Itβs the best day of the week: new release Tuesday! This week, crime fiction readers will want to clear their TBR lists and their calendars to devour the newest elegant suspense novel by The Silent Patient author Alex Michaelides, and to dive into a twisty, paranoia-inducing thriller by breakout star P.J. Vernon. Itβs a huge week for new crime fiction, and to celebrate, I wanted to mix up my review coverage a bit and give you a joint review of my picks for this weekβs buzziest new crime fiction: THE MAIDENS by Alex Michaelides and BATH HAUS by P.J. Vernon. Because when the new releases are this good, why limit yourself to just one?! Without further ado, letβs dive on in to todayβs two-for-one book review.
Read MoreBook Review: I FOUND YOU by Lisa Jewell
No one writes page-turners quite like Lisa Jewell. One of my personal 2021 reading goals is to read my way through Jewellβs backlist suspense novels, and last weekend I had the absolute pleasure of devouring her 2018 thriller I FOUND YOU while on my first real vacation in over a year. If ever there were books built for vacation reading, Jewellβs thrillers are it. In I FOUND YOU, Lisa Jewell weaves an irresistible and immersive story of a group of seemingly unrelated individuals whose lives intersect in tragic and destructive ways. Centering around a quiet seaside town in England, where a woman has just found a man on the beach who has no idea who he is or how he got there, I FOUND YOU tells a hypnotic and atmospheric tale that will keep you glued to the pages from first to last. A cast of compelling characters and yearsβ worth of long-buried secrets just waiting to be uncovered make I FOUND YOU one of my new favorite Lisa Jewell reads. (Though, letβs be honest, any book by Lisa Jewell is pretty much guaranteed to be a must-read for fans of psychological suspense.)
Read MoreBook Review: THE HUNTING WIVES by May Cobb
Summer reading just got a whole lot spicier. May Cobbβs deliciously juicy and wickedly entertaining THE HUNTING WIVES might just be the most gossip-worthy suspense novel of Summer 2021. Centering around an elite clique of wealthy housewives with secrets as big as their home state of Texas, THE HUNTING WIVES invites readers into an exclusive and glamorous world with a dark side. When Sophie relocates her family from Chicago to a small East Texas town, she hopes to give them the kind of peaceful, stable upbringing that was missing from her own childhood. But Sophieβs world is turned upside down when she meets charismatic and mysterious Margot, the ringleader of a group of local affluent housewives who call themselves βThe Hunting Wives.β As Sophie falls under Margotβs spell, she is drawn into a dark and dangerous world of parties and hookups. And when someone close to the group turns up dead, and suspicion falls on Sophie, her world threatens to be destroyed forever. THE HUNTING WIVES is dripping with glamour and excess, a razor-sharp thriller about the complexity of female relationships wrapped up in an irresistible, reality-TV-worthy package. Fans of Desperate Housewives and Liane Moriartyβs Big Little Lies will relish this irresistible story of wealthy women behaving very badly, and the (maybe not-so-) innocent woman caught in their crosshairs.
Read MoreBook Review: THE SUMMER CHILDREN by Dot Hutchison (Collector Trilogy, Book 3)
Itβs been quite a while since I discovered a new-to-me crime series I love as much as Dot Hutchisonβs Collector Trilogy. Comprised of THE BUTTERFLY GARDEN, THE ROSES OF MAY, and THE SUMMER CHILDREN, the Collector Trilogy delivers character-driven, often quite gruesome, totally addictive suspenseβand perhaps best of all, each book within the trilogy retains a style and tone unique unto itself. THE SUMMER CHILDREN rounds out this trilogy in top formβHutchison more than lived up to my expectations with her slam-dunk of a series finale. This is a far cry from your standard serial killer thriller, but fans of the genre will find much to love in Hutchisonβs binge-worthy and emotional THE SUMMER CHILDREN. A disturbing plot, a strong female lead, page-turning writingβ¦ THE SUMMER CHILDREN is a knockout.
Read MoreBook Review: BRING ME BACK by B.A. Paris
Longtime readers of Crime by the Book will know much I loved Parisβ BEHIND CLOSED DOORS (Iβm still recommending that book, and itβs a couple years old now!), so I had high hopes for Parisβ Summer 2018 release. Unfortunately, BRING ME BACK lacks the tension and menace of BEHIND CLOSED DOORS - and, coupled with a totally improbable plot, it just falls flat, plain and simple. If youβre keen to check out BRING ME BACK for yourself, I would encourage you to pick up a copy from your local library before spending your hard-earned money on it; this book is unfortunately not up to par with the crop of strong psychological suspense novels releasing this spring.
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