Chrysanthemum

Teahouse of the August Moon is one of my very favorite movies. It deals with occupied Japan and celebrates Japanese village culture and the wonderful people on the island of Okinawa. It stars Marlon Brando and is part comedy, part romance and all together lovely. When I saw this novel I was beyond delighted to…

Edge of Normal

She has changed her name. She has changed her looks. But she cannot change her past. And it is her past, painful and difficult beyond what most people could understand, that is needed now. Because another young girl has been found in a basement, suffering from the shock of having been a captive sex slave….

The Good Sister

Technology has changed the way the people of the Western hemisphere talk. We text, we tweet, we post on social media. Many argue that this type of sharing has actually been the death of true communication. Others say it has never been easier to keep in touch. Whichever side of the argument people fall on,…

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