Categories
Dark Age
Month: August 2023
Categories
Sisters of the Lost Nation
Title: Sisters of the Lost Nation
Author: Nick Medina
Genre: thriller, mystery
Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.
Indigenous people of this country are severely underrepresented in publishing, so it’s great when a writer finds his voice in the industry.
From Goodreads: Anna Horn is always looking over her shoulder. For the bullies who torment her, for the entitled visitors at the reservation’s casino…and for the nameless, disembodied entity that stalks her every step—an ancient tribal myth come-to-life, one that’s intent on devouring her whole.
With strange and sinister happenings occurring around the casino, Anna starts to suspect that not all the horrors on the reservation are old. As girls begin to go missing and the tribe scrambles to find answers, Anna struggles with her place on the rez, desperately searching for the key she’s sure lies in the legends of her tribe’s past.
When Anna’s own little sister also disappears, she’ll do anything to bring Grace home. But the demons plaguing the reservation—both ancient and new—are strong, and sometimes, it’s the stories that never get told that are the most important.
Part gripping thriller and part mythological horror, author Nick Medina spins an incisive and timely novel of life as an outcast, the cost of forgetting tradition, and the courage it takes to become who you were always meant to be.
This book was clearly the writer’s first, and he needs a great editor. Too many things are happening in the plot. Anna is a good character, but she is also struggling with her identity… is she gay? is she transgender? That subplot was wholly unnecessary. As told in the third person, Anna’s parents are referred to by their first names, but the author switches to Mom and Dad on occasion. I loved the mythology behind the story.
Categories
Full Dark, No Stars
Categories
The Soulmate
Title: The Soulmate
Author: Sally Hepworth
Genre: thriller
Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.
I’ve heard great things about Sally Hepworth’s books, so when I saw this pop up on NetGalley, I grabbed it. I also follow her on Instagram, where she posts delightful, fun things. However, this one fell a bit flat for me.
From GoodReads: Gabe and Pippa Gerard have just moved into their dream house: a cliffside cottage in a sleepy coastal town outside Melbourne. It’s a fresh start to their marriage and the perfect place to raise their two young daughters. But the house’s perfect façade hides something more sinister: The Spot, where the tall cliffs have become a popular place for those wishing to end their lives. After talking someone down from the ledge, Gabe becomes a local hero, saving person after person… until one night, he doesn’t. And Pippa sees Gabe the moment after it happened, standing alone at the cliff’s edge, arms outstretched, palms facing out.
The death is ruled a suicide— Gabe said it was a stranger devastated over her husband’s infidelity. But when Pippa discovers that Gabe knew the victim, she has more questions than answers. Plus, the woman’s husband swears she wouldn’t have jumped. Why would Gabe lie about not knowing her? Why would she have been at The Spot if not to jump? And did she really jump… or was she pushed? As Pippa works to uncover the truth, the foundations of the life they’ve built begin to crack, and their deepest secrets start to unravel.
The story is told from Pippa’s perspective as well as from the person who died on the cliff, which is a bit weird. I’m not sure why it’s just not told in the third person omniscient. Not only is it from two perspectives, but it’s also in the past and present. This seems like an easy way to tell a story without giving too much away. However, using a different narrator is difficult. See the Dublin Murder Squad books for a masterclass in this style. Narrator aside, the story had some plot twists that were just crammed in there to be “interesting,” and I didn’t believe in them at all. I will probably give Hepworth another try but was underwhelmed by this one.
Categories
Daisy Darker
Categories
Paperbacks From Hell
Categories
American Mother
Title: American Mother
Author: Gregg Olsen
Genre: true crime
Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.
I read If You Tell awhile ago and was gripped from the beginning. Not just because of the story, but the writing was excellent, as well. So, when I saw the author had a new true crime out, I was really excited to grab it from NetGalley. However, I just never connected with this one and found myself skimming toward the end.
From Goodreads: At 5.02 pm on June 5, 1986, an emergency call came into the local sheriff’s office in the small town of Auburn, Washington State. A distressed housewife, Stella Nickell, said her husband Bruce was having a seizure. Officers rushed to the Nickell’s mobile home, to find Stella standing frozen at the door… Bruce was on the floor fighting for his life.
As Stella became the beneficiary of over $175,000 in a life insurance pay-out, forensics discovered that Bruce had consumed painkillers laced with cyanide.
A week later, fifteen-year-old Hayley was getting ready for another school day. Her mom, Sue, called out ‘I love you’ before heading into the bathroom and moments later collapsed on the floor. Sue never regained consciousness, and the autopsy revealed she had been poisoned by cyanide tainted headache pills. Just like Bruce.
While a daughter grieved the sudden and devastating loss of her mother, a young woman, Cindy, was thinking about her own mom Stella. She thought about the years of neglect and abuse, the tangled web of secrets Stella had shared with her, and Cindy contemplated turning her mom into the FBI…
Gripping and heart-breaking, Gregg Olsen uncovers the shocking true story of a troubled family. He delves into a complex mother-daughter relationship rooted in mistrust and deception, and the journey of the sweet curly-haired little girl from Oregon whose fierce ambition to live the American Dream led her to make the ultimate betrayal.
I really love a great true crime story and have a solid addiction to the ID channel, but I was endlessly bored with this one. This one offered a lot of backstory that I was bored by, and when we get to the trial, many of those chapters are just trial transcriptions. Instead of having a truly evil killer, Stella, she was just obnoxious, selfish, and not all that bright. I rolled by eyes a lot at her. I can’t say I’ll recommend this to everyone, but to those who love true crime might connect with it in a way I didn’t.
Categories
Scenes From My Life
Categories
Cell
Pleasant Nights 